"Do we want to end up in a situation when Putin will survive and he will have more time? Something like the lull between the first and second world war.”'

I do not love the Financial Times. It is the mouthpiece for all the ideas I most dislike, but I did once because it was a good, factual news source. It still is, if you discount for its bias towards what you might call globalism. Anglo-American Russia expert Fiona Hill thinks the word an antisemitic slur but it of course isn't and I think is useful. If you prefer we can say liberal internationalist instead. 'Pro-US bipartisan establishment, pro-Nato, pro-EU, liberal internationalist,' if you like.

I blogged about a great article in the FT on February 23, 2023 about why Putin invaded Ukraine. I also printed the article off and rereading it this week I was struck by this short passage.

'In ramping up military support for Ukraine, western officials are mindful anything less than a crushing defeat for Russia risks failing to deal with the problem.
'“We need to ask ourselves: How do we want this to end up? Do we want to end up in a situation when Putin will survive and he will have more time?” says an EU foreign minister. “Something like the lull between the first and second world war.”'

This is how many think. The Hitler analogy again. War against Russia that resembles the world wars against first the Kaiser then Hitler.

The idea that Russia has reasons (whatever international law says) for wanting Ukraine in her sphere of interests makes no sense to modern European diplomats except in Hungary. On the other hand by invading Crimea Ukraine had become an enemy of Russia forever.

They prefer to think in terms of criminology rather than of politics.

They think Putin is a homicidal maniac with Napoleonic or Hitlerian ambitions.

My American friends who think the US should have fought the Russians in Crimea in 2014 think this. I asked one why he thought Putin had waited so long before behaving like this. 'Because he was cementing his dictatorship. This was always his plan.' 

That is really how many American opinion-formers think. They do not consider that inviting Ukraine to join Nato in 2008 at Bucharest might have had anything to do with it.