The effect of breaking Putin's isolation: a new massive Russian attack on Ukraine

Some European leaders should think carefully about what they are doing by breaking the isolation of a criminal like Vladimir Putin.

Orbán imitates Scholz and does Putin a great favour with his sights set on Russian gas
Socialist Olaf Scholz does Putin a great favor by breaking his isolation

On November 15, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Olaf Scholz called Putin and spoke to him for an hour. On the same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned: "Olaf's call, in my opinion, is Pandora's box. Now there may be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words. And this is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time: it is crucial for him to weaken his isolation. Russia's isolation."

History shows that appeasing tyrants has the effect of empowering them and pushing them to flex their muscles. Unfortunately, some European politicians, such as the German chancellor, seem to have forgotten this historical lesson. A day after Scholz's call to Putin, Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine with 120 missiles and 90 drones.

History has been repeating itself with the same cadence this week. On December 11, Viktor Orbán called Putin and spent an hour on the phone with him. The same thing happened as with the Scholz call, but on a larger scale: yesterday Russia launched a massive attack with 290 missiles and drones against Ukraine. The vast majority of them have been shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defences.

Given Moscow's reaction to these calls, if any European politician wants to talk to Putin on the phone, he should know what the consequences will be the next day. There is no room for excuses such as "I just wanted to talk". When calling a criminal on the phone has these consequences, those who make these calls cannot wash their hands, as if they had no responsibility for the effects of their actions to break the isolation and try to appease a tyrant who has been killing Ukrainian civilians for years. How many more European politicians are planning to try this Russian roulette with the heads of Ukrainians? How many of them would play this roulette if the immediate consequence was a Russian attack on their countries?

All of Europe must accept that Russian imperialism is not a problem exclusive to Ukraine, or that only the countries closest to Russia, such as Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, need to worry about. Having a thug in Moscow killing his neighbours for pleasure is a continental problem, because what Putin wants is to bring the West to its knees, as the Kremlin demonstrated with the ultimatums he sent to NATO and the US two months before the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

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Photo: Mikhail Svetlov.