Only Putin’s removal from Kremlin can end a war that will shape Europe’s future after Russia invades Ukraine – The Yorkshire Post says

“There is war in Europe,” said the gravelly-voiced BBC presenter Nick Robinson before the unmistakable sound of military jets could be heard flying over his Kyiv vantage point.

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Hours later, Jens Stoltenberg, a grim-faced Nato secretary-general, offered the historical context after Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine and Europe as well as global democracy and diplomacy.

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“We now have war in Europe on a scale and of a type we thought belonged to history,” he declared. “This is a deliberate, cold-blooded and long-planned invasion.”

Our first thoughts are with the people of Ukraine – a cosmopolitan sovereign state now under siege as families choose to flee or fight amid the carnage, chaos and confusion. Britain stands in solidarity with them.

It’s also important, at this juncture, to stress that the UK’s fury is not directed at ordinary Russians – they are as much victims of President Putin as all Ukrainians in harm’s way.

But the desperate scramble now underway to intensify economic and trade sanctions – while Nato decide how best to defend Ukraine and protect Europe – exposed the invidiousness of the West’s position before the Chernobyl nuclear plant was reportedly seized by invading Russian forces.

They lose their effectiveness when countries like Britain are, at the same time, still turning a blind eye to Russian money laundering or ability to manipulate the internet and, in turn, democratic elections.

They were also not sufficient to bring about regime change in Moscow when Theresa May did unite the world’s resolve after the 2018 Salisbury poisonings – another deliberate act of aggression and terrorism.

And their effects now will be limited when months of procrastination by the West fuelled the very vacuum that President Putin has already exploited with potentially catastrophic consequences.

How destructive depends on the strength of the collective response of the free world – and its ability to isolate Russia without triggering a flashpoint between Putin’s forces and the Nato security alliance.

Given this, and Boris Johnson’s foreboding, economic and trade sanctions must be increased multi-fold – the PM’s steafast statement to Parliament last night was light on detail – while Britain must be fearless in isolating Putin’s regime, including travel bans. This must be in tandem with efforts to empower those Russians in positions of influence, and they do exist, who accept that this day of history must herald the end of their president’s tyranny.

For only when President Putin is removed from the Kremlin, and Russia has a more malleable leader, will Ukraine and the watching world be able to sleep more easily. How to bring this about, and as peacefully as humanly possible, is now the greatest imponderable of these times if freedom and democracy is to ultimately triumph over the tyranny of dictatorships at this grave hour of maximum danger for the free world.

After all, the livelihoods and freedoms of all do now rest on the final outcome.

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