[JB - Agree with her or not, the author of the below article eloquently condemns, in my modest opinion, the tragic, merciless Putin attack on Ukraine and its now suffering people.]

Elena Gold 

"Lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union."

(JB: note mention below of the respected former  U.S. Ambassador to Russia, scholar Michael McFaul.)

When do you think the war in Ukraine will end, and under what conditions?

The war in Ukraine will end when Putin ends.
Of if the Russian Federation ends.
Whichever comes sooner.

Putin made it very clear that he’s not going to stop waging the war—and even if Ukraine surrendered the territories Putin demands (but can’t take militarily for 12 years), he still has more demands: Russia wants NATO to withdraw its forces to pre-1997 borders, leaving the Baltics, Poland, and East European countries defenseless.

Sweden and Finland became NATO members after Putin’s December 2021 ultimatum, so he would demand that they also withdraw from NATO.

But most of all, Putin still wants to own the whole of Ukraine—his claim remains that “Ukraine is Russia.”

So, the only way to stop the war is to ensure that Russia can no longer wage the war.

Putin isn’t going to give up.

The people close to him say he’s terrified to repeat what Bolsheviks did in 1918: Russia halted its participation in WW1 and signed a separate deal just before Germany lost the war. Russia lost territories, money, and reparations, which the winners of WW1 received.

Putin believes that he just needs to persist and outlast Ukraine, to win.

So called “peace negotiations” are a weapon of hybrid war against the Ukrainians and Europeans. Putin’s goal remains “The Russian World from Vladivostok to Lisbon.”

Putin believes that the Russian people can outsuffer any other nation, that he can keep doubling down and win big at the end.

That’s his plan.

Because he’s confident the West would play by the rules and won’t try to remove him. And in case they decide to do it, he’s hiding in secret bunkers, where he believes he is safe.

He believes this is how he’d “make Russia great again.”

He wants to be in history books as the guy who paved the way for “The Russian World” to become the leading power on Earth.

He just needs to own Ukraine, that’s it.

For Ukraine, the end of the war can only come with complete withdrawal of the Russian forces from all the occupied territories.

Only then Ukraine will have lasting peace.

This will happen when more than half of the world decide that enough is enough. 


That it’s time to show Russia the way. When most of the world decide they want to live in peace, realizing that aggressive wars of conquest must stop.

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