“Well, did I provoke Putin’s invasion?”
“No matter what your true feelings were, you should have taken an ambiguous attitude.
Putin's calculations had to be complicated.
What will America do? If America's intervention fails, everything is over.
I'm going to fall into that kind of worry endlessly.
But His Excellency actually helped Putin make a very cool decision to get rid of it all at once.”
“I was trying to reassure our people.”
“The United States, which has not said anything, has probably come closest.
“To Putin and to the people.”
Biden looked away, frowning, not hiding his discomfort.
--- p.78

“Save Bahmut to death!”
In the face of the completely changed Russian army, Bakhmut's Ukrainian soldiers were met with death one after another.
The patriotism, courage, and passion of the Ukrainian soldiers so far were piled up on the Bakhmut Plain, like yellow ginkgo leaves falling in the wind.
The Russians rained down bullets on the Ukrainian trenches, and crawled right up to the trenches to throw grenades.
In this way, the courageous Russian army completely changed the situation.
--- p.92

“The war won’t end easily.
Even after it ends, as long as Putin is here, the same thing will happen again someday.
“For peace, we must kill him, but the reality is that no one can touch Putin.”
--- p.109

“We have to use nuclear weapons.
If Russia uses nuclear weapons, which country in the world would dare to retaliate? The United States? The United Kingdom? Which country would dare launch an ICBM at Russia? Or send a bomber? Then the Tsar Bomba and the Sarmat would fly, and the United States and all would disappear from the face of the earth.
Putin pushed aside the Black Russian and drank vodka in succession.
“Only when Russia uses nuclear weapons does it become truly Russian.”
--- p.151

After a moment of silence, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke.
“What if Russia responds to that attack with nuclear weapons?”
(…)
“I wouldn’t dare do that.”
Biden's response was brief and concise, but it was essentially just avoiding the question.
Scholz dug in roughly like an investigator interrogating a suspect.
“If you dare?”
“…….”
Biden had no answer.
NATO leaders felt as if they were facing an unknown abyss in an unfamiliar world.
It was a world I could no longer enter.
--- p.279

“If we give in to Putin’s demands here, it is ultimately a shameful betrayal of human history.
What I fear most is that if we back down from here, this kind of thing will happen more frequently in the future.
If you threaten them with nuclear weapons, they won't be able to move.
As this awareness spreads, the world will be plunged into a nuclear frenzy, and as a result, the risk of global destruction will increase exponentially.”
--- p.282

“These criminals killed fifteen skilled soldiers with a single pistol shot to their vital points, and to cover up the fact that they had done so, they disguised the bodies of twelve guards on board as if they had been shot indiscriminately with HK416s, and then threw the bodies into the sea in front of the dock as if they were nothing more than a show.
Criminals who execute their grand plans with great determination and precision, but are inexperienced at concealing their crimes.
And the captain keeps saying all of this as if it were rational.
“What are they hiding?”
“What? You’re me!”
Shapman smiled and nodded as he did last time before leaving the press room.
--- p.295

“Don’t you know? Only a very small minority of Moscow citizens seek revenge.
It is everyone's fervent dream that there will be no more wars.
Instead, the citizens of Moscow began to pray for the Ukrainian people, who had suffered a tragedy dozens of times greater.
That's Russia.
That's the Russian spirit.
“You are a dirty businessman who has paralyzed the people with the illusion of a great Russia and only satisfied your own dirty greed.”

--- p.395