What should be done with Putin?

Mussolini	Ceaușescu	Milosevic	Hussein

Consider the fate of these murderous autocrats:

• Benito Mussolini was executed by Italian anti-fascist partisans in 1945.
• Nicolae Ceaușescu was tried, convicted, and executed by the Romanian army in 1989.
• Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in his prison cell while on trial for war crimes in The Hague in 2006.
• Saddam Hussein was tried and convicted by an Iraqi special tribunal and executed by the Iraqi army in 2006.

The United States, Europe, and the international community must not allow the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine to end with Vladimir Putin still ruling over Russia. All the sanctions and restrictions already placed on Russia and Russians should remain in force, and others should be imposed to ratchet up the pressure as long as Putin still holds office in Moscow. The West should do everything possible to encourage the Russian people, the Russian political establishment, and the Russian military to remove Putin from power.

Why should the world insist on Putin’s removal from power? Because he is dangerous, murderous, possibly no longer fully rational, and specifically because he launched a premeditated and unjustified deadly war of aggression against Ukraine. The United Nations is incapable of taking action against him as long as he runs the Russian government because Russia has veto power in the Security Council. But no nation should any longer consider him to be the legitimate leader of Russia.

Why should Russians insist on Putin’s removal from power? Because Russia will be treated as a pariah nation so long as Putin rules Russia. More sanctions and restrictions should be imposed and steadily increased until the Russians themselves, for their own good and for the good of their nation, remove Putin from power.