Situationen i Ukraina just nu.

On April 17, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin used the term during his annual call-in show for residents of the Russian Federation, in connection to Novorossiya administrative area (Russian: Новороссийская область) that existed during Russian Empire and after that in civil war from 1919 until it was given in a march of 1920 to Ukrainian Soviet Republic and was never before part of Ukraine. Putin admitted Crimea troops were his and called Eastern Ukraine 'new Russia'.

Alexander Dugin, an extreme nationalist whose views have helped shape those of the Russian president, issued an extraordinary statement. “Ukraine must be cleansed of idiots,” he wrote — and then called for the “genocide” of the “race of bastards.”

Is all of this nothing more than the raving of lunatics? Maybe. And maybe Putin is too weak to do any of this, and maybe it’s just scare tactics, and maybe his oligarchs will stop him. But “Mein Kampf” also seemed hysterical to Western and German audiences in 1933. Stalin’s orders to “liquidate” whole classes and social groups within the Soviet Union would have seemed equally insane to us at the time, if we had been able to hear them.

But Stalin kept to his word and carried out the threats, not because he was crazy but because he followed his own logic to its ultimate conclusions with such intense dedication — and because nobody stopped him. Right now, nobody is able to stop Putin, either. So is it hysterical to prepare for total war? Or is it naive not to do so?

But given the global repercussions of this struggle, the United States and its allies cannot afford to let Mr. Putin break the rules. It is time to hit Russia with the full brunt of financial sanctions, to supply Ukraine with the arms and intelligence it needs to defend its territorial integrity (which Russia itself once pledged to respect), to halt all military sales to Russia by Western nations — and to bolster the neglected North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Mr. Obama made little effort Thursday to explain or defend the “broader principle” that he said is at stake in Europe. Nations around the world that rely on U.S. leadership and its commitment to the rule of law can only hope that he brings more passion to the cause at what deserves to be a historic NATO summit in Wales next week.