West keeps shifting its red lines — and only encourages Putin’s aggression

Putin is not interested in peace with Ukraine. Although he proves this daily in practice, U.S. President Donald Trump continues trying to negotiate with the unnegotiable Russian dictator, pretending he is dealing with a legitimate political partner. Despite the fact that Russian losses in manpower have already reached nearly one million people since the start of the full-scale war — sons, brothers, and fathers sacrificed for the vanity of a madman entrenched in the Kremlin and his maniacal, senile obsession with seizing foreign territory — the international community will never recognize these territorial claims as legitimate.

Putin takes advantage of the collective West’s constant shifting of red lines. But this only encourages him to escalate further aggression and strengthens the Kremlin's belief that it can impose Russian dominance on the world. In his quest to capture Ukrainian lands, the tyrant throws more and more fresh forces into the meat grinder of war, knowing that this will not provoke dissatisfaction among ordinary Russians, who are fed a steady stream of "victory" propaganda on television.

Russians traditionally underestimate the current situation, which is why their so-called three-day war in Ukraine has already lasted for four years. And this despite the fact that neither America nor Europe provides Ukraine with weapons and ammunition in the necessary quantities, even though both NATO and the Pentagon are well aware of what is needed to drive the Russians out of Ukrainian territory. From the very beginning of the war, Ukrainians asked our Western allies to close the sky over Ukraine, but only now are Western leaders approaching this issue more seriously.

Soon, Putin will no longer be able to finance Russia’s war, but not everyone in the West is willing to see the Russian Federation collapse from economic disaster or from the enormous battlefield losses it has suffered. Despite more than 11 years having passed since Moscow's initial invasion, our Western partners continue to restrain their support, allegedly to avoid provoking Putin into using nuclear weapons — although it is precisely this indecisiveness that could push him toward such a radical move.

Today, the situation has evolved to the point where Europe can no longer postpone its final decision. A similar delay in confronting Hitler cost millions of European lives.

 Therefore, if a united Europe does not finally wake up from its political lethargy, it could lead to the deaths of millions more. The time to act is now, not someday later when it might already be too late. If the West does not stop constantly showing weakness in front of Russia, then Russia’s strategy of using endless human waves on the battlefield might indeed succeed.

It is now absolutely clear that Putin will not agree to end the war; he is merely buying time to gain a few more weeks before declaring to Donald Trump that ending the war is impossible, arguing that doing so would benefit Ukraine and thus be fatally disadvantageous for Moscow. And when Trump publicly calls this an "unnecessary and pointless war," for Ukrainians, it is a war for the existence of a great European nation and for the preservation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.

Clearly, the priorities of official Washington have shifted, and convincing the new American president otherwise has been unsuccessful. Nor has anyone managed to convince the West that Putin does not care about his own losses. Yet so far, no strong Western government or political leader has emerged to effectively confront him.

The situation is worsened by the fact that the Kremlin believes it is not fighting Ukrainians, but NATO itself. If Ukraine loses this war, Russia will see it as a victory over the North Atlantic Alliance and will prepare to dictate its terms to Europe — something that must never be allowed to happen.

In Russia, human life has no value. This is the justification of a totalitarian regime, where even colossal losses — reaching one million — are seen merely as cannon fodder, worthless to both the Russian despot and his criminal entourage.

Putin is in a state of "geopolitical frenzy," where he neither sees nor hears anything. He is manically obsessed with the idea of destroying Ukrainian statehood, and he can only be stopped by force. No persuasion or compromise attempts will work with a murderer who has come to kill you.

If the Putin regime is serious about peace, it must first cease its criminal attacks on civilians in Ukraine’s border regions, as well as in Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Every day, modern Russian followers of Hitler hunt innocent and defenseless civilians with explosive-laden drones. These drones are aimed at anyone who falls within their field of vision.

Putin’s thugs mercilessly bombard women, the elderly, and children with missiles and drones, targeting residential buildings, stores, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and social and transportation infrastructure. These are not the actions of those seeking peace. All of these facts clearly show that the Putin junta has no intention of ceasing fire or reaching a political settlement.

