1914, 1939, 1989, 2001 - not only historians know that these years stand for turning points.

For events that suddenly accelerated and drastically changed the course of history.

For twists that had an effect well beyond the year in question.

The series was expanded to include the year 2022 on Thursday.

It has become the code for the return of war to Europe, war as a means of imperialist and chauvinist politics.

The man who put the stamp “annus horribilis” on the year back in February is Vladimir Putin.

President of the Russian Federation, he aspires to go down in proud Russian history as one of the great figures – the leader who made Russia great and powerful again and brought it the respect it deserves in the world.

One can trust Putin that he even wants to surpass Stalin.

Putin moves closer to Stalin

With the war that the Russian president is waging in Ukraine, which he sees as a freak of history with no right to exist, Putin is undoubtedly getting closer to Stalin, also from a Western perspective.

But Putin's attack does not increase Russia's standing and well-being in the free world.

The Russians will have to pay bitterly for their president's insanity.

There may even come a day when he himself will regret going into this war.

But the West cannot hope for that now.

The majority of the Russian people believe Putin's grotesque propaganda.

The minority demonstrating against his madness experiences what Putin means by respect: fear.

Putin has made Russia the pariah of the international community, which in future will have to be content with praise from dictatorships like Belarus.

Even Viktor Orbán joined in the criticism of Moscow.

Putin and the others who live with him in his regime bubble obviously don't care much.

The Kremlin scoffed that the West would calm down again - as it did after the war in Georgia and also after the annexation of Crimea.

The law of the jungle

Putin and his cronies live in a different world and time than the West.

In it, trust, understanding and contracts count for nothing.

In Putin's universe there is only one law, that of the jungle: the big beasts eat the smaller ones, but they prefer the defenseless goats and sheep.

The world as Putin sees it belongs to the strongest, the most brutal.

For him, the rules she has given herself to protect the weaker are just a sham for the stupid, the naïve.

He includes all those in the West who rely on the power of multilateralism, on the "soft power" of moral models, on the victory of reason.

So also the Germans and their governments.

Putin's understanding of history and politics differs so fundamentally from the beliefs of post-war Germany that one has to ask: how could our chancellors and foreign ministers believe that common cause could be made with him?

"We were coldly lied to," says Foreign Minister Baerbock.

It can't have happened to her first.

Berlin let itself be lied to

In Berlin, people had long been lied to by him – and then also indulged in self-deception.

That Putin is needed after all!

The main argument justifying the collaboration with him was that security can only exist with, not against, Russia.

Only together with Moscow can the many conflicts in the world be contained.