{"id":1277435,"date":"2025-08-08T09:31:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/putin-seeks-to-destroy-europe-how-to-counteract-this\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T05:18:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:18:36","slug":"putin-seeks-to-destroy-europe-how-to-counteract-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/putin-seeks-to-destroy-europe-how-to-counteract-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin\u2019s Endgame: How Europe Can Defend Itself from Within"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: Author’s Facebook<\/a> page<\/em><\/p>\n

When war rages on the front lines \u2014 with trenches, tanks, drones, and missiles \u2014 it is visible. Far more dangerous is the war fought in silence: in negotiations, memoranda, subtle shifts in ethnic discourse, and cultural claims. This is the war Russia has waged for decades; February 24, 2022, merely changed its form.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a recent interview with Hungarian journalists, spoke of a \u201ccommon problem\u201d between Russia and Hungary \u2014 the alleged persecution of national minorities in Ukraine. He framed it in the style of the worst colonial empires: as if Ukrainian statehood does not exist, and Ukraine is merely a territory where one must \u201cprotect\u201d Russians, Hungarians, Romanians, Poles \u2014 anyone, as long as it justifies occupation.<\/p>\n

Moscow has used this logic before \u2014 to excuse the annexation of Crimea and fuel the war in Donbas. Most recently, at the Inter-Parliamentary Union forum in Geneva, the speaker of Russia\u2019s Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko, claimed the Kremlin\u2019s aggression was aimed at \u201cstopping the killing of people in Donbas.\u201d Back in 2014, when Crimea was annexed and war in Donbas had not yet begun, Russian officials justified their actions by saying they were protecting Crimean residents from a mythical \u201cnationalist threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t