Sonya Heaney Author

Pupils of the first Ukrainian Saturday school in Sydney, held at the YMCA building on Pitt Street. 1951.

Published 16 July, 2026.

By Kira Rudik

The more Ukrainian missiles hit Russian oil refineries, the more articles by "new" and "good" Russians we will see. That is the first sign the empire is beginning to fall. The "good Russians" will recycle the same old arguments. In Ukraine, we have heard them so many times they make me sick: “Russia is too big to fail,” “Russians cannot be humiliated—otherwise there will be nuclear escalation,” “The Russian army is incredibly strong,” “Russia has a democratic future,” etc.

None of these claims withstands scrutiny. The truth is that Russia is the last surviving European empire. It outlived the tectonic changes that reshaped Europe after the Second World War. Then it was a totalitarian state controlling the 15 republics of the Soviet Union. Today it remains a centralised empire ruling over 21 national republics within the Russian Federation.

It is a top-down, KGB-FSB state that survives by exporting natural resources while investing billions in propaganda designed to convince the world that it is an indispensable global power.

In reality, before the full-scale invasion, Russia's economy was roughly the size of Italy's or Canada's. Yet we never heard either of those countries claim to be one of the defining poles of a new multipolar world.

Black smoke rises from the area of the Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft's Moscow oil refinery on the south-eastern outskirts of Moscow on 18 June, 2026.

Russia is not too big to fail. Its territory is enormous, but territory alone does not make a superpower. The Soviet Union was even larger—and it collapsed.

The idea that Russia, and especially Vladimir Putin, must never be humiliated, became one of the defining narratives of 2022. I remember it vividly. As the world was discovering the atrocities of Bucha, it felt surreal that so many influential voices were still concerned about protecting the dignity of the dictator who had authorised murder, torture, rape, and countless other war crimes.

Back then, "Putin's red lines" dictated Western policy. Many governments refused to provide Ukraine with essential weapons because they feared escalation or believed Putin might resort to nuclear weapons.

That conversation sounds very different in 2026. Ukraine has demonstrated that the Russian army is not invincible, that Russia cannot adequately defend its own borders, and that its military power has clear limits. The Kursk operation, Operation Spiderweb, and the destruction of Russian warships across the Black and Azov seas proved exactly that.

As someone who lives in Kyiv under almost nightly missile and drone attacks, let me tell you something.

There has never been a diplomatic formula built on fear of Putin that protected Ukrainian civilians. The only thing that has worked is reducing Russia's ability to wage war.

And despite years of warnings about "retaliation," Russia's retaliation looks exactly like its regular attacks. It bombs civilians regardless.

Perhaps the biggest illusion many people in the West still cling to is the belief that Russia can become a democracy, return to the international community, and resume business as usual.

The "good Russians" want you to believe this too. There are two fundamental problems with that narrative.

First, Russia has never been a democracy—not for a single day in its history. Ironically, many of the same people who insist that 148 million Russians cannot simply disappear also expect those same 148 million people to embrace democratic values overnight.

We in Ukraine believed this ourselves in 2022. We thought that if ordinary Russians simply learned the truth about the war, they would rise against Putin. Considerable resources were devoted to breaking through the Kremlin's information blockade.

Reality proved otherwise. The majority of Russians support the war. Many genuinely believe they are fighting NATO and the West to defend their way of life. Good luck convincing them otherwise.

The second problem with the fantasy of restoring relations with Russia under the slogan "trade is better than war" is even simpler.

Russia already had all of that. It belonged to the G8. It traded freely with the democratic world. It created enormous wealth for its oligarchs while distributing just enough prosperity to much of its population. It expanded its influence across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East while building partnerships with authoritarian regimes.

Now ask yourself a simple question. Can Russia realistically expect to achieve greater economic prosperity than it enjoyed in 2012 or 2013?

It already reached that point. And it willingly sacrificed it for one overriding objective: preserving the empire.

Russia is likely to collapse for many of the same reasons the Soviet Union collapsed—falling energy revenues, the growing political weight of war veterans, and the desire of Russian elites to regain access to the wealth and assets now frozen under Western sanctions.

The story of a sinking empire is never new. As the ship begins to sink, different players suddenly present themselves as reasonable, democratic, pro-Western, and pro-peace. They promise they can build the "good Russia" Europe has always hoped for.

What almost every one of these self-appointed Russian leaders desperately wants to distract you from is a far simpler conclusion.

The destruction and decolonisation of the Russian empire would be one of the best things that could happen to Europe—and the only lasting strategic outcome worthy of the immense price this war has already demanded.

Winter sunrise in Canberra, Australia.