Dan Wootton: The West cannot allow this Hitler-lite Putin to win

At 5.55 Moscow time this morning, with missiles raining down on Ukraine, the tyrannical Russian President Vladimir Putin issued this chilling and deranged warning to the world...

That’s the same Vladimir Putin – now openly threatening nuclear warfare – who just 16 days ago sat on the other side of a very long table and assured the French President Emmanuel Macron that de-escalation in Ukraine was assured.

As I have been warning for weeks, an appeasement policy against Putin was a fool’s errand.

That became clear, hours later, when, explosions began going off all over Ukraine as the first invasion of a sovereign country in Europe by a major power in 80 years was underway.

President Zelenskyy – a former comedian now leading Ukraine through its most dire moment since the Nazi occupation in World War Two – was unable to provide much reassurance for his citizens, as he made this video on his mobile phone.

Of course, none of us wanted this war. It was right for Western leaders to offer the potential for a diplomatic solution down to the very last moment.

And we must too admit that the West has made a hell of a mistakes in our dealings with Russia and Putin – allowing Europe to become reliant on Moscow for energy, turning a blind eye to illegal outrages in Crimea and closer to home in Salisbury, and underestimating his totalitarian tendencies.

But Putin has a deranged obsession; he is a dangerous, cold-blooded liar – and nothing was going to stop him, certainly not a meeting with a French President with small man syndrome.

Boris Johnson has called the crisis right from the start, as he explained in this powerful address to parliament tonight.

Putin is seeking a bloody legacy and has an innate, unshakeable desire to start rebuilding the Soviet Union.

He knows the West are desperate to avoid World War Three and will do anything to stop having to put boots on the ground.

But the West cannot allow this Hitler-lite Putin to win – and the sanctions measures unveiled by the UK, EU and US this evening must only be the beginning of the pain we will bring to his despotic regime