Almost a year after the beginning of the aggression against Ukraine, the Russian Federation, not retreating from its criminal course, is going to war with the same ferocity as on the first day. Defeats, sanctions, and international shame in no way change Russia’s determination to eliminate Ukraine’s statehood.

And the days at the beginning of 2023 once again showed how the Russian state understands the conduct of this campaign, with the help of which it places itself outside the family of civilized nations. On the one hand, rockets hit civilian objects, causing carnage, on the other, human and artillery waves, with which they fire at the positions of the Ukrainian army.

In both situations, the continuity with Stalinism is as obvious as possible, and only the accomplices of Putinism can ignore this picture, which is revealed to all of humanity. Like Stalinism, Putinism treats human life with deep contempt: Ukrainian civilians mean nothing to this regime, and Russian soldiers are the stuff of which mountains of corpses are made. Human dignity is a value alien to Russia today, as it was alien to the USSR yesterday.

The aggressiveness of the Russian Federation is based on the reality of asymmetry of forces and political will in this conflict. If Russia is ready to follow this path of militarization and criminality to the end, then those who support Ukraine hesitate at the moment of decisive action, frightened by the prospect of escalation. In the absence of any moral or political qualms, Moscow can take actions that no nation committed to Western values ​​can take. Like Nazi Germany, Putin’s Russia has abandoned any form of ethical censorship of its own actions. Crime and terror are manifestations of the Russian state.

Those who recommend negotiations choose to ignore the nature of the regime they are dealing with in terms of the agreement. An elementary history education could give them clues about this. For totalitarian states, territorial concessions are only a reward that feeds their vocation as an aggressor. And what would be the prospects of that peace that would give Russia possession of the territories looted in Ukraine? Supporters of dialogue can enlighten us on this issue, as they themselves realize that the Russian state will use the proposed respite only as an interval of a deceptive truce.

Western hesitation does not avoid the escalation of the war, on the contrary. Until the Russian Federation is stopped militarily, Putin’s regime will lack the political will to negotiate. The very nature of the current conflict also requires the formulation of responsibility at the level of international criminal law. The gravity of the crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine requires a response. Russia is a state that practices terror and barbarism, and the organizers of this war of aggression are guilty and should be named and investigated as such. The precedent of such a tragedy cannot be ignored in the name of cowardice, which is mistakenly called pragmatism.

The war in Ukraine is a mirror that history offers to Russia and to the Russians themselves, so that they can look at themselves and how they present themselves to the world. The seductive power of the imperial ideal and collective cowardice explain, at least in part, the current apathy. But the energy accumulated now could fuel an explosion of historic proportions, and the gestures of Vladimir Putin’s regime accelerate this process, which is happening, inexorably. Read the full article and comment on Contributors.ro