by Richard Kemp • March 6, 2022 at 5:00 am

• [Putin] is now also demanding the nuclear disarming of Europe.
• Putin’s next targets could be Moldova or the Baltic states which, like Ukraine, he reportedly considers illegitimate and properly part of Russia’s sphere. If further suffering and bloodshed are to be avoided, the West must do all it can to ensure his current aggression fails.
• To halt Putin’s broader ambitions, it is also essential that NATO keep the Ukrainian army fighting and that includes financing the war effort and getting lethal weapons and military equipment to Ukrainian forces.
• Russia must be isolated and turned into an international pariah not just while Putin’s army is assaulting Ukraine but for as long as necessary. These actions will inflict damage on us as well, as Russia retaliates with its own sanctions and restrictions. The short term pain can be ameliorated in the medium term by eliminating dependence on Russian energy, increasing gas supplies from North Africa, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Also by reopening in the United States the world’s largest supply of energy, which President Joe Biden began closing down his first day in office, and by fracking and building nuclear power plants.
• The development of our cyber defences, as well as offensive capabilities must be accelerated urgently and intelligence services expanded to counter and inflict severe damage to Russian espionage agencies.
• Some argue that punitive Western moves will drive Russia into China’s arms. It is already there: Russia is the biggest single recipient of Chinese financial support globally, and Putin and Xi have established a military alliance.
• Where Putin demands that NATO pull back, it should push forward. Some may see this as provocative, but it is in fact a sign of strength which will do more to deter Putin than appeasing him.
• [Putin] knows that NATO poses no military threat to Russia and that it is a purely defensive alliance. If it is to restore the credibility it once had, which Biden’s Afghanistan debacle did much to undermine, NATO must regain its strength — not only in military power but also the demonstrable political will to use it.
• As Israel often reminds us over Iran, if a leader threatens us with annihilation we cannot afford to hope he is not serious. Had the world focused on getting rid of Hitler in the 1930s rather than appeasing him, we may not have seen the horror of a global war that killed 70 million people.
• The urgency of a Western message of strength goes even beyond Russia. China’s President Xi has greater territorial ambitions than Putin, and they are being played out today in every continent around the world. Xi’s Ukraine is Taiwan, and it may be that visiting catastrophe on Russia’s dictator will deter his friend in Beijing.