Ukraine Is Now Paying for West’s Inaction While Putin Is Applying What He Announced 15 Years Ago.
Let us hope that the heroic resistance of the Ukrainians will put a definitive stop to Putin's ambitions.
Russia is now relegated to the dock of the Western world where Vladimir Putin's country rubs shoulders with countries as disreputable as North Korea, Iran, Syria, or even the Afghanistan of the Taliban. Joe Biden no longer takes any precautions when he calls Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and speaks of a terrorist State when he mentions Putin's Russia.
Joe Biden is talking about Putin's Russia, not the Russian people, who are also collateral victims of Vladimir Putin's apparent madness.
The sound of the cannons has made people aware of the true nature of the man and his regime, which have long enjoyed certain leniency in Western capitals and public opinion. The argument of a Russia encircled by NATO, threatened by an enlargement of the European Union, even met with a certain echo at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, to the point of placing the responsibility for the conflict on the democracies that remained deaf to Moscow's security demands.
The responsibility of the Western world lies in its naivety and inaction for 20 years with Vladimir Putin
If there is a Western responsibility, it is rather on the side of the naivety, or even the blindness of a part of the political leaders that we must look for it. What has been known for a long time to those who have observed the evolution of Russia since the beginning of this century is now being discovered.
Western countries have indeed underestimated the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union on Russia by remaining indifferent to the dismemberment of the country after this collapse, by mafia people associated with the power structures inherited from the Soviet system, the “organs” according to the local vocabulary, where members of the KGB and the GRU (military intelligence), ex-communist apparachiks, and representatives of the military-industrial complex were mixed. This group has taken over the country's wealth, some of them have become rich oligarchs, all of them continue to plunder Russia.
The Putin who is propelled to power in 2000 is at that time a puppet in their hands, serving their interests. The Kagabean origins of the character, the quality of his sponsors should have already been a warning.
The nature of the regime that Vladimir Putin intended to impose was predictable from the start. The use of Chechen terrorists to justify the most extreme repressive methods, the wave of attacks against apartment buildings that killed more than 300 people, in which the FSB (heir to the KGB) was involved, and the bloody hostage-taking at the Beslan school that caused the death of 334 civilians, including 186 children, in September 2004, carried out by Chechens manipulated by the Kremlin, have all been forgotten. All this announced the future, with the obsession of revenge against the West accused of having provoked the fall of communism, a system from which this small group had taken advantage.
Despite common sense, and in the name of realpolitik, the Western world has continued to view Putin favorably
This past has not prevented Vladimir Putin from being looked upon favorably for a long time by certain Western leaders. His sense of order, his (partial) recovery of the economy, the solidarity he showed in the face of terrorism after September 11, the war in Chechnya against putative Islamists, all this was appreciated.
The former KGB officer gained presidential immunity under the golds of the Western palaces he frequented, and even some recognition when he was perceived, in Syria or elsewhere, as an ally in the fight against Islamism. After the chaos of the Yeltsin years, the Putinian order also found support among a part of the Russian population, reinforcing his image as a president, if not respectable, at least popular.
Then over the years, snags appeared. Murders of journalists, poisoning of opponents, arbitrary imprisonment, rigged trials, ballot box stuffing, cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns to influence elections in the West. Whatever the case, this Russia has continued to be spared in the name of a geostrategic balance that the States can live with, but which rarely benefits the populations concerned.
The nibbling of Georgia, the conquest of Crimea, the partition of the Donbas earned the Kremlin reprimands, even sanctions, but realpolitik quickly took over. The sidelining of 2014 did not prevent him from remaining a respected interlocutor, in France in particular with the meetings of Versailles in 2017 and Bregançon in 2019.
Vladimir Putin is applying today what he proposed to Poland in 2008 concerning Ukraine
The man has now become infrequent for having had the mistake of putting into practice the policy announced in 2008 by proposing to Poland a division of Ukraine. It is during these last twenty years that it was necessary to react, to prevent. His immunity has convinced him that democracies are powerless because they are weak, that the selfishness of the people is his best asset.
How many voices were raised when the freedoms conquered by the Russians after the fall of communism were suppressed little by little, from the condemnation to ten years in prison in 2003 of the oligarch Khodorkovsky who was militating for a democratic change with his foundation Open Russia, to the banning a few weeks before the invasion of Ukraine of the association Memorial, the indispensable NGO at the service of the truth on the Stalinist crimes?
History cannot be remade, but it is always after the fact that we become aware of the fatal spiral. The sleepwalkers of 1914 did not see the world conflict coming. The Putin of today is the same as the one of yesterday, with more assurance and arrogance, drawn from the dictatorial roots of his regime, inspired by the communism of which he was a fervent servant in the KGB, and from the laissez-faire attitude he has enjoyed for so long with the powerful people of this world.
The dialogue of the deaf which took place in the weeks preceding the invasion of Ukraine shows how much the nature of the character was misunderstood. The current war confirms a law of history that says that a power that oppresses its people is always a danger for its near abroad. For the moment, it is the Ukrainians who are paying the price. Their heroic resistance gives us hope that Putin's ambitions will stop there.
Some reading
How To Go From a Losing Bitcoin Trader to a Winning Bitcoin HODLer. 5 mistakes to fix to be on the side of those who take full advantage of Bitcoin.
They Didn’t Think These Technologies Would Disrupt the World, but They Did, As Bitcoin Will. Bitcoin will eventually catch on with most people too.