During a meeting with journalists in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, Russian President Vladimir Putin, as if responding to those who wish to “fight to the last Ukrainian”, said that his country is ready for such a development of events.

And this statement by the Russian leader confirms what I have tirelessly reminded since February 2022. For Putin, this war is not at all a struggle for the territory of Crimea or Donbas. And not even just a war against the Ukrainian state and statehood as such. It is also a war for the “final solution to the Ukrainian question.”

The fact is that Russian chauvinists have drawn quite simple and primitive conclusions from the history of the 20th century: they cannot deceive Ukrainians. In the Russian Empire, “Little Russians” were generally part of a single “Russian people”, together with “Great Russians” and Belarusians. But as soon as the empire collapsed, Ukrainians proclaimed autonomy in Kyiv, and then the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic — and only the Bolshevik occupation prevented this state from materializing.

It seemed that the Bolsheviks successfully replaced Ukrainian statehood with a decoration in the form of the Ukrainian SSR. But as soon as the Soviet Union began to collapse, Ukraine immediately declared independence, and this decision led to the former communist empire falling apart literally within a few weeks like a house of cards.

That is, it turned out that the only way to gain control over Ukrainian lands is to get rid of Ukrainians. One might say that there is neither political nor economic logic in this: why land where there are no people? Well, firstly, many Russians will leave their degraded, poor cities and villages in the north to relocate to the fertile Ukrainian lands — especially since they have done so repeatedly. And secondly — who in Russia was ever frightened by turning the country into a desert? Look at Siberia, which has been depopulated since the time of Yermak's conquests. Or Karelia, which the Soviet Union took from Finland at the end of the 1930s — this incredibly beautiful land lost most of its indigenous population and is frighteningly empty. And nothing — the main thing is for the country to be large. In terms of territory.

And thirdly, the Russian leadership treats any territory as a military base. All of Ukraine, like the previously occupied Crimea, is needed by the Kremlin not for development, but to move its missiles and military bases as close as possible to Europe. After all, threatening the West from new “old” territories is Putin's main geopolitical dream. What is he without these threats and opportunities? The head of a poor provincial state, which is worth nothing without selling oil and gas?

That is why he is ready to get rid of Ukrainians. Of course, if you ask him how he can make such misanthropic speeches, Putin will tell you that it is simply his reaction to the actions of those who want to continue the war, while he seeks peace. But we perfectly understand that this is all a special manipulation. After all, Putin already declared something similar when, after the attack on Ukraine in 2014, he claimed that if the Russian army invaded Ukrainian lands, women and children would stand in front of it. And again, Russian propagandists argued that their master did not mean that at all. That he only emphasized that Ukrainian women and children themselves would stand in front of the occupying forces.

But he says exactly what he says. Putin is ready to put Ukrainian women and children in front of the Russian army. And he talks about a war to the last Ukrainian — this is exactly the war he needs.

And what about the peace process, what about the “Trump plan”? Nothing. As long as the Russian president does not agree with the very possibility of a ceasefire, any peace negotiations look more like a demonstration of intentions by the American administration than a real process that could lead to the end of the war in the near future.

But now — from Putin himself — we know for sure that we need to stop not just the war, but the genocide approved and sanctioned in the Kremlin. That is why the pressure on Russia must increase, Russian oil ports and refineries must burn and explode, and Russian occupiers must die in the Ukrainian steppes and spoil tips. This is the real peace plan that should help save the Ukrainian people.