Putin the Great

For many years now I have felt a weakness and intellectual curiosity for the Russian soul. Finding a people so sentimental and violent at the same time is a difficult task. Before, the Tsar was its highest emblem and the quintessential expression of power. From Ivan the Terrible to the last empress of Russia, Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt – through the last of the tsars, Nicholas II, and of course Comrade Yosef Stalin – Mother Russia had always been synonymous with strength and dominance. It is curious that, despite the great affection he had for the territory he governed, Stalin only once classified his people as “brothers and sisters”. On that occasion – which was 10 days after Adolf Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union – the Russian leader had to inform the nation that they had entered the war against Germany.

Not since Stalin has Russia had a leader so determined and confident in his actions. Until a man of medium height and unique wit arrived. A man who on November 9, 1989 was burning papers in the KGB offices in Berlin. While the Wall was falling – and with it, the communist world was dying – that day Colonel Vladimir Putin was erasing all traces of what had been his last job as a KGB officer. Putin, the unknown man who came to Leningrad to make Saint Petersburg a modern city, was the one who – without anyone knowing very well how or why – in the midst of Boris Yeltsin’s drunken drunken daydreams, managed to become in the chairman of the Council of Ministers of post-communist Russia. But beyond that, he achieved something even more important, which was to become the link that would unite the past and the future through Russian power. At this moment, and from my point of view, Vladimir Putin is the most complex ruler that exists on planet Earth. He belongs to and is the son of an empire that has fallen and failed on several occasions. A nation that, despite having the largest land area in the world, demography is still a pending issue. Year after year, the confidence of the Russians is diminishing, with each passing day – and despite the enormous patriotic campaigns that its own president embodies – there are fewer Russian men and women willing to have children. It would be enough for Putin to have 200 or 300 million more inhabitants to match the size of his territory, his ambitions, the power of his weapons and, above all, the brilliance of his plays. Seeing him gathered with more than 100 Western journalists answering all kinds of questions is a sight that inevitably leads one to question whether another world leader is capable of such a feat. But, in addition – since memory in the times of Twitter and Instagram is so fast and burns everything so instantly – we cannot leave aside a fact that makes the current Russian president even greater. In this instantaneous world, we have forgotten that Putin the Great was also a decisive part of Donald Trump’s victory. We have forgotten that the 2016 election made – from his grave – Yosef Stalin full of pride. We have forgotten that never before has any Russian or Soviet ruler managed to penetrate as much as Vladimir Putin penetrated into the heart, soul and – I don’t know how much – into the brain of the figure of the American president. That same Putin is the one who at his annual press conference, held last December, naturally explained that the problem is not whether he is going to invade Ukraine or not – that in fact that is of very little importance – the most important thing is security of Russia, first and foremost. And so that there is no room for doubt about the speech he is considering, he once again highlights the fact that he is not the one who is placing missiles on the border between Mexico and the United States, nor on the border between Canada and the United States. He repeats that it is NATO that – regardless of the talks – continues to place missiles 300 kilometers from Moscow and that is something that Russia will not allow. Therefore, the question is not whether or not Russia will invade Ukraine, the question is, what does Russia need to feel safe? For those who do not want to understand, it is clear. We will continue to discuss diplomatic talks that can lead nowhere and everyone – starting with old Dr. Kissinger – knows that the limit of NATO has always been in Ukraine. So that there is no confusion about the years that Ukraine has been independent, Putin recalled that, in fact, Ukraine is an invention of Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov –or better known as Lenin–, who in 1922 brought about the birth of the country and who in 1924 it had its first Constitution. Then –because of the fact that history counts for everything and everyone–, on Crimea, Putin recalled that in this regard it is not a problem that only affects Russia. And he asked if in North America we still remember when the United States stole California or Texas from Mexico. Clearly –I continue arguing– that had been forgotten, just as the Crimea issue should be forgotten, a territory that, after all, had always belonged to Russia. It must be understood that when Vladimir Putin repeatedly insists that the missiles not be placed 300 kilometers from his house, the only thing he is doing is recalling what is now public and what was secret for many years, which was the commitment of NATO and the United States with Russia – then the Soviet Union – about not increasing the Western presence in the East by one millimeter. In exchange, the Soviet Union had to accept German unification. The USSR accepted and complied with what was agreed upon; however, now – after years of what happened – it is as if NATO had a kind of amnesia and wanted to forget about the commitment it had made. What does one do with a ruler like Vladimir Putin? With someone who, believe me, does not care what may happen in the next election, since his sense of democracy is inferior to his sense of the Russian state. And it is that Putin is someone who has never been characterized as someone respectful of democratic rules. He works and fights for a higher goal: the greatness of his nation, of his Russia. We are facing a ruler who, moreover – as if bathing bare-chested in cold waters when the year changes to prove to his people that he is still a man worthy of ruling them was not enough – has something in his power that makes him invincible. . This is called the cold, fear and energy dependence of Europe. The Spanish will never forget this year that has just ended, in which electricity has cost them more than in their entire lives. Europe will not forget what the cost of energy means. The cold, the development, the tranquility and the industrial capacity of Europe are in the hands of the same man who insists that NATO and its members remove the missiles from wherever they are. If there is something for which the world should be grateful, it is that Putin does not have the number of inhabitants that the great Soviet leaders who preceded him had in charge of, since, if they had, their yoke would be stronger than the one that we have. It may be that with his missiles and nuclear weapons Putin will not be able to destroy Europe. However, what it can do is kill it with cold, this being its most powerful weapon, since, if used, it would not only cause massive industrial unemployment, but it could also turn the very civilized Europeans against their governments. Why go looking for a fight at the gates of an enemy who – beyond being able to use his nuclear weapons – can kill us little by little from cold and hunger? In the face of this whole situation, for me there is only one consolation, which is that the more Putin advances in power, the more serious China’s concern towards Putin becomes. There are very difficult things to do; the one that for me is most impossible is to achieve a true alliance, beyond the conjuncture, between the Kremlin and Tiananmen Square. In the midst of all this, standing on the edge of the precipice or watching the long nights that lead to the hell of history, the question that must be asked is whether Joe Biden – a man forged and made in the age of spies and the Cold War , and at a time when power was not based on technology, but on nuclear warheads – he understands exactly the problem he is facing. If Biden has the historical sense that is necessary, then it is clear that there is going to be an agreement, not on Ukraine, but on the minimum number of kilometers for the placement of the missiles. If it does not manage to have said agreement, the catastrophe is served. I don’t know if there will be a war – I doubt that NATO will follow the United States in this – but what I am sure of is that there may be an invasion of Ukraine.
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