QOTD: "He Wants Us Not To Exist"

 

The Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland, writing that Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin is expecting the West to tire of supporting Ukraine's freedom fight, and why he must be stopped:

"Contemplate for a moment the fate of those places conquered by Putin, which would remain in Russian hands under an armistice that would freeze the current map in place. Think for a moment of what has happened already in those places: the mass rape in Bucha; the massacre in Mariupol; the torture chambers in Izium; the mass deportations of Ukrainians to Russia, including the transfer of hundreds of thousands of children, to face forced adoption and 'Russification'. Those crimes would not end if there were a ceasefire. They would continue, except now Russia would have an even freer hand.

And who believes that Putin would stop there? What grounds would a Ukrainian have to trust that the Russian leader would be content to pocket the gains he had won and leave it at that? One would have to ignore everything that has happened these last two decades. Much more likely is that Putin would simply regard an armistice as a pause to regroup for the next push. After all, he is not after a mere adjustment of boundaries: he has been clear that he regards the very existence of an independent Ukraine as an affront to Russia. Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s former foreign minister, tells [documentarian Norma] Percy: 'You cannot bargain with him. Putin does not need anything from us. There is no reward, no building or city or prize. He wants us not to exist.'”  (our emphasis)

Freedland points out that negotiations with the Kremlin at this point would simply be a stall tactic for Russia to mobilize and sharpen its future attacks. Putin believes it to be his destiny to restore "Russkiy Mir" or Russia World in the footprint of the former Soviet Union, which he laments the collapse of.  His delusional mindset and ambition make the strongest case for why the West, led by the U.S., have to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to expel Russia from their territory.