The Telegraph: Putin’s end is fast approaching. Losing Crimea would be a dagger to the heart of his regime

Now, after the long series of atrocities committed by the Russian forces, it is very clear that the only person who embodies the worst traits of a Nazi fanatic is Putin himself, writes The Telegraph.

The Russian leader’s tyrannical instincts were on full display at the absurd ceremony he held in Red Square late last week to celebrate the annexation of four Ukrainian territories he says his forces have captured in the past four months.

Invoking the rhetoric of a demagogue, Putin could hardly contain himself, and launched into a tirade denouncing the iniquities of the West while touting the heroic achievements of the Russian military. Perhaps not since Adolf Hitler’s speech at the Nuremberg rallies have we witnessed such a disturbed outburst by one of the world leaders, writes The Telegraph.

Moreover, Putin’s callous contempt for the Ukrainian people he is trying to “liberate” is shared by the Russian military, which has committed industrial-scale atrocities in its desperate bid to conquer Ukrainian territory. Russia is accused of countless war crimes, from the massacre of civilians in the town of Bucha early in the war, to the more recent missile strike on a convoy of refugees trying to flee, killing 20 people, including children.

More than seven decades after the defeat of Nazi Germany, it is almost incomprehensible how such horrors are still taking place on European soil.

Furthermore, Russia’s commission of these war crimes makes it all the more imperative that the Western powers do everything in their power to ensure that Putin and his cronies meet the same fate as the Nazi regime he so desperately seeks much to imitate him.

At a conference held at the Wilton Park Centre, where strategic discussions have been held for more than 70 years, some of the brightest minds in the military debated the implications of the war in Ukraine and how the West will be able to cope with the future challenges it is likely to face. meet them from authoritarian powers such as Russia and China.

And while opinions differed on the best means of achieving this goal, particularly increasing NATO’s readiness to meet such challenges, there was a general consensus that reassurance for Putin’s Russia would suffer humiliating defeat would be a good start.

This target is now significantly closer to being achieved following the stunning successes that Ukrainian forces have achieved on the battlefield as they continue to advance at the expense of the Russians on both the eastern and southern fronts.

In the east, after considerable victories in Donetsk, they extended their offensive to Luhansk, where they claim to have liberated several settlements in recent days.

If the Ukrainian military is able to maintain this momentum, it won’t be long before Putin’s claim to control the two regions that make up the Donbass will be exposed as a lie.

A similar situation exists in the south, where Ukrainians have reported serious progress around the strategic city of Kherson, considered to be the gateway to Crimea.

So there is the tantalizing but hard-to-imagine prospect that the Ukrainians will soon be able to recapture Crimea as well, home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, which would truly constitute “a dagger to Putin’s heart,” writes The Telegraph.

The speed with which the Ukrainians have turned the tide of the conflict in their favor has caused unease in some Western chancelleries. There are fears that the now cornered Russian tyrant may resort to tactical nuclear weapons to save his own skin.

Such escalation by Putin, however, would ultimately prove counterproductive. Russia developed these weapons during the Cold War to destroy massive and compact armored formations, thus allowing its forces to breach Western defenses. But in today’s Ukraine there are no massive, compact armored formations that can be attacked, and behind the front there is no Russian force ready to launch an offensive.

Therefore, Putin’s nuclear threats are nothing more than another example of his delusional behavior.