Ukraine expert Winfried Schneider-Deters intervenes in the debate on Russia's war against Ukraine with three timely essays, written during the winter of war in Kyiv in 2022 / 2023. He critically discusses the ambivalent reception of Russian aggression not only in German society. Calls by intellectuals to stop arms deliveries and to negotiate and compromise with the aggressor are, in effect, calls for surrender; in the author's view, their signatories are thus making themselves into Putin's "useful idiots."

Schneider-Deters points out the parallels between Putin and Hitler and analyzes the Russian "Weimar syndrome" after the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the roots of the current, specifically Russian fascism, the "Rushism". He also gives a detailed account of the crimes committed by Russia's armed forces in Ukraine under international law.