Despite his defeats, Putin still shapes our perceptions. Let’s fight him at his own game | Peter Pomerantsev

Strengthen sanctions and support the Ukraine military, of course. But the west needs to get its own messages across with an ideological offensive

The Ukrainians have (again) done what nobody believed they could. They have (again) defeated the supposedly mighty Russia on the battlefield, shown up the underlying incompetence and moral rot of the Putin system. It took them just six days to take back whole swaths of territory in north-eastern Ukraine that it took Russia six months to conquer. The Russian military, political and propaganda elites are all blaming each other: rifts that usually rumble under the surface are now visible to all. Putin looks shaken.

Now it's time for us to act as well. Not just by increasing help to Ukraine on the battlefield (which is paramount), but also by advancing along the other fronts in this conflict: energy, information, finance and diplomacy.

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