In the popular western narrative, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is bent on rebuilding the old Soviet empire, and his attack on Ukraine has been part of this imperial project. In this version of the world, unless Putin is rebuffed in Ukraine, imperial Russia would inevitably swallow Moldova and Georgia, if not the NATO members Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.The grotesque and larger-than-life image formed by such projection of the past into the future has been used by the governments of NATO allies to persuade their domestic populations to bear the cost of absorbing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in their midst, besides major supplies of arms, ammunition, and other support to Ukraine. The collective West, led by the US, has been waging a war against Russia, with zero risk to its own soldiers, even as Ukrainians are urged to keep fighting to the last man alive.
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