HIS piercing eyes are red-raw with tears, staring blankly into the distance as he refuses to let go of a toy ambulance given to him as a parting gift by his eight-year-old son at a Kyiv train station. A tiny, touching reminder of his life before war, before the madness.

The image of Alexander is truly devastating. He’s one of millions of Ukrainian fathers – ordinary, everyday men ripped away from their loved ones. He is staying to fight, but by his haunted demeanour, he’s already lost. A visible ghost of a broken man.

What we are witnessing is genocide. Right now. In the heart of Europe. Innocent lives being annihilated at the behest of a deranged ego-driven psychopath hellbent on creating some sort of Russian Shangri-la, regardless of the consequences. So accustomed are we to reading about such events in books or watching them on Netflix that it’s hard to believe this is actually happening.

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Reading Putin’s mind is a mug’s game. His irrationality is terrifying. Why attack a nuclear plant when it would still be needed to power homes in a Moscow-run Ukraine, never mind causing the equivalent of “six Chernobyls”? Why threaten nuclear war when in all likelihood Russia would come off worse? Surely any “victory” without hearts and minds would be hollow, with ambush a constant threat?

With Nato intervention off the table, the only hope – if such a concept can exist – has to lie with destabilising pressures within Russia capable of toppling Putin.

But, according to reports, his closeness to the secret services and his stranglehold on a cabinet “too scared” to resign makes a coup unlikely. Whereas the Soviets had the collective heft to oust a wayward leader, no such mechanisms appear to exist now. Indeed an act of defiance would be seen as treason. The personal cost of speaking out too great.

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The next best hope must lie with the people. Many Russians have shown exceptional bravery, exemplified by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. However, the crackdown on social media used to organise anti-war protests, the closure of TV and radio stations and a new law threatening 15 years in prison for distributing “false news” make free speech a highly risky venture.

Could sanctions starve Russians into insurrection? The leadership is armed with a powerful propaganda machine skilled at pointing the finger of blame at the West. Whether that will continue to be as effective when living standards plunge is yet to be seen.

An official poll last week showed 70 per cent of Russians back the Kremlin’s actions, described by a compliant media as a “limited military operation”.

Then there is the culture of fear passed down from years of repression. In Hofstede’s Power Distance Index – which effectively measures the unwillingness of subordinates to stand up to their superiors – Russia scores very high at 93, compared with the UK at 35 and US at 40, where dissent is seen as part of our democratic right.

Attitudes may quickly change, however, if war drags on and more young men are sent to their deaths. Cracks in the military are already showing as stories come out of soldiers “in disarray and crying” at having to fire at civilians.

It only takes one assassin’s bullet to change history, but in the absence of such an event, Putin appears to be safe, for now.

But tragically for Alexander, and many other poor souls like him, it may be too late. Whether, he will ever see his family again, is anyone’s guess. We can only hope.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.