Putin is a cornered rat and that means the world is now teetering on the brink of Armageddon

Russian president Vladimir Putin listens to Russian culture minister Olga Lyubimova during their meeting in Moscow on Monday. Photo: Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin/Pool Photo via AP

Ian O'Doherty

When Russia first launched their so-called ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine over seven months ago, there was almost total global condemnation.

We had hoped that after the horrors which turned the Balkans into a charnel house in the 1990s, the days of slaughter on European soil could be confined to the history books. How wrong we were.