Sir, – Former Army chief, vice-admiral Mark Mellett (“Ireland ‘naive’ about Russian influence”, Opinion, March 14th) sounds a clear warning as to the effectiveness of the hybrid warfare being engaged in by Russian “diplomats”.
He correctly questions the hugely disproportionate size of the embassy in a small country like Ireland.
Now that the prices of home heating oil, gas, petrol and diesel have soared, expect a vicious hybrid assault on governments, which will be undermined and castigated for inflicting severe hardship on their people – without any reference to the causes, ie the war.
In prosecuting hybrid warfare the very large cohort of “useful idiots” and populists can, as usual, be relied on to be of enormous service.
– Yours, etc,
MICK O’BRIEN,
Springmount,
Kilkenny.