After months of speculation as to whether the Russian threat of a war against Ukraine would materialize, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address on Thursday approved a "special military operation" against Ukraine. Russian troops have now invaded Ukraine, launching an all-out war by sea, air and land. What had remained a nightmare of the Ukrainians and the rest of the world has now turned into a reality as Russia escalated unilateral aggression against a country that has clearly tried to avert any hostilities. With Russian troops attacking the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and several other cities, including Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Dnipro, Mariupol, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhya, Europe is now witnessing the biggest attack by one state against another on the continent since World War II.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared martial law and appealed to world leaders to castigate Russia. Zelensky on Thursday asked his citizens to remain calm but be ready to fight even as his country had suffered "serious losses" in the invasion, with at least 40 people being killed. As per reports, a third of the Ukrainians are ready to take up arms against Russia, and in case of retaliation by Ukraine, the hostilities could turn into a full-scale war, with the number of casualties soaring in the days to come. Initial reports about the escalation, with Russian troops targeting multiple cities, show the extent of the large-scale offensive Putin is making. As per reports, Putin's troops attacked Ukraine from Belarus and Russia, and also from annexed Crimea. The escalation is going to break the peace not only in the European region but across the world.

There is no reiterating the fact that a war is never a solution to any dispute. As Albert Einstein has said in his essay "Weapons of mass destruction", the desire for war among nations has "inflicted indescribable suffering and destruction upon mankind; again and again it has depraved the development of men, their souls and their well-being". No war against another state, especially if it is a weaker one, is justified, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is no exception. Having experienced two great wars and a long period of Cold War, powerful states of the world know the economic and human costs of war.

Putin's bloodlust in Ukraine goes against the foundational principles of a modern society. As a leader leading the most populous and powerful country in the region, Putin is more responsible than others to maintain peace. However, he is doing exactly the opposite. By attacking Ukraine, Putin, whose dictatorial tendency in his home country is well known, has shown to the world once again that he is a bully in the neighbourhood, hungry for the blood of innocent people. Global leaders should find effective ways to pressurise the bully into de-escalating immediately. Warmongers of any country in the world deserve to be isolated and pushed to the corner. The only way forward is peaceful co-existence of states, leaving the detestable lust for wars and conflicts to the dingy quarters of world history.