Putin's double war

The president of Russia controls the controls of two wars.

One is virtual and acts as a threat designed to intimidate the darkest ghosts of two world wars.

To do this, it uses material means, such as amassing almost 200,000 soldiers, thousands of tanks, planes and helicopters on the borders of Ukraine, moving the bulk of the war fleet to the Black and Azov Seas, and carrying out nuclear ballistic maneuvers with intercontinental missiles.

The other war is real and effective, although with features of a hybrid war, and consists of dividing Ukraine, in an openly declared strategy of recovering the territories of the Soviet empire that disappeared in 1991.

The massive invasion is unlikely to take place, but the second one has been underway since 2014 and has just achieved a new political milestone with Moscow's recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, the massive influx of Russian troops, the planned establishment of military bases and, what is more serious, the establishment of a direct contact front for the first time between the Ukrainian and Russian armies.

On the ground, the aggressiveness of Putin's technique of small steps should not be hidden from Western eyes, which are often inclined to find mitigating factors.

The new threat looms over the two entire provinces, now only partly in the hands of Russia, already surely claimed by pro-Russian militias beyond the current limits of secession.

The Baltic republics and Poland are also on Putin's list.

Undoing the enlargement of NATO that began in 1990 with German unification is his ideal goal.

To find someone who has gone so far in challenging international legality and order, you have to go back to the 1930s.

Putin has turned the Government of the Russian Federation, thanks to the recovery of its military capabilities, into an instrument of blackmailing its neighbors and the international community.

Putin's double war deserves an immediate and dissuasive response that does not rule out diplomatic channels or a credible sanctions regime (already activated) by the European Union and its partners.

At stake is not only the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine, but the preservation of peace,