The Russian missile attack on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, an industrial city in central Ukraine, is a war crime and must be treated as such.

This dramatic event should serve as an impetus for NATO and the allies to focus more clearly on what has been going on for months in the heart of Europe.

The danger of the war being viewed as something normal and of underestimating its repercussions cannot be ignored.

This is above all for humanitarian reasons.

Missiles that dramatically transform the daily lives of Ukrainian citizens who are struggling to defend themselves are a reminder of the gloom and darkness caused by the Russian invasion.

This ongoing crime must cease immediately.

Secondly, the invasion of Ukraine constitutes an effort to change the country’s borders, and thereby bolsters all manner of revisionism, which violates international law.

The months of war in Ukraine are part of an effort to change the international status quo and to defeat the structure of the post-war world and the peaceful environment that it had managed to create.

It is imperative that NATO and the EU examine the crisis in their back yard more diligently and send a clear message to Russia.

They must take all necessary measures to stop the evolving attack and further isolate the Russian leadership.

There is no place for an authoritarian and revisionist Russia in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an era in which all countries seek to secure the prosperity of their people.

We owe it to the suffering Ukrainian people.