Star comment: Putin's war is unwinnable

Vladimir Putin lives in a world of his own making. He is divorced from reality, unable to see the harm he is causing both to his own people and to those in Ukraine. Most disturbingly, he does not care about either; they are his collateral damage.

He has undoubtedly overplayed his hand in invading his neighbour. For his war – and it is his, not that of the Russian people – is unwinnable. It is not a war between Russia and Ukraine. It is between Russia and the free world.

He hoped he would force Nato into submission and divide the West. However, the consequences are very, very different. The outcome of Putin’s invasion will be the very increase in European defence spending he was keen to avoid. It will be the eventual membership of Ukraine in the EU. It will be greater EU unity and further expansion and greater unity between the EU and the USA.

Worse still, there will be an accelerated exit from Russia’s oil and gas by the European economy, in addition to Russia’s isolation from global financial markets. Further, there will be a renewed and expanded Nato, with Nordic states joining.

Putin has threatened to press the nuclear button and it’s possible that he will. There were those who imagined he would not be so stupid as to invade Ukraine, yet he was. Nothing can be ruled out.

The Russian leader is between a rock and a hard place, both militarily and financially. We must be wary of ‘cornered rat’ syndrome. Such despotic leaders as Saddam Hussein did not have access to nuclear weapons. Putin does. He will lose. The key question is how much damage he will cause before being defeated.

Those who imagined sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia would hurt only him are starting to think again. The truth about sanctions is that we pay a price to inflict a higher price on the aggressor. Already, petrol pump prices are sky-rocketing and the cost of heating our homes may increase by a further £1,000 per year. Bills of £3,000 may become commonplace for a great many.

Yet the price of not inflicting sanctions would be far higher. Freedom has an unquantifiable cost, as this nation determined between 1939 and 1945, when it was relentless in defeating Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

We have no choice but to punish Putin and, yes, we will all pay. The cost of not doing so, however, is unthinkable. We must accept that cost and look to greener, cleaner alternatives, taking the opportunity to end our dependency on oil and gas as we look to sustainable energy supplies.