From Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

O’Brien, speaking to Winston about a future in which all pleasure will be erased:

But always – do not forget this, Winston – always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.

Putin is intoxicated, with power and perhaps other drugs. He is trampling on the civilan population of the Ukraine. His boot is raised.

This is the future that Putin has always promised. He is a criminal, a tyrant and a dictator. He has silenced all the voices raised against him, some of them by murder, and surrounded himself with a court of lesser criminals by buying their loyalty. He has effectively made himself Tsar of a totalitarian Russia, and made the people of Russia the poorer for it. The rest of the world has simply watched, too wary of upsetting this sly, balding, evil little man.

That time is over. The world has woken to the risks that Putin presents. It has begun the fight that should have begun in Crimea. There is now no way to compromise or appeasement. One side must lose.

And Putin must not win.