As a former KGB agent stationed in the GDR, Russian President Vladimir Putin is fluent in German. On September 25, 2001 he made a speech in the Bundestag — in German. He said in Berlin that the Cold War was over, that Russians and Germans were to open a new page in the history of their bilateral relations, that they were about to make a common effort to build the “European House”.
Even after the second wave of NATO enlargement in Eastern Europe in 2004, Vladimir Putin said that it was a good thing that each country could freely chose the alliance of their preference. Upon a reporter’s question, he said why shouldn’t Russia become a NATO member?
This was a long time ago. In 1999 already, when Putin was leading the KGB successor agency FSB, apartments bombings in Moscow and other cities rocked Russia. Chechen terrorists were blamed and convicted. People trying to investigate the incidents were killed. Rumours persist that Putin and the FSB had a hand in this. Anyway, already in 2000, early Putin biographies (German article) mentioned Putin’s brutal war in Chechnya after the Moscow terror attacks which helped Putin gain popularity and become president.
As president, Putin made sure the state regained control of the oil and gas sector which, even today, accounts for 50% of Russia’s budget. Under President Yeltsin, the state had no longer been able to pay state employees and pensioners in time. Poverty had become a huge problem. Yeltsin — often drunk — was unable to run the country. He only got reelected thanks to massive help from the West.
Putin’s rule quickly evolved into an autocratic regime, in German described as “Demokratur”: a mix of democracy and dictatorship. In recent years, Putin’s grip on power became stronger and stronger. Today, he fully controls the state mass media as well as indirectly oligarch owned private TV stations and other mass media. There is almost no free press and no free speech left in Russia. In addition, Putin largely destroyed civil society. The latest and most important blow was the dismantling of human rights organisation Memorial. There is no independent justice system and no rule of law in Russia.
After months of propaganda against the “Nazi regime” in Kyiv, Putin attacked Ukraine. To me, this invasion came as a surprise because this is a war Putin cannot win: dominate roughly 40 million Ukrainians on 600,000 km2 — almost twice the size of Germany — with 130,000 to 160,000 soldiers. This could end in a huge massacre. Even if Russia should be able to conquer all major cities, all strategic facilities, many Ukrainians will not give up. A partisan war comparable to the one in Afghanistan could follow.
In a speech on February 25, 2022 Putin said: “Do not allow neo-Nazis and Banderites to use your children, your wives and the elderly as a human shield. Take power into your own hands. It seems that it will be easier for us to come to an agreement than with this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.”
This propaganda is so far from reality that even Putin cheerleaders must realize that their leader has lost touch with reality. Stalin’s comrads, secret service and military leaders did not dare to tell the dictator the truth anymore. They risked their lives. It is probably not that bad in Putin’s Russia (yet), but you risk to lose your job and/or end up in prison. Up to which point does Putin believe his own propaganda? It looks as if he had thought that Russian troops would be welcomed by Ukrainians as “liberators”. He has not visited Ukraine in many years and has no understanding of what has happened in the country in the past 30 years. Even most “ethnic” and/or Russian speaking Ukrainians have been alienated by Putin. I met several of them during my travels to Lviv and Odessa from 2014 to 2022 who told me that they had started learning Ukrainian.
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Putin’s war in Ukraine has huge implications for the European Union. One could be that France should “europeanize” their nuclear weapons. But they are clearly not ready for that yet. With Joe Biden, the nucelar umbrella is still protecting NATO allies. But what if Trump should manage a comeback? Hypocrisy everywhere.
Germany abandoned the conscription aka the draft (allgemeine Wehrpflicht) years ago under the largely overrated chancellor Merkel. Not only are there not enough soldiers left but, in the longer run, the army could become a state within the state again as in the Weimar Republic. Anyhow, the draft is a way to have Germans of all walks of life come together. The German army has become a joke: planes cannot fly or have/had to return to their original destination because of problems — sometimes with the chancellor or ministers on board; ammunition, winter clothes, backpacks are missing; there are not enough tanks; too many helicopters are not ready to fly, etc.
In the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for the guarantee of its territorial integrity by Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Until 1994, Ukraine was the world’s third largest nuclear power. Putin would not have attacked a country with nuclear weapons.
Merkel’s CDU/CSU, the Social Democrats and the Greens have lived in a fairy-tale world for years. Chancellor Scholz and his Ampel coalition were forced to adapt to reality. Let’s hope it is not too late.
Among the sanctions against Russia, let’s mention the ones aimed at the Central Bank. Russia has over $600 billion in foreign currencies, but obviously not in cash. Over $400 billion are said to be as demand deposits parked abroad. Russia has lost control over that money.
Western companies such as Exxon Mobile, Apple and Nike are leaving Russia or are temporarily suspending sales in Putin’s dictatorship. The Russian rouble and Russian stocks are in free fall, Russian inflation is rising. Ordinary Russians have already seen their standard of living decline in recent years. This is getting now much worse.
On February 27, 2022 Putin put his military’s nuclear deterrent forces on high alert after what he called “aggressive statements” by the West. This is not the first time the dictator more or less openly reminded the world of the fact that Russia is a nuclear power. Is the self-delusional madman ready for total destruction?
Some oligarchs turned against Putin’s war: Mikhail Fridman, Oleg Deripaska, Anatoly Chubais and Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard. But it is not clear whether they just wanted to save their assets abroad or whether their dissent is genuine. And even if it’s genuine, do they have an impact? Vladimir Putin is a president turned historian who is living in an alternative reality. In the USA, a few Republicans in key positions used their brains and stopped Trump from overturning a free and fair election. Is their anybody left in or around the Kremlin to stop Russia’s dictator?
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Photograph of Vladimir Putin in 2018. Президент России Владимир Путин во время интервью журналисту американского телеканала NBC Мегин Келли. Photo copyright: www.kremlin.ru (found via Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons).
Article added on March 2, 2022 at 17:27 German time. November 23, 2022 a few typing errors as well as the sentence about the “German army” corrected and that sentence enlarged.
