“Why should Europe sacrifice security, the economy and lives for a conflict that is not ours, but merely a power struggle between superpowers that generates profits for the arms industry?” That is the question posed by commentator Stefan Sigfried, who adds that “it is not yet too late for us to work together to prevent what could become humanity’s last great mistake: a nuclear war”.
Admittedly, it seems quite clear to those who seek knowledge beyond mainstream propaganda that Russia is heading for victory in what more closely resembles a civil war. Large parts of Ukraine do, after all, share Russian culture and history, but there is no evidence that Putin wishes to wage war against Europe.
Text: Stefan Sigfried
Spokespeople for Russia, such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have also repeatedly stated that Moscow has no aggressive plans against NATO or the EU.
How could Russia, locked in a war of attrition in Ukraine, suddenly have the capacity or the will to invade Western Europe? Or, in the words of Peter Hitchens: “Russia is not a serious conventional military power. Its one aircraft carrier can’t leave port without a tug… Its Navy is a comical display. Its army is drunken, ill-disciplined and frankly disgraceful. Four years of war, and it hasn’t been able to take Kharkiv 20 miles from its border…” [1]
The truth is that Putin invaded Ukraine to protect Russian speakers from genocide, to act defensively against NATO’s expansion, and to safeguard Russia’s interests.
Russia already has a vast territory to defend, a shrinking population and limited resources for another major war. There is absolutely no logic to support the idea that Russia wants war with the whole of Europe, but Western politicians evidently wish for a repeat of what Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler experienced – if we even survive this time round.
We are not fighting this to protect “democracy” – because Ukraine is not a democracy any longer. No, the true reason, as Peter Hitchens pointed out, is that “We are fighting this war because of a deep desire in certain American foreign policy circles to keep Russia down… adumbrated in the Wolfowitz doctrine…” [2]
I was seven years old when the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. I don’t remember the crisis, but I remember my parents and relatives speaking of those days with genuine dread—how close humanity had come to wiping itself out.
That experience shaped my generation. Now that fear is forgotten, so confrontation with Russia proceeds unchecked. Yet if Putin, realizing that the West refuses genuine dialogue, abandons restraint, we risk a catastrophe from which no one emerges unscathed.
Why did Putin start the invasion, and why has the conflict dragged on for so long?
Putin, who hails from the authoritarian Russian tradition of both the Tsarist era and the Soviet Union, seems to view Western democracy as pure theatre and therefore fails to understand how much public opinion in Europe and the US can influence politics.
He therefore never realized how a comprehensive information campaign aimed directly at Western voters could have forced Western politicians to listen to him. Admittedly, our democracies may feel like theatre today, but at their core they still remain dependent on narratives and popular consensus.
This is precisely why the EU elite devotes so much energy to controlling the narrative through censorship and sanctions against dissidents such as Jacques Baud, Xavier Moreau, Hüseyin Doğru, Alina Lipp, Thomas Röper and others.
Had Putin, when the EU banned RT and Sputnik and imposed sanctions on critical Western voices, addressed Western voters directly and forcefully – through fact-based advertising, direct mail and powerful documentaries across all available channels – with the message “You call yourselves democracies but act like this”, it would have created cognitive dissonance among voters in the West and opened the door to dialogue.
It is still not too late for Putin to address Western voters directly. He could also ask the Russian Orthodox Church for a week of prayer and fasting for peace which could create cognitive dissonance and allow facts to break through — especially in the US, where religion still shapes politics.
And if Russia would do this, it would strengthen Western democracy. We once had genuine free speech and a wide range of views in mainstream media—this made it hard to start wars and push claims that defy reality. A re-established Western democracy would have to listen to Putin.
Related: European Court of Justice: Private individuals can be prosecuted for sharing RT videos
But Kremlin seems set on giving the Western elite free rein to portray the war as unprovoked aggression and to normalize censorship. I can find no better word than incompetence to describe how Kremlin allows Western citizens to become so thoroughly propagandized.
Today, simply mentioning “Russia” or “Putin” often triggers fierce hatred, a reaction like a Pavlovian response, or what Robert Cialdini calls a mental shortcut, in which people make snap judgments based on a single word or a superficial understanding.
This makes it nearly impossible to present even basic facts to many people, the years of bombing of Russian-speaking civilians in Ukraine, NATO expansion, broken promises, the role of Nazism in Ukraine, or the 2022 peace framework negotiated and then blocked under Western pressure on Zelenskyy. The ground for war between the West and Russia has thus been laid.
Putin’s decision to opt for war rather than addressing Western voters directly was his first costly mistake.
Putin’s willingness to cooperate with the West is well known; it is deeply ingrained and stems from his time in Germany. Western provocations were therefore tolerated until they became so severe that he fell into the trap.
The West’s aim in Ukraine is to weaken Russia, divide the country, undermine central authority and pave the way for Balkanization, allowing global powers and multinational corporations to take control of strategic resources.
At root this is a clash between two systems: the liberal order, which recognizes no rule but Adam Smith’s invisible hand and seeks to dissolve the nation-state and the family while reducing the individual to an economic unit; and the traditional system represented by Russia, which upholds traditional values on gender, family and religion, a strong state, and honors its history.
Another driving forces is the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against; the war in Ukraine has delivered record profits to Lockheed Martin, RTX and Boeing. A major war could also help the Western elite cling to power when public support fades, as seen with Zelenskyy.
