The only thing that will stop Russian President Vladimir Putin

There’s one thing that will stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and it gives rise to several questions.

OPINION

The people of Ukraine have fought more bravely and more fiercely than the world had dared to hope and yet the cruel truth is it will do them no good.

The West cheers them on and marvels at their courage — and provides material support — but no Western power will enter a direct war with Russia on Ukraine’s behalf and without that Ukraine cannot possibly repel a force as large as the one Putin is bearing down on them.

Instead the ugly pragmatic fact is that Ukraine’s fate rests in the hands of its enemies: Will Vladimir Putin’s allies either persuade him to reach a settlement or apply a more — ahem — permanent solution?

It may be wishful thinking but Russian leaders rarely exit politics peacefully. Putin’s presidency is more likely to end via a coup, an assassin’s bullet or disease — perhaps the same one that is maddening him — than it is via him ceding even a skerrick of power.

This gives rise to several critical questions:

How long will the oligarchs around Putin be happy to haemorrhage money and have their freedoms curtailed because of his narcissistic and self-destructive legacy project?

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council on March 3, 2022. Picture: Andrey Gorshkov/Sputnik/AFP

How long will Russia’s other administrators tolerate the crushing of the Russian economy?

And perhaps most pertinently, how long will Russia’s military and intelligence leaders let Putin wave the threat of nuclear force, knowing that their country would be annihilated if there was a serious belief in the West that he would deploy them?

Then there is the question of how Russia’s most powerful — and more powerful — ally is seeing all of this.

If the taking of Ukraine was meant to be a template for the taking of Taiwan it has already been a spectacular failure. The level of local resistance and thus the need for overwhelming military force from the invaders has only concentrated the world’s attention and outrage.

And while the size and nature of the two economies are both vastly difference, there can be little doubt that Beijing is watching the collapsing rouble and collapsing Russian stockmarket with more than a little concern.

More importantly, however, the invasion has exposed the great lie that both Moscow and Beijing apply to their erstwhile territories: Namely that they aren’t genuine nation states and their national identity is a false Western construct imposed upon the globe.

Milhaud Lakhnov joins a rally in support of Ukraine during the war against Russia on March 03, 2022 in Hallandale, Florida. Picture: Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP

This fig leaf of legitimacy might have been maintained had Mr Putin simply cherrypicked the disputed eastern regions of Ukraine, claiming he was merely giving them the “autonomy” they wanted.

But his decision to go all in and invade the capital — not to mention other cities — and the fierce resistance that provoked has laid bare to the world that Ukrainians are in fact so certain of their independence that they are literally prepared to die for it. The much speculated existence of pro-Russian sentiment within Kyiv and elsewhere has proved to be a fantasy.

Likewise communist China has always perpetuated the fiction that Taiwan is not a separate nation but merely a recalcitrant state, a kind of prodigal son with whom there will soon be a “peaceful reunification” — a concept that presumes there are at least some on the other side who want to be unified.

If Ukraine is any guide it is now clear that the pretence of pro-China unity ticketers quietly buzzing about the streets of Taipei is equally fantastical. Indeed, if any citizens of Taiwan genuinely wanted to be part of China one can only wonder why they wouldn’t be living there already.

Motorcyclists ride past a traditional market in Shulin district, New Taipei City, on February 19, 2022. Picture: Sam Yeh/AFP

And so Russia has delivered to China the one lesson it really didn’t want to learn: Yes, a big country can invade a small country in the name of reunification but it cannot do so without becoming an international pariah, nor without massive economic cost.

And whether or not it can even hold that country — via military occupation or a puppet regime — of course remains to be seen. I’ve made a lot of dumb bets in my life but even I wouldn’t bet on that.

So does China nudge Mr Putin and suggest he cops a deal so they can look like the peacemakers and quietly return to their own strategic scheming? And would he even listen if they did?

Frankly I wouldn’t bet on that either, but it’s probably the best hope Ukraine has got.

And so there are likely just two ways this war will end without a bloody conquest: One in which Mr Putin gets a tap on the shoulder, the other in which he gets two taps to the back of the head.

Sadly the third, the most likely and the most tragic, outcome is that Mr Putin continues to invade, the Ukrainians continue to heroically resist, and that he eventually crushes them — and crushes his own country in the process.

Watch Joe Hildebrand on The Blame Game — 8.30pm Fridays on Sky News