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FACTS Post opinions with a wide range of perspectives to encourage constructive discussion.
Comment from Dimitrin Vichev, Co-Chair of the Atlantic Council of Bulgaria
In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin has always used bandit methods. He learned from the street gangs in his native Leningrad and from the KGB school.
His goal today is the same as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s fixed idea: to force the US president to start talks with him. Which would mean recognizing it as equal or at least significant enough.
Kim’s tactics appear to have worked with the former US president. Donald Trump met with the communist general secretary, spoke with him and even exchanged kind letters. But Trump also quickly realized that Kim was an Asian neighborhood mobster who wanted to keep his neighbors in fear and had no serious intention of stopping nuclear tests and ballistic missile tests. He is simply trying to blindfold the United States to lift sanctions against his regime.
Eurasian leader Vladimir Putin is now dating a similar number, albeit at a higher level. It is amassing troops, brandishing weapons across Ukraine and threatening another escalation of hostilities. Both he and his service are aware that the United States and President Biden will not sleep during this show of force and will remain silent in the event of direct Russian aggression.
The Kremlin is likely confident that the United States will not send military instructors and modern weapons in support of Ukraine. Moscow’s “strategists” can expect the United States to remain passive and not have a direct confrontation with US troops on Ukrainian soil.
Similar calculations were made three years ago in Syria, but unexpectedly for Moscow, more than 200 fighters of the “private” Russian army “Wagner” were cremated in just a few hours in the area of the city of Deir az-Zor.
In an effort to keep NATO out of potential areas of military conflict with Ukraine, the Kremlin blew up a few days ago, sending dozens of Russian fighter jets and bombers near Allied maritime borders. From the north to the southeast of Europe. Russian fighter jets have made pirate flights with transponders turned off so as not to reveal the coordinates and direction of their flight.
Violators of international aviation rules were quickly intercepted by dozens of NATO fighters over the North, Baltic and Black Seas, after which they were forced to return to their air bases. NATO commanders say they are satisfied with the training of air defense forces and service fighters. Interception and preparation to shoot a real enemy are the best preparation for the calculations of pilots and anti-aircraft missiles.
Parallel to these provocations, concerned by Biden’s promise of new sanctions against the Kremlin for its interference in the US elections, dozens of left and far-right organizations have already been activated in America and Europe. His short-term task is to pressure President Biden to soften his tone on Putin. This financially stimulated “public opinion” is trying to instill fear of a military showdown with Russia.
The Kremlin thugs know very well that the people of the West do not want a war and that they will demand that their leaders negotiate with Putin.
That is exactly the goal of the Kremlin.
For only then can Putin show the Russian people how great and wise a leader is, and how the Americans fear the powerful and “invincible” Russian army. Thus, the Kremlin will be able to continue to deceive Russian citizens that their difficult lives are not due to the theft of Russian oligarchs and corrupt officials, but so that Russia can be recognized by the United States and the rest of the world as a great energy.
Still, if Putin could persuade Biden to speak, what would he ask of the American president?
Certainly many things, hoping to get a little of everything or at least one, but for longer. And like any mobster in the neighborhood, he wants it now and immediately.
Putin would probably ask Biden:
First, the sanctions against his regime must be lifted.
Second, the United States and the West to accept the annexation of Crimea.
Third, the United States, the West and the whole world to forget about human rights in Russia, to stop measuring the Russian state with the strict standards of Western civilization and universal democratic human principles and values.
Fourth, the United States should abandon its decision to block the commissioning of Russia’s Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream gas pipelines, which would significantly reduce the entry of billions of euros into the reduced Kremlin budget.
Fifth, for the United States to accept that Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova are part of Russia’s sphere of interests, a courtyard of Putin’s semi-empire, and that they will remain forever under the care and “protection” of Moscow. And they shouldn’t even think about running for and joining NATO and the EU.
Vladimir Putin may seek guarantees for the inviolability of the assets of the Russian oligarchs and the inner circle of the Kremlin dictator, hidden in offshore and western banks. These assets, along with other funds stolen from the Russian people, according to various media observers, are approaching the unimaginable amount of 2/2 trillion dollars.
Our money or your life! “It will probably be the hidden threat, in the form of an option that the KGB lieutenant colonel will offer to the American president. It is no coincidence that Putin wished Biden good health after learning that the US president had answered “yes” to a journalist’s question about whether he considered Putin a murderer.
In exchange for the opportunity to continue looting his population and securing obedient neighbors, Putin is likely to promise that he and the Kremlin junta will guarantee “peace and friendship between the nations.”
It can even give an “honest word” to comply with the Minsk accords and even give Ukraine back the occupied part of Donbass and control of its border with Russia. But, of course, on the condition that Ukraine grant autonomy to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. This will start a myriad of clarifications, reproaches, attacks, designated and postponed expert group meetings, etc. etc.
Putin is playing “in the bank”. Like any card player, shaking with greed and loss of composure.
But Joe Biden has long known the Kremlin’s organized crime techniques quite well. And you will hardly succumb to blackmail. There can be no question of concessions, because that would mean recognizing the victory of authoritarianism over liberal democracy, which is the foundation and construction of modern Western society and state.
Communist China, on the other hand, is closely monitoring the situation in relations between Moscow and Washington. If the United States gives way to the Kremlin, nothing good awaits the Uighurs, the Tibetan Chinese or the citizens of Hong Kong. China’s neighbors are the most threatened by its growing power and appetite. Taiwan, Japan and South Korea will also have good reason to be concerned about their national security. These are countries that are proven allies of the United States and cannot risk following the fate of Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova.
I hope and hope that the passions of the Moscow Chekists will soon cool down. A telephone conversation between Putin and Biden may take place this year. But a face-to-face meeting and agreements for a bright future, given Russia’s current brazen and aggressive behavior toward the West, is unlikely to take place anytime soon.
Meanwhile, NATO allies have begun preparations for large-scale military exercises from the Baltic to the Black Sea, to be carried out by air, land and sea over the next three months in the territory of 14 allies. Maneuvers in which more than 28,000 troops from 26 countries participated, equipped with state-of-the-art weapons, equipment and vehicles. Exercises that will be an unequivocal signal to the commanders of the “indestructible and legendary” Russian army about the capabilities, strength, coordination and mobility of the Alliance troops.
The courage of the neighborhood bandit is only great when he launches into battle against small, lonely and much more modest rivals. But when he sees the steadfast determination of people united and opposed, his courage quickly evaporates and he hides in his lair.
The Kremlin mobster must do the same. It is time to be taught a collective and memorable lesson, and to hide somewhere deeper in their bunkers in Moscow or the Urals. Because it seems more and more likely that one day or one night, his close associates will treat him as did his “loyal” allies with Stalin in 1953. At least that is what connoisseurs of the history and secrets of the Kremlin and customs of its claim the inhabitants.
I hope that the leaders of the civilized world will remember very well the past mistakes of their predecessors and that they will not commit them again. They should have learned very well the lesson that fruitful peace talks with the Kremlin can only be carried out from a position of strength. And that they should never have unreserved confidence in the words and promises of the Russian leaders. I hope they never forget the words of the late 19th century great German Chancellor Bismarck that “no treaty with Russia is worth even the paper it is written on.”
Russia
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