Ukraine is the ultimate test of US credibility in fulfilling its commitments

Reality David Ignatius, Deputy Editor and Leading Analyst of the influential American newspaper The Washington Post, published the article «Is this a «turning point» in the Russia-Ukraine war? I answered your questions».

David Ignatius noted: «I think Ukraine’s brilliant use of technology, which I have been trying to document since late 2022, has allowed them to survive this war, where survival is a kind of victory. But I think people should be careful about declaring a turning point or saying that Russia is done. Russia has (unfortunately) proven its ability to be a «training army», seeing the smartest Ukrainian innovations in drone warfare and electronic countermeasures and copying them. I hope that Ukraine’s technological prowess will force even Putin to see that this war is «unwinnable» – and to change course. But I don’t think he is ready for that right now».

Not only Putin, but also his political sparring partner Trump is not ready for this. The «geopolitical seesaw» that the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, constantly arranges for Ukraine, shows the high vulnerability of states that rely on American assistance. This indicates that their security and stability critically depend on the specific political figure currently in charge of the White House.

Because if the United States is unable to protect the state to which it has guaranteed its support, or succumbs to fatigue, other allies and adversaries (in particular, in the Taiwan Strait or in the Middle East) will regard this as a surrender of American reliability, which will destroy the entire global security architecture.

The war in Ukraine has become a major milestone in Putin’s life. The geopolitical vampire is energetically fueled by the suffering of others. And it seems to him that the long-awaited prize – the conquest of the Ukrainian state – is close at hand. A little more pressure and Ukraine itself will fall at his feet.

Putin’s terrorist army generals and high-ranking thugs from the FSB constantly report to him that he is already winning, he just needs to work a little harder. And the President of the United States, Donald Trump, shows him the respect that the dictator so persistently seeks.

 The war allows Putin to intensify repression in the Russian Federation. He likes that Muscovy meekly tolerates everything he does there, and what the price for Russia of all this bloody madness on foreign soil is is of no importance to the Kremlin Fuhrer.

He is not going to end the war in Ukraine, since the post-war problems that may arise after a ceasefire is reached could sweep away Putin’s criminal regime.

But the situation is such that peace between Russia and Ukraine is a calculated fantasy until the ruler of Muscovy recognizes the other side’s right to exist. The West is making a huge mistake trying to establish peace between those who want to kill the Ukrainian state and those who are not going to allow this.

Another strategy is much more productive: to help the side attacked by the enemy defeat its opponent and thus restrain the aggressor and freeze the conflict.

Today, Ukrainians are paying a terrible price for their freedom. No European nation has ever had such a thorny path to a united Europe. But this is the price for the desire to join a free and just world, for the right to live in peace, to independently manage their internal and external affairs and to decide what their future will be.

Dictator Putin has absolutely no excuses for invading Ukraine, his so-called «reasons» are chauvinistic fantasies, the justifications of which are revanchist imperialism. The psychopathy of the Kremlin maniac, sadism and personality disorder with a lack of empathy are identical to Hitler’s psychopathy.

And this is not just Putin’s bad character, but a serious disorder of a sick personality that affects all behavior and a distorted perception of the world around him. The ruler of Russia is distinguished by his heartlessness, callousness, manipulativeness, exaggerated deceit, unprincipledness, extreme egocentrism, lack of guilt and remorse, impulsiveness, aggressiveness and a pathological tendency to violence. Which as a result formed the model of Putin’s behavior «aggressor – victim».

Putin’s «aggressor-victim» behavior model is based on a psychological and propaganda strategy, where the real aggressor systematically presents himself as the «object of attack» to justify his criminal terrorist actions in Ukraine.

This legitimization through «threat» implies that aggression is presented as a «preventive strike» or «self-defense». Thus, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 was justified by the mythical «NATO threat» or «genocide in Donbas», which makes Russia a «victim» in the eyes of the domestic electorate.

Thus, Putin’s model combines the manipulative behavior of a psychopath with a sincere belief in his own role as a victim of circumstances, which allows the dictator to avoid accepting responsibility for all the war crimes committed. But despite the fact that today the «good Russians» are trying to shift all the blame for Russia’s genocide of Ukrainians solely onto Putin, the «Putins» have come and gone there for centuries, but the imperial essence of Muscovy has never changed.

