French President Emmanuel Macron described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “a turning point in the history of Europe”.

US President Joe Biden spoke of “an unjustified and unprovoked attack”, and the G7 stated that Vladimir Putin brought “war back to Europe”.

The World Health Organisation is warning of a humanitarian disaster.

For the Russian president, the land invasion of a sovereign country on three fronts that began yesterday was accompanied by the intense bombardments of airports, military facilities, and even hospitals and has already killed dozens of innocent people, and is not merely a “special operation”.

The distinction is certainly not merely a matter of terminology. It reflects different approaches to international law and to fundamental principles such as the inviolability of borders and national sovereignty, to democracy, to freedom, and to the very future of humanity

President Putin did not only level Ukraine.

He threatened the West that if it dares to intervene it will suffer consequences “the likes of which it has never seen in history”.

It was a thinly veiled reference to the use of nuclear weapons.

The response of the civilised West to these threats is for the time being necessarily limited to imposing sanctions.

If, however, Putin should perceive this stance as a sign of weakness and seek to correct “the errors of history” by extending his military campaign to NATO countries, the Third World War will be upon us.

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