On the eve of the Bucharest meeting of the leaders of NATO's eastern flank, Putin has come out with yet more ruminations on history and fantasies about his place in today's world. To call a spade a spade, he openly threatens Latvia, the Baltics and the whole world.
Meeting with "young businessmen, engineers and scientists", Putin declared that "almost nothing has changed" since the time of Tsar Peter the Great. It turns out that during the Great Northern War, the Russian Tsar took nothing away from the Swedes. He just took back what once already supposedly belonged to Russia. As if in response to today's possible accusations, Putin said his internal dialogue aloud: "Why did he go there? He took back and secured - that’s what he did. By all accounts, fate has granted this for us too - to take back and secure."
Putin's nervous, mocking laugh as he utters these words suggests an incurable resentment that he is ready to avenge. Namely, to take back everything that once belonged to the Russian Empire and later to the USSR. Speaking as if about history, about the time of Peter the Great, he names Narva and “further west”.
Putin is one of those politicians who never indulges in unscripted words. All his “witticisms” and seemingly accidental utterances are carefully thought out in advance for a specific purpose. Nor does he name Narva by accident. Narva is a kind of symbolic city, meaning nothing to the West, known in political circles by the phrase of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, Newt Gingrich: how many American soldiers would be willing to die for Narva?
Given that in his mind Putin has been in constant dialogue with US Presidents for decades, this is a phrase addressed directly to Joe Biden: don't be a fool. Let's not start a world war over Narva. It means nothing to you, but Tsar Peter gave it to us three hundred years ago. When the USA didn't even exist.
Putin appeals to Biden's "common sense" and calls for an agreement on the distribution of spheres of influence. In old Europe, he is being "understood" more and more, and there the gradual preparations to surrender to Putin (shamefully disguised under the labels of compromise-seeking and peace-planning) have already begun. There is little hope that this new threat from Putin will change anything in the minds of Western European politicians. The position of Old Europe (Germany, France, Italy) is becoming increasingly clear. The war must end. The sooner the better, and we must start negotiations that can drag on as long as necessary, while bargaining with Putin on the terms of peace (truce). Note, not with Ukraine, but with Russia.
The well-known economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, in his article "The West are debating: would giving Putin part of Ukraine be anything like the Munich deal?" points out that the West's increasing willingness to "make up" with Putin is driven not so much by fear of an impending economic crisis or possible nuclear war, but by the enormous discomfort that the current political system feels with the unusual situation in which it is forced to operate. That is to say, the constant and brazen violation of all the principles of international law. The continued existence, even at a regional level, of the doctrine of a “world without rules” threatens a complete breakdown of the existing world order, which cannot but dismay those who consider themselves responsible for the fate of the “free world”. The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the more international justice, law and order are devalued. The UN and other international institutions are becoming woefully impotent (it seems). Hence the desperate desire to return to the situation "before the war" and to restore the "good old order".
Western European politicians can be understood. For example, the new German government that succeeded the long-standing Merkel era came with a very different agenda. Its main task was to prevent climate change in 50 years' time, but now, suddenly, it has to deal not with the distant future, but with today's problems. Of course, this is troublesome and unpleasant. Macron won the elections by promising to curb inflation, but how can he do that if the “conflict in Ukraine” continues? That is why they are prepared to do a lot just to persuade Ukraine [to stop resisting]. It has long been clear to them that they cannot persuade Putin, which is why, in his talks with Putin, Macron is trying to get a feel for how many concessions Ukraine needs to make to satisfy Putin.
Unfortunately, every conversation with Macron or Scholz reinforces Putin's belief in the correctness of his tactics. In a conversation with the “youth”, Putin, talking about Peter the Great and the recovered lands, openly mocked these “soft” Scholzmacrons of “Gayrope”. His already pathological megalomania is growing. It cannot be overlooked, and all observers note the good shape of the Russian dictator. Both physical and psychological.
Political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky was not short of profanity: "Compare that pathetic, shriveled mushroom under the blanket at the May 9 parade and that triumphant snake today, threatening the whole world: let's take it back and secure it. This is the result of all those Macrons, Scholzes, Kissingers having inflated this Russian toad through a straw in a month, saving his behind. What we need is a Gaddafi crowbar, not a straw."
The aforementioned Inozemtsev answers the question posed in the title of his article - would giving the Ukrainian lands to Putin be a new Munich - "No, it would be much worse and more shameful." Due to the limited size of the article, we will not discuss the convincing reasoning behind this answer. All the more so because the fate of Europe, including Latvia, does not now depend on either Scholz or Macron. As long as other countries, led by the US, the UK and Poland, are ready to help Ukraine, as long as NATO is ready to strengthen its eastern wing, Putin's rhetoric on taking back land begins and ends only with nervous giggling. Nothing more.
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