We also have a push for an economic reset: greater state control, resource redistribution, ESG regulation[3] and new digital dependencies, in line with the WEF’s Great Reset initiative. An even darker scenario is a depopulation agenda, in which a major war would help reduce a population judged too large for the Earth’s resources.
Putin’s second major mistake is how he has conducted the war.
Unlike NATO’s “shock and awe” tactics, which were used, for instance, in Yugoslavia and Iraq, Putin opted for a strangely measured assault. Instead of paralysing Ukraine by, for example, destroying the approximately 20 bridges over the Dnieper – which are vital for Ukrainian logistics, arms transports and Western aid – Russia opted for a restrained war. The bridges remained intact, Western leaders could freely travel to Kyiv, and Ukraine could continue supplying the front line with imported weapons.
According to Clausewitz, war is the continuation of politics by other means and therefore requires both strategic political vision and professional military expertise. Putin’s cautious war of attrition and reluctance to enforce red lines can be understood in light of his background as a lawyer rather than a military man.
A lawyer tends to think more like the strategic, long-term Montgomery rather than the impulsive Patton; “shock and awe” is not Putin’s style. His desire to project the image of a Russian Orthodox Christian — turning the other cheek, loving one’s persecutors, forgiving “seventy times seven” — may also have played a part.
In any case, the cautious strategy intended to save lives has paradoxically produced a protracted war that has likely cost more lives—and given the West time to mass-produce drones now striking deep into Russia, causing oil shortages and hitting major economic targets such as warehouses owned by Wildberries, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon—allowing Zelenskyy to declare: ”If Ukraine burns, Moscow will burn.”
Putin is not stupid, after all, he has risen to a very powerful position. Yet a sharp intellect does not automatically produce objective truth-seeking; instead, it can be used to defend what one already “knows” and to protect one’s moral framework (George Lakoff).
As Jonathan Haidt shows in The Righteous Mind, we deploy reason as a press secretary that rationalizes our decisions. This tendency grows stronger with higher intelligence, so paradoxically it may have increased Putin’s biases — what David Robson terms the “intelligence trap.”.'”
The question arises whether Putin, like Stalin in the early stages of the war, has become too involved in operational and tactical details. His desire to avoid burning his bridges with the West may itself be a rationalization concealing a deeper emotional attachment to the West. After all, one either wages war or one does not.
If it is war, it requires a leader who truly understands the art of war. Lawyers should stick to courtrooms—not launch half-baked ”special military operations.”
The result is a Russia being bogged down in Ukraine for over four years, while European war propaganda has escalated from Macron’s 2024 talk of possible ground troops to open discussion of war with Russia and demands for 5% of GDP on defense. “The decision is a direct consequence of the Russian threat.” [4] We are replacing our welfare state with a war state, with no debate on the consequences for pensions and welfare.
The current strategy — Putin’s predictable refusal to respond forcefully when red lines are crossed — is clearly time-consuming and very costly. Contrast this with North Korea, whose reputation for unpredictability serves as protection, and with Iran, which has shown that forceful responses can compel Trump to step back. Has Putin finally begun to understand that with a lying bully like Trump, negotiations are useless?
Signs now indicate that Russia may have grasped that only strength matters. Pressure on Ukraine has increased, including on commercial shipping to the Black Sea ports around Odesa, creating a de facto maritime blockade. Perhaps this is also why we now hear rumors that Surovikin (“General Armageddon”) is back after his exile in Africa following the Wagner affair. [5]
So, will the “special operation” transform into a conventional war? Perhaps even with Surovikin leading offensives against Odesa and Kyiv, or replacing Gerasimov? Russia going to full-scale war to end this conflict would actually be far better than a final red line being crossed in a way Russia cannot accept — as that could easily escalate into nuclear war.
And all over the Western countries politicians are betraying us by pushing for more weapons, more sanctions and further escalation. The inability of propagandized citizens to grasp what is happening right now is deeply worrying. It feels just as an acquaintance wrote to me:
“I live with a constant fear. Everything is so crazy. People are asleep and most of it feels pointless.”
If you have children, you cannot give up. Do you know anyone who lacks the motivation to take action? Watch the film The Day After (1983) together and then start talking to everyone you know.
Also try to reach out to political parties and organizations so that they raise the issue. We must make more noise, take more action and be a nuisance by asking questions such as:
Why should Europe sacrifice security, the economy and lives for a conflict that is not ours, but merely a power struggle between superpowers that generates profits for the arms industry?
We are now heading towards a major war, but it is not yet too late for us to work together to prevent what could be humanity’s last great mistake: a nuclear war.
Talk to people. Support those who are fighting for peace. Lend a hand.
Text: Stefan Sigfried
References
[1] THW Rather go to War with Russia than Lose Ukraine – Peter Hitchens
[2] THW Rather go to War with Russia than Lose Ukraine – Peter Hitchens
[3] ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. It is a framework used to assess and manage companies and investments based on how sustainable and ‘responsible’ they are in terms of the environment, social responsibility and corporate governance, in addition to pure profit.
[4] NATO agrees on historic rearmament – defence spending to rise to 5 per cent
[5] Surovikin Is Back: Russia’s War in Ukraine Is About to Shift | Col. Douglas Macgregor