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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Yaroslav Hrytsak

Putin plays the long game. He has punished Ukraine – and he won’t stop there

A woman looks distressed outside a destroyed apartment building.
Natali Sevriukova outside her home after a Russian rocket attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, 25 February 2022. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP

I have a friend, an American author, who writes about war. Over the past decades, he has been to South Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and other conflict zones. In the case of Ukraine, he said one thing stood out: here it was obvious who was the aggressor and who was the victim. Alongside Bosnia, Ukraine’s resistance to Russia remains, in his opinion, one of two truly just wars.

After three years of fighting a just war against Putin’s aggression, we are now facing, with Donald Trump, an unjust peace. Ukraine will lose lands and will not receive compensation for its losses. War crimes will go unpunished and Ukrainians will not be provided with the security guarantees needed to protect them from future Russian attack.

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