If Putin topples the freely elected government of Ukraine, that government will go into exile and should, like the governments of the nations toppled by the Nazis, be recognized by the West as the legitimate government of that country for as long as it takes to return. Former national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien
has been making this argument for weeks, and it’s starting to get traction. That’s not a “sanction” that Putin can calculate or ignore, but rather a signal — like the rejection of the Genocide Games — that the screw has turned in the West.