And there is nothing to indicate that after the war everything can be different. Even if a «new Gorbachev» suddenly appears in Russia, the horde mentality of the Russians will not go anywhere. Therefore, one should not succumb to the illusion of change, because only the division of the Russian Imperial Federation into 15 or 20 independent states can permanently remove the Russian threat from the agenda. If this is avoided, then after the next «perestroika» Europe will need to prepare for a new war with Russia.

It is not worth presenting the war in Ukraine as exclusively Putin’s war, and not the Russians. The Russians, in their overwhelming majority, support Putin’s worn-out and outdated imperial ideology, believing that Ukraine should be part of Russia. Therefore, it is not only Putin who is a dinosaur of the Cold War. Muscovites bear full responsibility for the crimes against humanity committed by Putin’s criminal army on the territory of sovereign Ukraine.

However, the totalitarian ruler has driven Russia into such a deep strategic and economic hole that there is no way to «save face» unless he abandons the military goals his regime is working to achieve.

Even with Donald Trump’s efforts to conclude a capitulation agreement, neither Ukraine nor Europe will ever agree to the subordination of the Ukrainian state to Moscow. A «compromise» on Putin’s terms regarding sovereign Ukrainian territories will be perceived in Kyiv and Brussels as the end of Ukrainian statehood.

Although even now, say, if Ukraine were to accede to any of Putin’s demands, the dictator would immediately issue a new ultimatum, demanding new Ukrainian lands for himself and Ukraine’s complete subordination to the Kremlin’s interests.

It is obvious that it is impossible to agree on anything with the main Kremlin figure, nor to achieve peace while he is in power. Therefore, the only realistic option for the West is to sharply increase the flow of weapons to Ukraine until Putin backs down or Russia destroys itself in an attempt to win an unwinnable war.

From the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, it has been clear that Putin is driven by an insatiable desire for power and a belief that his name will go down in history as the political figure who restored Russia’s imperialist glory after its flirtation with communism and defeat in the Cold War. The head of the Kremlin junta is a neighbor from hell who delights in making the lives of his neighbors unbearable, dooming them to ever-new suffering and subjecting Ukrainians to constant and increasingly difficult tests.

And no matter what Trump does, offering Putin occupied Ukrainian territories, a partial occupation of Ukraine will never satisfy this political paranoid, since the Kremlin’s strategic goal remains complete control over Ukraine or its complete destruction as a sovereign state.

Nothing less will do. Therefore, he is simply stalling for time, taking advantage of the fact that Donald Trump, for the sake of ephemeral financial gain, is ready to turn a blind eye to the fact that Moscow continues to use diplomatic contacts as an instrument of hybrid war with the collective West.

Putin did not start his war to seize a few eastern Ukrainian regions; his main goal was and remains to crush, subjugate and control all of Ukraine.

As long as the Kremlin feels that they can achieve at least minimal progress in this, they will continue to imitate the desire to negotiate. Moreover, the Russian Federation continues to use the rhetoric of «peace» only to achieve its own military and political goals, without demonstrating any willingness to compromise.

Putin’s strategic goals go far beyond Ukraine and are aimed at reformatting the security architecture throughout Europe, dominating the European continent and changing the entire world order.

The Russian dictator remains firmly committed to his original war goals, viewing the war in Ukraine not as a temporary struggle but as a «messianic» historical duty to restore Russian influence on the international stage.

But the worst thing is that Putin continues to use the weakening trust in America to advance the geopolitical goals of the Russian Federation. Mainly by testing the resolve of the West and realizing Moscow’s desire to dismantle the international security system led by the United States.

Ukraine is the latest test of the United States’ reliability in fulfilling its obligations. One would like to believe that America will successfully pass this test. After all, Ukraine now depends on America, and America depends on Ukraine.

How the United States handles its support for Ukraine will determine its international reputation, as well as the attitude of other countries towards it. If the United States leaves Ukraine, it will lose its superpower status. After all, America’s ability to support Ukraine is perceived in the world as the first major test of their global role in the new geopolitical reality.