The real speech of 9 May was not in Moscow but in Strasbourg

After all, the 9th of May brought nothing new to the east. Contrary to what I read last week – that Putin was considering declaring war because he believed he was losing it – it escaped me that the most likely would be the opposite, namely that the Kremlin autocrat did not intend to declare war precisely because know you’re losing it. Informally, a state can declare war on terrorism, on drug trafficking, even on an organized group of compatriots that it considers rebels, which, on a scale, can configure a situation of civil war. However, and commonly, sovereign states declare war on other sovereign states. As I have already underlined, the concept of “special operation” suggests rapid action over a territory considered to be of limited sovereignty. It is precisely what Putin believes Ukraine is.