Becomes more and more obvious that Putin's war against the West It is about the ability to carry the long -term fight. Triggered in August 2008 by the Russian invasion in Georgia, just four months after the NATO summit in Bucharest, to which he spoke (but unfortunately a decision was done) about the accession of Ukraine and Georgia at the North Atlantic Alliance, the aggression of Vladimir Putin is essentially a matter of Long -term resistance.
Photo Reuters
The Kremlin dictator also bet in 2008, and in 2014, and in 2022, on the weakness of the West, on intimidation and nuclear threat and on the refusal of prosperous democratic nations. In simple terms, it is the psychological mechanism of bullyingof the neighborhood golan that jumps at night with a knife, asking you to obey it. What are you doing, are you fighting with him? Do you really want to risk? If they kill you? Maybe if you accept and obey it, do you have a chance to live? Therefore, it relies on the cowardice of Western societies in the face of aggression on some victims from the periphery and the fact that it can maintain the illusion of wicked for a long time that aggression against Ukraine is not an aggression against them and the future of Europe. But the Europeans began to wake up …
The Russia-Ukraine War, started in 2014, by annexing Crimea, is only a chapter of this long war against the West and Westernization of Eastern Europe, but a very important one, where Vladimir Putin practically hired his mandate from Kremlin and political survival, relying on a book and on an imperialist ideological delirium.
The armistice under the right conditions does not benefit it, but only a possible capitulation of Ukraine, because for now it does not exist in the Moscow power system (army, secret services, political nomenklatura, oligarchi) the feeling that “the war has been worth”. What did Russia have obtained, three and a half years ago? Nothing. Hundreds of thousands of dead, huge military damage and billions costs to keep the tanks on the desolate eastern territories of Ukraine, while refineries, ammunition deposits, bridges and expensive bombers in Russia explodes at night and Russian military commanders are ended by their explosions near their houses, in the city of thousands? The Ukrainians clearly told them that no aggressor and no criminal will ever be able to live in Russia and that the hour can sound.
On the other hand, Russia's economy panting and enters the recession
And the governor of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, tells them clearly, publicly, that the resources allocated for the war economy were too many and ended. There are signs of economic exhaustion. Is this the new Russia that Putin promised to the Russians, this is great, are these winnings? For such a catastrophic result, if the Kremlin dictator would stop the war tomorrow, he would be eliminated shortly afterwards, from the inside, because the Moscow power system, now still docile, would immediately adapt to the need for another leader, for peace time with Europe and to resume business. Putin is already condemned to remain in office and to be perceived to the end as the “war leader” of aggressor Russia. Another historical role will not receive, neither in Europe nor in Russia.
That is why Putin will not give in and not end this war willingly. He knows well that once the “Rubicon passed”, giving the attack order and doing what Hitler did in 1939 but replacing Lebensraum (The “vital space” of the Nazis with Russyi mir
(“The” Russian world “) of the few, challenging the cold post-war political order and thus bringing the war -cinetic and hybrid-on the continent, he no longer has a future beyond the war that bears his name again The Age Putin of Russia will end with its war against Ukraine, Europe and the West.
At almost 73 years old, he has, after 25 years of discretionary power in Moscow, Putin allows himself to hold Russia, Ukraine and Europe in war for a few years, hoping that Europeans will get bored and give up the first, thus leaving Ukraine to collapse. Already the US Administration has been discharged from the support of Ukraine, distant from Europe, and the objective of stopping the expansion of an aggressive dictatorship in the relationship with the pro-Western neighbors in the former Soviet Union or their former sphere of influence. Washington talks about “a war that is not ours.” For Putin, the US disagreement in the face of Russia's aggression is already a great stage victory, But not a definitive one, because Ukraine and Europe continue to resist, much more than they initially believed and the information services with which it was advised.
Putin's hybrid war against the West is a long, historical, ideological and civilizing confrontation of Two opposite and incompatible models of political, economic and social organization – The imperial autocracy versus modern democracy, the system of repression and tyrannical management versus the system of liberal values, closing versus opening, lie versus truth. There is nothing surprising that in the support of aggressor Russia jumped communist China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the satrapy in North Korea, ie the authoritarian oriental regimes. Surprising is just the American (temporary) decommissioning to the attacked and invaded Ukraine. But it's just temporary, we know that.
