Can you imagine France pounding the cities of French-speaking Switzerland to “liberate” them from Swiss oppression? The idea seems absurd, of course. Yet this is what Russian speakers in the east and south of Ukraine suffer from. Regions that once leaned in favor of Moscow are mercilessly bombarded and their inhabitants, traumatized for life, are fleeing in droves towards the west. Paradoxically, the invasion launched by Vladimir Putin on February 24 to save his “compatriots” is turning them away from Russia for a long time.