Paranoid, isolated, looking sick and possibly fatally ill, Vladimir Putin was living in a different world when he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian despot, alone for much of the two years of the Covid pandemic, taking advice only from sycophants, imagined a world in which Ukraine does not exist on the map, in politics or in the minds of its citizens.
He somehow thought they yearned to be part of the mythical greater Russia which exists only in his head, that the Ukraine army would rise up against the democratically-elected leaders and that he could ride out minor sanctions from a divided West after a lightning strike towards Kyiv.
Six days into the bloody Ukraine conflict, he is being proved wrong on every score.
But the 40-mile convoy of artillery heading towards Kyiv shows he is far from accepting the reality that he may win battles but has already lost this war.
The former KGB thug was yesterday described as a war criminal as investigators at the International Criminal Court began looking for evidence of cluster bombs and thermobaric oxygen-depleting weapons being used to bombard Ukrainians crouching in their cellars.
Whenever you think that Putin can go no further, think again. Each time he sinks to egregious levels, he goes deeper. And deeper still.
Remember, this is the man who unleashed a human nuclear bomb on London by poisoning Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 with pulonium.
This is the man who unleashed chemical warfare on Britain with enough Novichok to kill thousands in a blundered assassination attempt of Sergei and Yulia Skripal a decade later.
This is a gangster, not a statesman, that the world is dealing with – one who threatens the world with Armageddon if anyone gets in his way.
But to fear him would be an error that would feed his tyranny and aggression.
It may take a long time – and it may cost many lives – but the remarkable political unity of the West
in one week, the determination not to be drawn into direct conflict and the blistering sanctions heaped on Russia will have an effect.
But it is the resistance of Ukraine’s people, fighting with all their hearts for freedom, the dignity and courage of their President Volodymyr Zelensky, and their refusal to be vanquished by arms which will lead to Putin’s failure and ultimately his demise.
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