The entire land border to the west of Russia de facto has already been closed. The car passing ban has now been applied to all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, but a similar decision is likely to be made about this country, too.

But in fact, this ban concerns a very small part of the Russian population, who travel abroad by private vehicles at all.

The thing here is not the car passing ban. Nor is it the expectation that those few Russians affected will come out into the streets. Just as it has long been clear that Russian oligarchs under sanctions can not and will not remove the Kremlin regime.
This is a slow, thorough lowering of the Iron Curtain to destroy the empire.

This is not a quick military defeat, but a complete depletion up to such a state that it will be impossible to restore Russia afterward, and it will disintegrate into separate constituent parts in any scenario. And not quickly, but in an evolutionary order. Russia is being brought to disintegration, and conditions are being created in advance, under which there will be nothing left to collect.

Russia, in turn, closes its borders and announces mobilizations. Sends its citizens to kill and die. Soon it will be impossible to escape from there.

After Prigozhin's failed mutiny, the West realized that there would be no quick revolution, so it is betting on degradation, slow self-destruction, and collapse. A slow boil.

Russia has made the same bet on dragging it out. It has no other way out and believes that it can win in this fight, has huge human (poisoned by propaganda) and natural resources. Russia can go for a ceasefire only temporarily, using it to buy time, build up a military-industrial complex and hoping for the weakening of the West. Russia thinks that the West will stop supporting Ukraine sooner or later, believes it has enough resources to last until then, and then hopes to win in Ukraine.

The West, like Russia, is playing a long war, gradually wearing Russia down. Ukrainians are an instrument of Russia's slow destruction.

Can Ukraine play this long game and does it want to? Time is the highest price for Ukraine. Ukraine pays it with the lives and blood of its Defenders. Ukraine pays with destroyed infrastructure and homes. The longer the situation drags on, the more Ukraine is depleted and it happens faster than with Russia. There are fewer of us. The longer the war lasts, the fewer refugees will return to Ukraine.

So even the most sincere wishes to freeze hostilities essentially play into Russia's hands and increase the existential threat to Ukraine.

If Ukraine is depleted by a prolonged war, it will cease to be a deterrent to Russia. Therefore, a strong Ukraine and a quick Ukrainian victory are the foundation for peace in Europe and worldwide. It would break Putin's plans completely.

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