Some men only improve the world by leaving it.

My Mama once told me how, when Stalin died, something quiet but powerful happened. There was official mourning—but behind closed doors, in kitchens and hallways, many families felt relief. Not joy at death. Relief that fear loosened its grip. That truth could begin to return. People breathed differently.

Later, when the USSR collapsed, that relief deepened. Life did not suddenly become just or easy—but the lie lost its absolute power. The future reopened.

I remember my history teacher saying something I will never forget: “I can finally teach the history of Ukraine—not the Soviet version, but the original history of Indigenous Ukrainian people.”

That moment mattered. Because when regimes fall, history doesn’t just change—it comes back.

History keeps teaching this lesson, whether we want it to or not.

When Hitler died, Europe exhaled.

When Ceaușescu fell in Romania, terror collapsed overnight.

When Pinochet was finally arrested and exposed to accountability, even late, the myth of his untouchability shattered.

This is why the quote matters:

Some men only improve the world by leaving it.

I have heard this truth again and again from Ukrainians I’ve met through my travels. Different cities. Different lives. The same quiet wish—spoken carefully, often with guilt, always with exhaustion. Many said they once hoped dictators could simply be taken onto a plane and sent somewhere they would never return. Not out of hatred, but out of survival. Out of the need for the killing to stop.

That is why the image matters so much.

When people saw Maduro taken away on a plane, Ukrainians whispered the same hope: what if someone captured Putin?

At the same time, many people in the United States quietly wished the same about Trump—that power used to destroy could be stopped, removed, and held accountable.

The destination matters too. Not disappearance. Not revenge. But The Hague—the idea that no one is above the law, that cruelty has a record, that history is watching. That one day, accountability lands.

And yes, the hard truth must be said: removing one man does not always dismantle a regime. Sometimes the machinery remains. Sometimes harm continues in new forms. But history also shows us that success stories exist—moments when removal cracked the system wide enough for truth, teaching, memory, and dignity to return.

This is what killing by kindness really means.

Not celebrating death.

Not glorifying violence.

But recognizing that when one person’s continued existence in power costs millions of lives, the most humane wish left is an end to the harm they cause.

Some cry when dictators fall.

Many are relieved because they survived.

So let this be said plainly and gently:

This is the hope of many Ukrainians I have met.

It is shared by russians who stand with Ukraine and the global communities that stand for justice, freedom, democracy and peace.

And it echoes among people in the United States who recognize how ego and lies corrode institutions from the inside.

May suffering be relieved, as my family felt relief when Stalin died—and even more when the Soviet Union ended.

May truth return faster this time.

And yes—let us hope, honestly and without cruelty, that Putin will be captured, removed from power, and taken where accountability lives.

Not as vengeance.

But as mercy.