Every war must end, and this one will as well. One set of follow-on objectives for the West is clear: helping Ukraine rebuild and put itself in a condition to defeat further Russian aggression. Similarly, it is both necessary and likely that NATO will emerge from this conflict larger, more united, and more powerful than before.

But all of this leaves the problem of Russia. It will not be reconstructed from without, as Germany and Japan were after World War II. If it is convulsed from within, it is less likely to be dominated by liberals (many of whom have fled the country) than by disgruntled nationalists. Putin may go, but his replacements are likely to come from similar backgrounds in the secret police or, possibly, the military. And it will not be able to rejoin the international community as it was.

Russia has been complicit in ghastly doings for the past several decades—think Grozny and Aleppo, not to mention Crimea and Donbas. But now it bears the mark of Cain. Brother-murder is the oldest human crime, and until February 24, 2022, Russia claimed the Ukrainians as brothers. The utterly unjustified nature of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, its exceptional brutality, the shamelessness of Russia’s lies and threats, and the grotesqueness of its claims to hegemony in the former Soviet states will make it more than usually difficult to bring it back into a Eurasian order that it, and no one else, has attempted to destroy.