As long as the Moscow regime believes he can win the war, disarmaled Ukraine and practically cancel it, Putin will not go into serious discussions, writes Ioan Stanomir.
The Ukraine's aggression war accelerated the totalitarian transformation of Russia: the Moscow regime is a criminal gear intended for a single objective, the terrorization of the civilian population by launching barbaric attacks that means as much war crimes. The economy of Russia is a war economy, while the mission of Putin's acolytes is to contribute to the radicalization of a discourse on military and nuclear intimidation. Dependent on his new allies from Phenian, economically dominated by Beijing, Putin's Russian Empire is a terrifying mixture of repression and military framing.
Unable to conquer Ukraine, but capable of resorting to operations aimed at destroying civil targets, Putin's regime is faithful, to the end, to the military strategy. The faith in the possibility of victory on the battlefield., At any cost, is the official doctine of Moscow. Human waves of soldiers and rocket and drone assaults, here are the tools of Putin's Stalinist regime. The Soviet age spreads its shadow over our times.
Discouragement and tenacity
The factor that can change, decisively, the data of this criminal war in Ukraine is the action of American politics. And the recent American policy has been defined by a gradual clarification: the pernicious illusions related to the usefulness of the negotiations with Vlaidimir Putin have been replaced by a new type of realism, relying on the value of discouragement.
From the transfer of weapons to Ukraine to the irritation of President Trump, (irritation that explains the ultimatum addressed to Russia), the signs of this new approach can no longer be ignored. The United States has, in this new context, not only the option of military assistance, but also of the economic pressure on Russia's partners. As limited as an effect, this choice must be carried to the end, in order to weaken the criminal gear of Putin's regime.
Finally, American policy, in conjunction with the European one, must embrace, determined and firmly, military discouragement. Only strengthening our common ability to cope with Russia can be the obstacle to another aggression. Only the development of Ukraine as military power can guarantee its survival as a viable state. The alternative to this lasting employment is a strategic catastrophe: the surrender to Russia is an invitation to terror and aggression.
As so many times, wars can only win if they are accompanied, in the terms of Raymond Aron, of a precise definition of their political goals. The military force cannot be separated from the dimension of the future we have vision: the image of peace can give a meaning to the fight now.
In the case of Ukraine, the realistic definition of victory is inseparable from maintaining and strengthening its statehood. Not the territorial dimension is decisive, but the establishment of a credible barrier to the Russian expansion: the integration of Ukraine into the Western security system is already a reality that we can no longer ignore.
Aronian realism forces us to abandon the pacifist illusions. The arming becomes, during this time that we cross, a condition of collective survival. The alliance with the United States is now more than ever, vital to Central and Eastern Europe: military and political, the United States are vital for the architecture of our world.
As for Russia, it is the criminal gear that feeds on the carnage of aggression. There is no alternative to Russia in Russia, except that of its accomplices. The Russia of the year of grace 2025 is democratically anneantized and dictatorially suffocated: the Russian nation is trapped in the trap of a regime that has systematically liquidated the pluralism remains.
As long as Putin's Russia is confident in his military victory, the terror in Ukrainian will continue, terrible and tragic. The strategy of discouragement must mean the awakening of Russia to the reality of the impossibility of winning this war. No negotiation can be worn with a regime he believes, in the final triumph.
Discouragement and firmness can convey an unequivocal message to the Moscow dictatorship. The new American policy is part of this effort to make Russia- Atlantic solidarity is, for us, as for Ukraine, the only realistic choice.
Opinion article published in contributors.ro.
