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Time for the US and EU to hold Russia accountable

The current situation in Ukraine remains crucial not just for the country’s future but is also an indication of the world’s ability to hold the aggressor state accountable.

March 1, 2022 - Vladyslav Faraponov - Articles and CommentaryUkraineAtWar

Photo: Amani A/Shutterstock

While Ukrainian soldiers do their best on the ground to keep the country free from Russia’s occupation forces, the West should do its job too. The only chance to counter Vladimir Putin’s wild imagination are joint and coordinated efforts. He did not expect such resilience from Ukraine and Ukrainians.

The idea was a blitzkrieg win in multiple directions by using provocations, destabilisation, and panic. The plan got an absolute “F”, as people let the military go and take their positions. What is more, people came out in unprecedented ways to donate to the army!

At the same time, while people are evacuating, Russia continues to hit civilian and humanitarian objects. Russia has used various techniques on the ground: information terror, military attacks, and provocations. For example, they falsely claimed that a particular town or village had been captured. And they want that to have a domino effect, in order for the armed forces throughout the country to see that and not resist in certain locations. Yet, even those few cities and objects that have been captured by the occupants, were heroically recovered, or in the process of being recovered, by the Ukraine’s armed forces.

One major change since 2014 and the constant violations since then is that those Russians captured did not deny who they were. In fact, they admitted that they did not know where they were going at all!

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union itself announced their prompt response. Rationally, in order for such a response to be made, it should be coordinated with other partners. Moreover, Ukraine has approached world leaders to prepare sanctions. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded that it be openly published. The West did not do so, and now some real sanctions are postponed. But time is crucial for the army to secure the cities and villages.

Kyiv was calling on the West to enact the sanctions from hell – or the mother of all sanctions as politicians claimed. Yet, we see that Ukraine lost valuable time in persuading them to do as promised. This is seen as a betrayal in some way … in Ukraine.

There is no more time to waste. Major sanctions should target all Russians, not just the elites. This disaster led by Putin must be stopped!

Vladyslav Faraponov is an analyst and journalist at the Kyiv-based Internews-Ukraine and UkraineWorld.

Ukraine is under attack. How to help!


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