- By Andrei Piontkovsky
- Jun. 01 2014
Three months after protesters toppled Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych and his government, unleashing a wave of unrest and chaos,
the country has elected a new president. But President Vladimir Putin,
who deployed troops to annex Crimea at his earliest opportunity, remains
the key figure shaping Ukraine's future — and he is continuing
to propel Ukraine toward something far more dangerous than a new Cold
War.
By placing himself firmly in the driver's seat of Russia's future,
Putin has simplified the task of those who seek to understand
the country.
In fact, his actions are guided by a single goal, and it is not
the imperial ambition that is usually thought to determine Putin's
actions. Instead, every policy is subordinate to Putin's goal of ruling
Russia for as long as he lives.
Putin's ambition is not the result of a pathological lust for power.
Instead, it is based on entirely realistic concerns for his personal
safety. He understands the laws of the autocratic system that he has
helped to rebuild in Russia — a system in which leaders may, like
Libya's Colonel Muammar Qaddafi or Iraq's Saddam Hussein, ultimately
find themselves punished if their power fails them.
Viewed from this perspective, Putin's strategy in Ukraine has been consistent and logical at every stage.
In the protests in Kiev's Maidan Square, he saw the prospect
of Ukraine transcending the corrupt post-communist authoritarianism that
his own regime embodies. Ukraine's move toward a European model
of economic and political competition, Putin feared, would spur similar
demands in Russia.
In order to prevent such an outcome, Ukraine's revolution against
Yanukovych, the monumentally corrupt Kremlin puppet, had to be strangled
in its cradle and discredited in the eyes of the Russian people. These
goals were evident in the speech that Putin delivered to Russia's
political elites in March, following the annexation of Crimea.
But Putin's actions in Ukraine have done more than humble Russia's
democrats. By focusing on the ethnic Russian majority in Crimea
and declaring his right to "protect" ethnic Russians abroad, his
legitimating myth now includes the role of national savior, which could
enable him to retain power indefinitely.
Of course, Putin's rise to power was buttressed by another myth —
that of a vigorous young KGB officer capable of stopping the Russian
Federation's disintegration by "drowning" the Chechens in "an outhouse,"
stabilizing the economy, and using the country's vast natural-resource
wealth to enhance prosperity. But that myth has now worn thin.
Putin has observed firsthand what happens when a ruling myth
collapses. The Soviet Union was sustained in part by the population's
confidence that communism was the best route to a just society. When
the myth disintegrated, so did the union.
From the outset of his rule in 2000, Putin has been determined not
to make the same mistake. With the help of Russia's media, he hopes
to recast himself as the Russian messiah, compelling ethnic kin
everywhere to support his leadership in perpetuity.
And, judging by the widespread support Crimea's annexation has met with in Russia, Putin's plan seems to be working so far.
Andrei Piontkovsky is a Russian political scientist and a
visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. © Project
Syndicate. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/putin-fears-democracy-in-ukraine/501240.html
[sidebar: President Vladimir Putin and former President Medvedev FEAR that this Cabal THAT destroyed the United States of America can continue going in the horror that we know this criminally insane human filth is responsible for, for no less than a hundred years and more. According to the HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD, they are proud to be vampires for centuries ... RUSSIA ISN'T O.K. with the Clintons and neither are Americans. We can and must grow up and arrest our criminally insane or we are the same as them.
Stupid WEST thought the EAST was ready for this!
In a word, NEVER. In two words: NEVER SURRENDER.
President Vladimir isn't stupid like the so called "New World Order Ken & Barbie".
We were duped, big time. Time to arrest the CRIMINAL FRAUD, before we have no planet to enjoy as home for all Homo Sapiens' and not just the criminally incurably insane.]
American BULLIES IN POWER fear the Americans' learning how lost the country is, because of CRIMINALLY INSANE NATO-NAZI 'MERICA EU IS RA HELL & SAUDI KINGDOM FOREVER NEVER COME
ReplyDeleteCriminally Insane have no boundaries this we can absolutely BANK ON.
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