(Image: AP/Darko Vojinovic)

On January 21, 1990, 450,000 Ukrainians joined hands to form a human chain. The unbroken line ran 700 kilometres from Kyiv to Lviv. It marked the 71st anniversary of Act Zluky, the Unification Act, that gave birth to a briefly sovereign Ukraine.

The protesters demanded independence from the Soviet Union. The following year, after a referendum backed by 92% of Ukrainians, they regained their freedom. Vladimir Putin wants to take it away. Having spent 20 years subverting Ukrainian independence, he has gone for broke. He will fail.

Wars are fought to secure political objectives. Victory is not decided by casualty counts or cities destroyed. It is determined by which side achieves its aims.

What are Putin’s objectives? First, he wants to erase Ukraine. Despite its distinctive language, culture and heritage, he claims there is no such country as Ukraine. He insists Ukrainian and Russian people are one and the same. He wants to eradicate forever all distinctions.

Second, he aspires to restore Russia’s great power status. He is obsessed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the humiliations he believes this inflicted upon Russia. He admires strongman rulers like Stalin, Peter the Great, and Alexander Nevsky, and has Irredentist dreams to reconstitute Greater Russia. His fantasies are punctured by the truth that Russia’s economy is the same size as Australia’s, despite having five times its population and 11% of earth’s land mass.

Third, he wants to undermine the United States, Europe and the Western alliance. On this front he has notched a few wins. His financial and propaganda interventions in the 2016 Brexit referendum and US presidential election tipped the scales in both. The repercussions unleashed paid off in spades. Last month he signed a “no limits” friendship pact in Beijing with President Xi Jinping of China that underscored his intent.

Fourth, he wants to crush democracy on his doorstep. It’s democracy he fears most. Democratic nations nearby, with their examples of freedoms and prosperity, might give ideas to Russian citizens. He can’t abide that. In recent months he sent troops into Belarus and Kazakhstan to prop up tottering dictatorships against popular uprisings.

One thing this war is not about is NATO expansion. That’s a fig leaf to justify Putin’s aggression. NATO is already at Russia’s borders, both in the west and the east. When asked in 2001 about the Baltic nations joining NATO, he replied: “We of course are not in a position to tell people what to do. We cannot forbid people to make certain choices if they want to increase the security of their nations in a particular way”.

In 2002 he stated: “The decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.” He even mused at times that Russia might some day join NATO.

Putin does not fear NATO because he thinks NATO and the West are weak and feckless. And why wouldn’t he? From his perspective he has never faced real consequences for his crimes. He razed Grozny to rubble. He invaded Georgia, annexed Crimea, and launched a guerilla campaign in Donbass. He annihilated Aleppo. He murdered political rivals and journalists at home and abroad. He resurrected state-sponsored sports doping.

At every turn the various sanctions imposed were laughable. Instead he was rewarded with the Sochi Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, and flattered by Donald Trump. No wonder he thought he could do as he pleased.

Not this time. Putin was expecting Anschluss. He told his soldiers they would be welcomed as liberators. He expected to capture Kyiv within days.

Ukraine and the world have shown him otherwise; 141 nations condemned his actions in the UN General Assembly. Only four — Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Eritrea — sided with Putin.

Kenya’s UN ambassador Martin Kimani summed up the mood: “Today, across the border of every single African country, live our countrymen with whom we share deep historical, cultural and linguistic bonds. At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later … Rather than form nations that looked ever backward into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our many nations and peoples had ever known.”

Putin remains undeterred. A man who thinks force always wins out, he will escalate his brutality. It won’t change the outcome. Every war crime committed will only harden Ukrainians’ hatred and steel their resolve. Ukrainians have endured, and overcome, far worse. Four million killed by Holodomor, Stalin’s genocidal famine. Another 7 million dead in World War II. Ukrainians suffered more combat casualties than the US, the UK, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand combined.

No matter how much territory he conquers, or how many people he massacres, Putin will never subdue Ukraine. He has neither the manpower, nor the treasury, to sustain an occupation. His plan to install a pliant puppet regime will never stand. Any collaborators would be overthrown the moment Putin withdrew. The Orange and Maidan revolutions prove that.

Meanwhile Russia’s economy is in freefall. The rouble is collapsing, access to foreign currency has evaporated, and the sharemarket remains closed. Western companies are bolting and imports are drying up. Planes will soon be grounded due to lack of maintenance parts and software, in a country that spans 11 time zones.

Not even China can save Russia from this meltdown. As the conscript coffins pile up, and the economic blowback wipes out their savings, Russians will turn against Putin’s war.

Wars are ultimately a battle of economics and willpower. As long as the West keeps funnelling weapons, money and other support to Ukraine — and they will — Ukrainians will fight. Eventually they will prevail.

We don’t know whether this war will last months or years. We don’t know how much carnage will be inflicted, nor how many lives ruined. We don’t know Putin’s fate. We do know things will get much worse before they get better.

However, measured against his four principal goals, Putin will come up empty-handed. He will never erase Ukraine. He will leave Russia diminished in the world, an isolated pariah state. He has reinvigorated the Western alliance. And democracy will not be extinguished from Russia’s doorstep.

Vlad has already lost his war. He just doesn’t know it yet.