The people of Ukraine woke up to the sound of a bombardment and the invasion of their country yesterday.
As these shots ring out across Europe, it looks like the West is finally waking up to the threat Vladimir Putin poses to peace on the continent.
What is unfolding in Ukraine is not, to echo history, a matter in a small, far-off country of which we know little.
By rolling tanks over the border of another country and shedding the blood of innocent people, Putin will change our lives and reshape Europe for a generation.
His warning to anyone “who tries to stand in our way” is he will unleash “consequences you have never encountered in your history”.
To many observers, that is a plain threat of nuclear war – a fate that’s not hung over Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The lesson of history is that aggressors and bullies like Putin have to be tackled, either now or later.
The sanctions announced last night, big as they are, will have been factored in by Moscow. They may at some stage starve Russia’s war machine of funds, technology and support but we have to go further.
Nato military action is, at this stage, wisely ruled out. But the heaviest sanctions possible must be imposed, not just against the Kremlin but the thousands of Russian enablers here in the UK.
There is a whole cabal of wealthy Russian oligarchs living the high life in the UK, enjoying the pleasures of Harrods and the best private schools in Britain.
Some of them put some of their spare millions into funding the Tory Party.
A ban on UK visas for Russians and their families will have an immediate effect and sow discontent among the Russian elite in Moscow and London.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been far too friendly with these crooked Russian billionaires. He needs to send out a signal that they can no longer use Britain as their rich man’s playground – using money plundered from the Russian people.
Sanctions will cost us too, in terms of lost investments, but that is a small price compared with what the Ukrainians will do to defend their democracy.
The pain of Ukrainian exiles in Scotland makes a convincing enough case for action.
The west has woken up late to the dangers of Putin, which were ignored when civilian jets were shot down and the Crimea invaded.
But it is not too late to take down this gangster regime in Moscow and to rid the UK of Russia’s malign influence on our own democracy.
This is a long struggle, not of months but years, and we must be ready to dig deep to preserve our democratic freedoms.
For this is not just an attack on Ukraine, it is an authoritarian assault on all of our liberties.
We in the West have maybe taken these freedoms for granted since the twin threats of Nazi aggression and Soviet domination were extinguished in the 20th century.
As the tanks rolled into Ukraine, it is clear that the first shots have been fired in a fresh battle to defend democracy.
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