A few years ago I recounted in these pages a comment made to me by the then Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Oleksandr Synch. It was made during my visit to Kiev shortly after the downing by the Russians of flight MH17 that killed 298 including 38 Australians.

The Vice Prime Minister said, perhaps prophetically: “They are supplying weapons, they are supplying fighters and soon the Russian army will openly invade our territory.”

Time and again Ukrainians told me that Russia will never accept the idea of an Independent Ukraine. The Russians tried to ferment division between Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians. Ukraine’s Education Minister told me that the division is artificial as even the minority in the East who speak Russian also speak Ukrainian.

Ukrainians facing imminent invasion seem united in their desire not to be subjugated.

Ukrainians have not forgotten the Holodomor of 1931-32. The word means ‘genocide through starvation’ and refers to the death of 4 million Ukrainians as a result of a deliberate policy – brutally implemented by Stalin’s communist cadre’s – of confiscating literally all bread and wheat on which Ukrainians relied to live. There is a museum dedicated to this atrocity which everyone visiting Ukraine should see.

This history means that if Ukraine is invaded it will be seen by Ukrainians as a continuation of their suppression by the Russians. There will be resistance that will bog down the Russian army and its economy for decades. Ukrainians have tasted freedom. They will not be brought to heel so easily.

Invasion would cost the Russian people enormously – much more than Russia’s disastrous invasion of Afghanistan. Many deaths, Europe destabilised, and an uncertain future for many Eastern European countries that have chosen democracy and independence over domination.

Ukrainians I spoke to lament the decision by Ukraine, shortly after it gained Independence, to give over to Russia its stockpile of nuclear weapons. They say even Putin would be reluctant to attack a nuclear power. But they were persuaded by the West at the time that Russia no longer posed any threat to Ukraine.

Initially Russia tried to make Ukraine a client state from within as it has successfully done with Belarus. It’s worth noting that in Belarus the West failed to stand up to a new dictator in Europe who had rigged an election and who continues to suppress, jail and kill his own people. This failure to help in democratic change in Belarus has now come home to roost as Belarus dictator allows Putin to use his country as a military staging point.

In Ukraine the pro Russia Yanukovych government had allowed Ukraine’s defence forces to run down and its economy to languish. Russian-backed security forces killed 200 demonstrators and injured thousands.

The election of pro-Western Governments followed. Then the Orthodox church in Ukraine cut ties with the Russian Orthodox Church. Russians see Ukraine as a subsidiary in religious terms as the Russian Orthodox Church was established in Kiev in the 9th century.

Putin successfully demonised these independence actions in Ukraine. It was inevitable he would seek military solutions.

The West’s pathetic and divided response to Russian aggression is hard to swallow. Germany, is still not prepared to commit to serious sanctions if they affect gas supplies from Russia.

Some other Western allies including Britain and the US have been prepared to provide arms to Ukrainians, but in the context of an aerial bombardment, cruise missiles and 190,000 strong Russian army this will not be enough.

Let’s be clear, Putin may not like sanctions, but he does not fear them.

Biden keeps talking about unprecedented sanctions but does anyone really think this is an effective deterrent? All they will achieve is to punish the Russian people and allow Putin to blame the West for economic decline.

No, there are two clear choices open to the West: One, agree to Putin’s demands that Ukraine will never join NATO and withdrawal of neighbouring NATO forces. Two, threaten a military response.

A military response would have to be carefully calibrated but could include threatened air support for Ukrainian troops from NATO bases, to be followed, potentially, with boots, tanks, and missiles on the ground.

Without the threat of a military response Ukraine is lost. Putin knows it, Biden knows it and most Western leaders know it.

And following Ukraine, Taiwan will also be lost to China unless the US threatens a military response there.

If the democratic world loses Ukraine and Taiwan it will be the beginning of the end of the Liberal Democratic World Order that we have enjoyed since World War II.

We will leave our children an uncertain future and the bitter pill that when it was truly needed this generation was not prepared to stand up for democracy as our forefathers had.

Sometimes in Australia politics should not divide us. The Liberal and Labor Parties should jointly send a strong message to Putin that we will be in for the long haul in support of the Ukrainian people and a message to our allies that we would support any response including a military one.

Using this issue for short term political point scoring during an election as some in the Coalition seem determined to do will not help Ukraine.

It will not be welcomed by Australia’s large Ukrainian community which wants to see a politically united front.

*Theo Theophanous is a Political Commentator and a former Victorian government minister.