IT speaks a lot to the brutal, medieval, sadistic reputation of Wladimir Putin that anyone would even think it possible, let alone probable, that he had, blinded by the noise, poisoned “one of his own.”
Evidence suggests that his crooks — either on his orders or vaguely “in collaboration with Putin” — administered a typical FSB dose of something highly toxic to Roman Abramovich and, of course, a team of Ukrainian peace negotiators.
It’s hardly new. Under Russian President Putin and his dictatorial predecessors, the Bolsheviks and Tsarists, assassination has long been a policy tool. He is an avid student of such past leaders, striving to emulate their crimes and glory. He’s a Russian imperialist who would be at home in the 20th or 19th century and just as unconcerned about the lives of others.
New investigations suggest that the murder of Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead near the Kremlin in 2015, was in fact a Kremlin-ordered assassination. It was no coincidence that the Russian state took no chances on this occasion and reached for its old trusty friend, the bullet, because Nemtsov was the most dangerous political adversary Putin has ever faced.
We know all about the attempted assassination and poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the closest Russia has come to being an opposition leader, and who has now faced false accusations. Journalists like Anna Politkovskaya from the Novaya Gazeta (a brother publication of Britain’s Independent newspaper) were particularly targeted, as were dissidents and émigrés, including the Skirpals in Salisbury, southern England, and Alexander Litvinenko and many others.
Less prominent and celebrated figures have been beaten up, imprisoned, disappeared and murdered by the Putin government. It’s becoming more and more like the worst, most barbaric habits of the Soviet Union. It’s no wonder its former satellites and Soviet republics, including Ukraine, are dying to join “the West” — NATO and the EU.
It’s all part of the Stalinization of modern Russia. rule by terror; suppression of dissent; the dissolution of enemies of the autocrat, no matter how prominent or affectionate they were once viewed. If the suspicion is correct, Abramovich is in some ways like a modern-day Trotsky: he got off relatively lightly, with potentially life-altering injuries, rather than an ice pick in his skull.
It’s a dark moment, but also one that calls for optimism. The dream is that the series of military and economic disasters that Putin inflicts on his people will turn them, and perhaps the army and sections of the Kremlin elite, against Putin.
Soon there will be few markets for Russian goods, no Western investment, and no cultural or sporting ties. Not to mention no McDonalds. Russia is reduced to a vassal state of China. Maybe there’ll be a palace coup, maybe a popular uprising, maybe a mutiny or two among the confused conscripts.
Eventually the dam will burst and the terrible truth about Putin, his lies, his failures, his atrocities and his corruption will be exposed and there will be another Russian revolution. Then the stalled process of Russia’s re-entry into the international community will begin again, and freedom and prosperity will follow.
The mistakes of the past can be repaired, and this time the West must support Russia better than it did in the years following the end of the USSR in 1991. No one in the West has ever had a grievance with Russia, the people of Russia who made so many sacrifices in the real fight against the Nazis some 80 years ago.
Aside from Putin, who must have secretly despised them, he seems to care so little about their lives and the happiness of his countrymen. One day he will be gone, and it may be sooner than he thinks. US President Joe Biden was right – he cannot be in power. Someone might even poison him…
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/putin-the-poisoner-is-an-imperialist-more-at-home-in-the-19th-century-than-this-one-41501204.html Putin the poisoner is an imperialist more at home in the 19th century than this one
