Despite detailed warnings about Vladimir Putin's plans to unleash a full-scale war against Ukraine, many denied the possibility of a Russian invasion until the last moment.. And now the fighting continues for the second month. But this unwillingness to believe in reality persists to this day and prevents the international community from realizing the gravity of the situation in Ukraine..

While Western politicians and commentators continue to discuss possible concessions and compromises, few in Moscow harbor the same illusions.. Those close to Putin understand that he considers the conflict a “holy war” and has long since reached the point of no return.. The Russian ruler will not agree to anything other than the complete obedience of Ukraine or its destruction. Atlantic Council expert Peter Dickinson writes about this in his article..

The horrendous scope of Putin's goals in Ukraine may well seem unthinkable to outside rational observers.. But they make sense when viewed through the prism of a Russian autocrat's toxic view of the world.. Throughout his reign, Putin has been driven by a deep sense of dissatisfaction with post-Soviet decline and an overwhelming desire to restore Russia's superpower status.. Far from wanting to build the USSR, he was carried away by traditional Russian nationalism and dreamed of resurrecting the autocratic empire of the tsars..

Putin considers the collapse of the USSR as the " He often complained that in post-Soviet times, millions of Russians were cut off from their homeland.. Russia allegedly lost its legitimate historical centers. These bitter feelings have made Putin obsessed with Ukraine, whose very existence has epitomized the so-called injustice of the post-1991 world order.. Putin is not the first Russian ruler to deny Ukraine's right to exist. On the contrary, the denial of Ukraine is a stable belief that has persisted for hundreds of years of Russian history and is still prevalent in Russia.. But few have been as ardent about this doctrine of denial as Putin.. He made it clear that the end of Ukrainian independence is a sacred mission that will determine his place in history..

The current war is only the latest and most dramatic phase of his long-term campaign.. Putin made his first attempt to end Ukrainian independence in 2004, when he personally went to Kyiv to campaign for a pro-Russian presidential candidate.. But this daring intervention angered millions of even apolitical Ukrainians, which resulted in the beginning of the " In subsequent years, Ukraine built its democracy and began a historic rapprochement with the West. This irritated Putin and further convinced him of the need to resume Russian control over the country.. Out of fear of the mass protests that took place across Central Europe in the 1980s and pushed the Soviet empire to collapse, he believed that the Ukrainian democratic awakening was a conspiracy and a direct threat to his authoritarian regime.. When new democratic protests erupted in Ukraine decades later, Putin occupied Crimea and started a war in Donbas.

Russian autocrat doesn't keep his obsession with Ukraine a secret. He again and again tried to explain why he believed in the accident and fallacy of Ukrainian statehood.. In July 2021, he wrote a whole 7,000-word essay titled " In it, he insisted that Ukrainians are really Russians.. And there seems to be no separate Ukrainian identity.

The author believes that the longer the war goes on, the more Russian atrocities will be.. The Russian war years were preparing to ensure that they did not perceive Ukrainians as people. Death of comrades in arms radicalizes them. Therefore, they will see less difference between civilians and combatants.. In turn, Ukraine's refusal to capitulate and continue resistance will be used to justify harsh repression.. All conditions have already been created for the repetition of war crimes, comparable to the worst deeds of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.

Can Putin be stopped The first step must be to recognize the reality of his crushing intentions..

“When Putin says that there is no Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian state, he means that he is going to destroy both the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state.. Everyone understands this, right ,"

To stop Putin, he must be defeated. Anything else will put the war on pause and give Russia time to prepare a new attempt to destroy Ukraine.. For the international community, this means that it is necessary to declare a full-scale economic war against Russia and at the same time greatly increase the supply of weapons to the Ukrainian army..

In the first four weeks of the war, the Armed Forces of Ukraine proved that they are equal to the Russian invaders. Even though Putin's army has an advantage in terms of numbers of fighters and military equipment, the Russian army is becoming increasingly demoralized.. And her command is incompetent. But the Ukrainian defenders are fighting extremely skillfully and stubbornly. As a result, Russia failed to achieve any of its key military goals and suffered catastrophic losses.. If we provide the right weapons in the right quantity, then Ukraine can win this war..

Russia should be bled dry and brought to bankruptcy. The international sanctions imposed since the start of the war have been unprecedented in many ways, but remain insufficient.. It is important to understand that Putin is willing to endure the great economic more in order to achieve his historic goal of destroying Ukraine.. Instead of trying to contain the Kremlin, the goal should be to completely isolate Russia from the global economy and deprive it of the income it needs to wage war.. To do this, Western leaders need to accept that their countries too will have to pay a heavy price.. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned that a ban on Russian energy imports would lead to a recession in Europe. He must also understand that the alternative is genocide on the European continent..

In recent years, accusations of genocide have lost their force due to political abuses, in particular by Putin himself.. However, this is still the most serious accusation..

In the event of a war in Ukraine, genocide reservations are more than justified, if you look only at the Russian leader's most carefree rhetoric. Putin himself has repeated over and over again that he does not recognize Ukraine's right to exist.. The war crimes committed by the Russian army on Ukrainian territory fully correspond to the terrible logic of his words.. If Putin does not suffer a final defeat in Ukraine, he will destroy it. If the West will stand by and watch this happen, the world will never be the same again..