Toby Neal: Why the free world is holding its breath

It’s a shocker. All those folk in “liberated” parts of the Ukraine will be shown to have been desperate to be part of Mother Russia.

It will be the most decisive piece of polling since the referendum 20 years ago which showed that 100 per cent of Iraqi voters cast their ballot in favour of Saddam Hussein, an improvement on the first referendum on his rule in 1995 when he scored a mere 99.96 per cent.

Joy and dancing in the streets then amid the ruined buildings for the citizens in those parts of the Ukraine – correction, former Ukraine – who can look forward to a future under the rule of a dictator and international pariah.

The dead and the fled will not have voted, and those who think Putin is an evil warmonger might decide it is not in their best interests to vote, and even if they do it will be pointless as we all know even now what the result will be, as this is Putin’s poll and he is a man who gets what he wants.

There are two scenarios, neither of which is comforting.

One is that he is Mad Vlad, which means his threat to defend the newly acquired areas of Mother Russia “by all means” – thinly disguised code for nuclear or other unconventional weapons – is a serious one from a deranged leader. The other is that he is perfectly sane, a desperate leader with his back to the wall who is prepared to do literally anything to avoid defeat and humiliation.

The upshot is that in the next few weeks the West and the rest of the world has to contemplate the What If? question. Having piled hi-tech weaponry into the Ukraine, and having invested moral capital in the struggle to free the areas which have fallen under Russian occupation, the West isn’t suddenly going to tell the Ukrainians they must now give up the fight and accept a new reality.