The cost-of-living crisis afflicting UK families is, of course, as nothing to the suffering of the Ukrainian people at the hands of Vladimir Putin.
And yet when prices rise to previously unimaginable levels, it has a severe impact on people’s lives.
Recent days have seen the steepest weekly fuel price hike in 18 years.
Petrol could soon hit £2 a litre, taking the cost of filling a typical tank to more than £100 — which is unaffordable for many.
Heating our homes is no cheaper, either: prices for one-year fixed-rate energy deals have soared to £4,270 — more than quadruple the £900 or so they were just two years ago.
This huge rise is likely to tip many more people into fuel poverty — forced to choose between heating and eating.
Food prices are also soaring. Russia and Ukraine together grow at least 14 per cent of the world’s wheat.
Supply problems for the grain have seen the price of a packet of pasta on British supermarket shelves soar 41 per cent.
And yesterday’s dramatic decision by Britain and the U.S. to ban imports of Russian oil is only likely to make things worse, in the short term.
While America has announced a total block on Russian oil, gas and coal, Britain has said it will phase out buying Russian oil and ‘oil products’, such as diesel, by the end of 2022. (Some 18 per cent of Britain’s diesel comes from Russia.)
The EU, which imports billions of cubic metres of Russian gas, yesterday announced plans to reduce its reliance on it by two-thirds in the same period.
On the face of it, these moves could kneecap the Russian economy, already tottering thanks to Western sanctions.
Russia exports more than 50 per cent of its gas to Germany, Italy, France, Holland, Austria, Britain and Poland, so the Kremlin would lose more than half its gas market at a stroke if those European countries stopped buying altogether.
(America, largely self-sufficient in gas because of its fracking revolution, imports a vastly smaller proportion of Russian gas.)
Yet matters are not that simple. Russian gas — let alone its oil — supplies about 10 per cent of all the EU’s energy.
If the bloc stopped buying it outright — although it is not clear where an alternative supply would be found — energy prices in Europe would soar even higher.
This would, of course, worsen the cost-of-living crisis and push bills to ruinous levels for hundreds of millions of people across the continent.
That is why Western policymakers are walking such a tightrope: trying to hit Putin without making life unlivable for their own citizens.
But the problem is even thornier than that. When countries refuse to buy goods from each other, they have to look elsewhere for the same products. This pushes up the price.
The cost of a barrel of oil has already hit $140 (£106) — the highest for years — and Russia has warned it could reach $300 as the West imposes ever-tougher sanctions to cripple Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Until now, despite the plethora of sanctions it is facing, the Kremlin has enjoyed revenues of about $1 billion per day from the West buying its oil and gas: the profits of which have of course been helping to fund the invasion.
Any rise in the oil price may help the Kremlin as it gets more revenue for its product — if buyers can be found.
So Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have their work cut out.
The brutal reality is that whatever economic levers they pull, life is about to get a lot more expensive for us all.
Projections from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) think tank suggest that inflation could head to a dizzying 8.7 per cent by the end of June, decimating people’s savings.
Mr Sunak’s offer of £350 assistance on energy bills, paid only to some households via council-tax discounts, looks increasingly derisory.
One hard-pressed Daily Mail reader has written to tell us she is having to claim vouchers for a food bank, work longer hours and put her children into a breakfast club, purely to make ends meet.
Her experience is surely being repeated nationwide.
Many economists are forecasting that even worse price hikes are to come in food, fuel, clothing and other essentials.
So is the West’s vow to wean itself off Russian oil and gas a step too far?
I don’t believe so. But dramatic steps are necessary to avert the worsening cost-of-living crisis.
America is already putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to break the informal agreement between Russia and the mainly Middle Eastern oil-producing cartel of Opec, which pushes up prices by restricting the global supply.
If the Saudis and the Gulf could be persuaded to increase supplies, then the West could go even further in its Russian embargo.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has already boldly U-turned on predecessor Angela Merkel’s legacy, shelving plans to open a new gas pipeline from Russia as its Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck — a Green politician — insists: ‘A warmonger is not a reliable partner.’
Despite Germany’s ambitious eco-targets, Scholz is also said to be considering a reversal of the decision to close all remaining nuclear plants by the end of 2022, and may even continue to burn coal.
In Britain, we will need to go further to wean ourselves off Russian hydrocarbons — but only if there is a corresponding increase in our domestic supply.
This month, the UK’s two shale gas wells — the technology that has insulated Americans from much of the catastrophe in the international energy markets — are due to be concreted over.
If that happens, it would undermine, perhaps fatally, the chances of a fracking industry in the UK, though last night it was reported that the wells may survive.
Almost 40 MPs and peers in the Tory Party’s Net Zero Scrutiny Group have written to the Prime Minister, urging him to pause the decision.
Encouragingly, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has also said it would be ‘madness’ to abandon the North Sea’s gas fields, as the Green lobby has urged.
Energy Minister Greg Hands has promised that the Government will issue new licences this year.
These measures are a start, but they are insufficient on their own.
The rise in domestic energy prices represents a serious threat to the livelihoods of people in Britain, let alone the soaring cost of food.
The Chancellor must immediately spike his planned National Insurance hike, scheduled to hit the nation next month.
This misguided policy will further shrink incomes and damage jobs — and is unjustifiable when soaring VAT receipts on bills and petrol at the pump mean the Treasury is enjoying an unexpected windfall.
As Mr Sunak discovered two years ago at the start of the pandemic — when he tore up the fiscal rulebook to pay for furlough and other schemes — emergencies can shatter received wisdoms.
Putin’s war is just such an emergency.
For all our sakes, let’s hope the Chancellor realises this — and takes the necessary tough decisions to ease the burden on the British people.