Who stands longer in the ring will win. It will not be a knockout, but wear and exhaustion, and in the end a relative and interpretable result. From the Russian “great offensive” of the spring, in the North-East province of Sumî, there was no great thing, and with a few extra villages you could choose the “offensive-chief” that it seems that Russia prepares in the direction of Pokrovsk, before it is struggling. Both parties already know that “the other will not collapse”, military speaking, and are preparing to “play a long play”, to the confusion of President Trump, who believed last year that he would give two phones from the White House and close the war in 24 hours.
So victory is about long -term resourcesbut not just that. Europe is much richer than Russia and could maintain the financial and military help for Ukraine for a long time as well as the pressure of sanctions on Russia, even without the US, although it is obvious that adding the support of the huge military power and the American economy would be useful to gather the “chain” around Putin.
Are signs, for now timid and insufficient, that President Trump began reconsidering His “great friendship” with Putin and the initial beliefs that “Zelenski would not like peace”, while Putin would be a “man of peace, trust.” For any careful and long observer of the Kremlin policies and the actual speeches and actions of the Russian dictator, it is more than obvious that Putin “does not give two money” on Trump and Russia has remained as anti-American and anti-Western as it has been in the last 100 years, Since Stalin's arrival in 1924, he would not refuse the strategic gifts he makes (for what reasons?) The Trump administration by decommissioning from Ukraine, as Stalin has not refused American military aid, without ever becoming a friend of America.
But beyond resources, what is it about in the resistance in this war? As always in politics everything starts and ends with trust.
Russia and Ukraine will remain in the ring as long as there will be confidence in their goals. And maintaining confidence, whether it is a autocratic or democratic regime, is a complicated and sensitive process, which is sometimes related to unpredictable factors and can be easily changed.
Of course, it can be countered that in Putin's dictatorship it does not matter what the people believe, that no one asks the Russians whether they want war, as in an authentic democracy. Russia is an empire that has not chosen freely and has not changed never Democratic the leader. And yet, it matters even there, perhaps more of the system than the people, the confidence that things are going in the right direction, which can bring benefits. Let us remember that the communist regimes collapsed in the 1980s when the ordinary world, but first of all the nomenklature, lost confidence that the communist regimes are still viable. All the more so in the Democrats, where leaders even get their functions and maintain their power by the free vote of the citizens, Trust is essential and decisive.
How much will there be confidence in Zelenski and how much will there be confidence in a little? 2025 does not seem a good year for Zelenski and Ukraine, considering the twist of America after January 20. “You have no good books” He told her February 28, the US president of the Ukrainian. Meanwhile, some things, tones and shades have changed, Ukraine and US have signed a strategic economic agreement Looking at the resources and recently, when Putin offered to mediate the Israel-Iran war, Donald Trump, finally, in front of what many wanted to hear- “You know what, please do a favor and help me with Russia first, take care of Iran and Israel.”
For undermine political confidence in Western democraciesin the EU and in the liberal values, in Zelenski and Maia Sandu, in the Romanian elections and in the rule of law in France or Germany, Russia carries a ferocious, crazy hybrid war, right inside our world. Social networks, extremist-nationalist parties, influence agents financed by Russia and use of useful idiots on Tiktok are Putin's weapons from within the Democrats of the Western, from the Republic of Moldova to the Ultra-conservative Insulation Facation (the hardest ideological store), which began to oppose Donald Trump.
If we want to have honor, for ourselves and for future generations, and be proud of how we will come out of Putin's war against the West, We need to continue to trust – in Ukraine and Zelenski, in the Republic of Moldova and Maia Sandu, in the EU, NATO, USA, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, Baltic states, in our own democracies (yes, Romania is a democracy and a rule of law, not perfect, but incomparably better than the Russian dictatorship), Let's administer defeats to Russia in all the elections involved in (Just as before, because Russia has not won nowhere since 2024), transmitting to Russia exactly the signal that Vladimir Putin wants to hear (neither his army, nor his secret services, nor his apparatus, nor the pottery), nor the Russian people), namely that we will resist As long as it is necessary for confidence in victory, in Russia, to collapse. Then we know what will happen in Moscow, but this is no longer the job of Europe to do it, because the Russians will complete it.
