Putin in trouble, but that’s why his war on the democratic order is set to continue
Russia, the only nation in the world for which the word " children " indicates a military target, risks losing the war it waged against Ukraine less than a month ago. This is indicated not only by the overt stalemate of his troops on the various directions of the attack but above all by the sudden change in the narrative regarding the objectives of the invasion by Moscow diplomacy and pro-Russian Western commentators. Now that the advance of Gerasimov's army is not proceeding according to plan, attempts are being made to pass the idea that Putin would still be achieving his objectives, namely Ukrainian " neutrality " and the consolidation of positions in the disputed territories (Donbass and Crimea). In a nutshell, if reality does not correspond to the intentions of the eve, the intentions are modified a posteriori to pass as a victory what is turning out to be an unexpected tactical retreat. Why not, Putin did not invade Ukraine to obtain " neutrality ", nor simply to keep Donbass and Crimea (which he already had). According to Putin's doctrine, widely spelled out in pre- and post-invasion essays and speeches, Ukraine was a non-state that had to be " denazified ", that is to say politically beheaded and Russified.
But something went wrong. What promised to be a triumphal march towards Kiev got mired in a series of obstacles of a war, logistical and psychological nature: the Ukrainian resistance and the compactness of the Western reaction were underestimated, the chain of command suffered heavy losses, the Technological obsolescence of the means, organizational problems and even the lack of food have weakened the morale of the troops, the alleged air supremacy was effectively countered thanks also to the anti-aircraft systems provided by the allies. Ultimately, the anticipated blitzkrieg turned into an old-fashioned war of attrition within days. The journalist and historian Marina Valensise observes that Putin, before the truth, has a big problem with reality, which is the weak point of all the autocrats surrounded by a circle of loyalists who do not dare to contradict them, ending up indulging their delusions of omnipotence. Hence the misunderstanding about the " special military operation " on the Syrian and Georgian model, which soon became an open war in which an attacked people decided to fight first for survival, then for freedom, and finally for sovereignty and national identity. .
However, it would be naive to think that Putin is only looking for an honorable way out, to sell it at home and retire to private life. If today Moscow appears willing to give in on some of the initial objectives it is only to buy time, reorganize and start again. A peace at all costs, a halved victory or a half defeat will not be enough to avert the danger that will come. Among the nations most aware of the historical challenge that Russia has launched to Western civilization, of which Kiev is today the outpost, is Poland. In a recent article , ISPI researcher Matteo Pugliese underlined the activism of Warsaw aimed at inducing NATO partners to take on direct responsibilities in the defense of the attacked country. The Poles are arming themselves, the defense budget has been raised to 3 per cent of GDP, and they are convinced that not just any peace but only a victory for Ukraine will be able to hinder Russian expansionary ambitions. To put it simply, they know history, because they suffered it on their own flesh. They know that de-escalation , especially when the enemy is in trouble, is a fatal mistake. The dictator on duty will interpret it as an implicit authorization to up the ante, if not today because he cannot, tomorrow when conditions permit. But today Putin is alone in his attack on the West, tomorrow it may not be.
We must return to ideology to understand the nature of the threat and the need to face it. Denazification is probably the most colossal lie ever released from Russian territory after the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Where does such an insane propaganda campaign come from that it attracts numerous proselytes even in the West? From the very core of Russian nationalism, revived by Putinism after the humiliation of the fall of the Soviet Union. The idea is simple and chilling in its linearity: Russia, in the extended version of Stalinism, defeated the former Nazi ally (this detail is obviously omitted in the official narrative) in 1945 at the end of the Great Patriotic War . The rhetoric around that certainly central event in European history has been abundantly fueled in recent years by Putin's regime: now we understand that it was not a mere sentimental question but a real political program.
In the revisionist conception of the Kremlin, anyone who opposes Russia is automatically classified as a Nazi, because no one who is not could fail to recognize the historical debt that – according to this view – the world has never adequately repaid. Today it is Ukraine's turn, but the plan is expansive: Russia is the common home of free and equal, outside there is Nazism. This is enough to remove all legitimacy from anyone who is considered a potential adversary, nations, governments, cultures, ways of thinking, alliances that do not have Moscow at the center. Hence the identification of Russification and Denazification . No one is safe, the next Nazi could be any of us, any person, group or entity who opposes the doctrine of manifest destiny embodied by Russia and its leader.
The evidence is there for all to see. From 2008 onwards, war has knocked on Europe's doors three times and the threat has come three times from Moscow (Georgia, Crimea / Donbass, Ukraine). But we can backdate the beginning of Russian neo-imperialism to the assault on Grozny (1999), repeated today in Mariupol, of which at the end of the conflict only the skeleton of a martyr city will remain, without forgetting the general rehearsals of " special operation " carried to an end with the destruction of Syria. Putin's war does not begin on February 24, 2022 but in August 1999 with the air campaign against Chechnya. If Putin is not Hitler, he acts in a similar way, testing the ground, exploiting the weaknesses of those who could stop him and does not, each time extending the limits of his conquest: in 23 years – while Europe was signing contracts and the United States looked to the Pacific – Russia went from a regional war against a territory of one million to a continental one against a nation of 45 million.
To understand why Putin cannot simply back down, contenting himself with some territorial conquest (regardless of the outcome of the current campaign and the negotiations that will follow), it is convenient to pause for a moment on the lesson of Guglielmo Ferrero. In his essays on the nature of power ( "Power, The Two French Revolutions" ) the Italian historian analyzed the relationship between rulers and ruled under the lens of mutual fear. The more a government considers its legitimacy precarious, the more it tends to intensify repressive measures to prevent popular uprisings. At the same time, the population fears the constituted power from which they expect precisely the violent spiral that the state, in its authoritarian version, promises. In this balance of terror the political destiny of a nation is at stake, in this case of several nations, Russia and the neighbors object of its neo-imperial ambitions.
The Putin system can only survive if the dose of fear it is capable of instilling internally and externally grows progressively. It is the famous escalation that some still believe they can appease with a de-escalation of equal and opposite intensity, without understanding that any failure will be interpreted as a prodromal to surrender. The nuclear threat was not dusted off by accident. For this reason, the Ukrainian resistance represents not only the legitimate and necessary defense of an attacked people but the only possible response to the state terror that Russia is trying to export. The survival of Putinism is, at this point, incompatible both with that of Ukraine as a sovereign nation and of international law and order as conceived after the Second World War and the anti-totalitarian revolutions of 1989.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/putin-in-difficolta-ma-la-sua-guerra-allordine-democratico-e-destinata-a-continuare/ on Mon, 21 Mar 2022 03:49:00 +0000.