The Putin regime lacks the political will for peace. Its leaders and supporters are pathologically obsessed with bloodshed, terror, and inflicting maximum suffering on Ukraine’s civilian population. It is high time to recognize the open genocide that Russia is committing against the Ukrainian people. 

Meanwhile, Russian propaganda tries to spin the narrative that it is Ukraine that supposedly doesn’t want peace — even though Ukrainians have agreed to a ceasefire, only for Moscow to reject it.

Russia, which treacherously attacked Ukraine, continues to falsely accuse Ukraine of the violence it itself commits. Soon, the Russians may go so far as to claim that Ukraine attacked them first and that they were merely defending themselves. But we all know who the real warmonger is — the man entrenched in the Kremlin.

In the dimly lit halls of the Kremlin, a group of aging madmen haunted by the ghosts of the Cold War are trying to decide Ukraine’s fate. They are convinced the Iron Curtain must be reinstated and see a threat from Ukrainians in every shadow on the wall. These warped Putinists are stuck in 1991, viewing the revival of the Soviet Union at any cost as their main mission. They reject diplomacy, seeing it as a sign of weakness, and have projected their paranoia into global politics.

The virus of Russian imperial revanchism is dangerous not only for Ukraine but for the entire world. Yet Putin continues to thoughtlessly provoke a Third World War and threatens nuclear escalation, believing he can survive its consequences in one of his many underground bunkers. If Moscow escalates, it is likely we would face nuclear exchanges that could kill billions.

It now appears that even during the Cold War, Soviet leaders were far more rational than the senile Kremlin elders who are openly courting Armageddon.

As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. Russia is simply trying to buy time, and Donald Trump, for some reason, has fallen for Putin’s geopolitical games. Putin has no intention of ending the war, while China, North Korea, and Iran encourage him to continue. Since the beginning of the Great War, the Russian dictator has constantly changed the justification for his invasion of Ukraine.

But now the true goal is clear to everyone: to destroy the Ukrainian people, erase the Ukrainian state from the map, and seize all Ukrainian lands.

The temporary "peace" option that Moscow proposes would only pause the fighting on Russia's terms — which includes Ukraine’s strategic defeat and the illegal annexation of parts of its sovereign territory. After regrouping, Russia would simply resume the war.

However, the KGB dwarf has learned nothing from the fate of his fellow dictators Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. He plays brutally but is so fixated on his idée fixe that he fails to realize his game is nearing its end. Putin won't be able to terrorize the world much longer.

He is so obsessed with the war in Ukraine that he could keep fighting until there’s no one left in Russia to send to the front. His only chance to continue the confrontation lies in the fact that, despite his arrogance and conceit, U.S. President Donald Trump is completely ineffective in leading a successful peace process. Because the only kind of peace Putin recognizes is a powerful demonstration of strength by the collective West.

Right now, Putin finds himself caught in a political trap. As soon as a ceasefire is declared, Russians will realize the total failure of his so-called “special military operation.” And what Putin fears most is losing his absolute grip on power over Russia. Because after that, the question of accountability for all the crimes his regime has committed over the past 25 years at the top of the power pyramid will inevitably arise.

The blind trust and political apathy of the zombified Russian population were achieved through total state control of the media, with all independent outlets either shut down or forced into exile. Absurd claims that Ukraine is ruled by a “Nazi regime” and similar nonsense are the only narratives Russians see on their TV news and read in their media. Alternative information in the Russian Federation is completely blocked.

Although not everyone truly believes all this Putinist nonsense, there simply is no other information available.

Europe must finally realize whom they are dealing with in Moscow and stop living in a detached reality. It is now essential to introduce powerful new sanctions against Russia. Otherwise, Moscow will continue to believe that Brussels is full of weaklings who fail to grasp what could happen if Europeans keep displaying geopolitical immaturity.

Considering that Putin has no intention of stopping, even despite Donald Trump’s demands, Americans must return to the promise their president made when trying to pressure Putin to halt his military actions: namely, to provide Ukraine with all the necessary weapons if he refuses peace.

In May, we will see just how ready Trump is to fulfill that promise.

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About the author. Viktor Kaspruk, journalist

The editorial staff does not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.