We must stop letting Russia define the terms of the Ukraine crisis | Slavoj Žižek

A question like Did US intelligence-sharing with Ukraine cross a line?' forgets the fact that it was Russia that crossed the line - by invading Ukraine

In recent weeks, the western public has been obsessed with the question What goes on in Putin's mind?" Western pundits wonder: do the people around him tell him the whole truth? Is he ill or going insane? Are we pushing him into a corner where he will see no other way out to save face than to accelerate the conflict into a total war?

We should stop this obsession with the red line, this endless search for the right balance between support for Ukraine and avoiding total war. The red line" is not an objective fact: Putin himself is redrawing it all the time, and we contribute to his redrawing with our reactions to Russia's activities. A question like Did US intelligence-sharing with Ukraine cross a line?" makes us obliterate the basic fact: it was Russia itself which crossed the line, by attacking Ukraine. So instead of perceiving ourselves as a group which just reacts to Putin as an impenetrable evil genius, we should turn the gaze back at ourselves: what do we - the free west" - want in this affair?

Slavoj iek is a cultural philosopher. He's a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London