One of the scenarios to eliminate the risk of new Russian aggressions is riskier than the other, but both should lead to the complete denuclearisation of Russia, writes Roman Rukomeda.

Today is the 439th day of massive open military Russian aggression against Ukraine. The strategic army initiative seems to be at the side of the Ukrainian Armed forces, who are preparing the offensive to liberate captured and occupied Ukraine’s territories.

The Russian aggressors and war criminals understood the necessity to abandon the captured regions in a short perspective, so they robbed and tried to send to Russia everything possible from Ukrainian towns in the South and East that could become the first targets of Ukrainian liberation.

However, it should be crystal clear that there is one obstacle to restoring peace in Europe if it will not be fulfilled: the punishment of the aggressor. Without the sentence of Putin, his closest surrounding of top officials and friends, and all the major Russian war criminals, there will be no restoration of international law, order and security in Europe.

As I wrote in previous articles, there is a high possibility that after Ukraine liberates all its internationally recognised territories, including Crimea, Putin’s regime might not necessarily fall.

Instead, the Russian government would concentrate on internal terror and turn the country into a “besieged fortress” like North Korea. Russia will not sign any peace treaties and will continue to attack Ukraine from a distance with rockets, bombs and artillery, killing and destroying Ukrainian people and infrastructure.

Ukraine will have to return fire and perform some operations in the bordering Russian regions. But no one is seriously planning the capture of Moscow and the military capitulation of Russia by the military force, as it was done in Germany in 1945, because of the Russian nuclear weapons.

This is why the military defeat can reduce the Russian threat in Ukraine, but it will not be fully defused.

Ukraine’s integration into NATO in a short perspective and giving the country security guarantees until that time to prevent the subsequent Russian military aggression would help to stop the war in Ukraine.

But Russia would continue on the terrorism path and possibly prepare attacks on other former Soviet republics that cannot honestly resist the Russian army, even after its route in Ukraine.

This is why I see two ways to eliminate any danger of Russian military aggression in Europe completely.

First is to continue pressure on Russia after Ukraine’s victory with all possible methods, including sanctions, energy policy, and military pressure to undermine Putin’s regime. It is crucial to punish Putin, his key generals and other war criminals for all the destruction in Ukraine.

After such punishment, political negotiations with a post-Putin Russia could be launched. A critical moment of such an agreement should be the complete denuclearisation of Russia to eliminate the threat of Russian nuclear terrorism in any future situation.

The second way to eliminate the Russian threat goes through the internal Russian implosion, its fragmentation into smaller national states and republics that will end the dreams of a new Russian empire.

This process looks very scary to most politicians in Europe and Northern America because of the risks of internal military conflicts. As many Western states lost their colonies after WWII, Russia shall lose many occupied national republics and became much smaller, giving freedom to all who wanted it.

In both scenarios, we should expect the complete elimination of the Russian nuclear threat to do everything possible to ensure the safety of future European generations.