A comment from Mathieu von Rohr
February 18, 2024
Putin presents himself as the master of life and death, in Russia and Ukraine. A world in which he prevails would no longer be the world we know. The Europeans are now faced with a historic decision.
Over the course of his rule, Vladimir Putin has, above all, perfected killing: killing political opponents and “traitors” in his own country. And the killing of Ukrainians who have to die for his imperialist war of aggression on the neighboring country.
At the end of the week, of all things, during the Munich Security Conference, where Western politicians wanted to discuss their strategy, everything that made up Putin’s reign of terror came together.
First, on Friday, Alexei Navalny, the only serious Russian opposition politician, died mysteriously in a Siberian penal colony.
Whatever the medical cause of his death, it is already clear: he was, one way or another, murdered by Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Secondly, on Saturday, the Ukrainian army had to surrender the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine to the Russian attackers, who captured it with huge losses. The Ukrainians could no longer hold the city because after the Republicans blocked aid to Ukraine in the US Congress, Western ammunition deliveries stopped.
At the same time, the Munich Security Conference took place, the annual meeting at which the role of the West is invoked – and at which, despite the events, the heads of government and ministers gathered there seemed unable to take action in this historically crucial situation. In the most shocking moment of the meeting, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, appeared before the assembled heads of government, ministers and foreign policy experts on Friday. Still affected by the shock of the news, she announced to Putin in a trembling voice: He would have to pay for his actions.
But for a long time the doubts have not been as great as they are today as to whether Putin really has to pay for anything he does – and whether the Western heads of state and government actually have anything left to counter Putin’s grand imperialist plan.
Two years after the start of Russia’s war of aggression, six months after the suppression of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising and shortly before his staged re-election in March, Putin is once again presenting himself as an untouchable leader who can do whatever he wants. The powerlessness of the Western allies, a consequence of the USA’s domestic political paralysis, reinforces this impression.
The Putin regime, on the other hand, celebrates its cruelty with impunity. It bombs Ukrainian civilians at will and destroys their cities. And his regime poisons an opposition activist with a chemical warfare agent and, upon his return, puts him in torture-like solitary confinement in Siberia, where it cannot break him but kills him in installments. In the end, it sends the deceased’s mother on a scavenger hunt in search of his corpse and prevents her from seeing her dead son.
Complete presidential immunity, as Donald Trump is currently claiming in court in the USA – Vladimir Putin shows what it looks like
This cruelty should surprise no one. In his reaction to the news of Navalny’s death, Scholz said: “Now we know exactly what kind of regime this is.” But of course we – and Scholz too – have known this for a long time.
The murder of Navalny, the brutal persecution of any kind of opposition in Russia, and Putin’s war of conquest in Ukraine are inseparable. They are all elements of Putin’s neo-Tsarist and neo-Stalinist plan, in which there is no right to exist for any form of opposition and in which the entire nation is at the service of a bloody campaign of conquest.
Putin sees himself on a historic mission to rebuild the Russian Empire. He justifies this – as he recently did in a conversation with the US propagandist Tucker Carlson – with a self-invented version of history that goes back 1,000 years. That seems delusional, even crazy, but it doesn’t matter because Putin himself believes in it. And Putin is not just concerned with Ukraine. It is certainly no coincidence that in his so-called interview, Putin repeatedly incited Poland and even blamed it for Hitler’s attack on it in 1939. Meanwhile, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has put Russia on a wanted list.
It is remarkable how many have already ignored what Vladimir Putin demanded before his war of aggression two years ago: He not only claimed to control Ukraine – which he sees as Russian territory. But he also demanded that NATO abandon its Eastern European members and leave them to a Russian zone of influence.
It’s important not to forget that. For precisely this reason, the proposals from appeasement representatives are far removed from reality. They still hope to negotiate with Putin and pacify him by giving him part of Ukrainian territory. Quite apart from the fact that he has never shown any serious signs of willingness to negotiate: asking Putin to negotiate at this moment of Western weakness would be nothing other than a capitulation
Putin wants to control Ukraine and reverse the ties to the West that its people want. He has repeatedly described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” as the downfall of “historic Russia.” For him, restoring it includes renewing Russian rule over large parts of Eastern Europe, including EU member states.
So how do we deal with a ruler who wants the whole world to know that he can get away with anything with impunity? There is only one way: show him that he cannot go unpunished – and inflict defeat on him in Ukraine.
Europe only has the choice to show Putin limits with all its might – or to submit to Putin’s claim to power and view of history. A world in which Putin prevails would no longer be the world we know.
The Europeans have done a lot to help Ukraine in the past two years. But they have still neither invested enough in their own defense nor done enough to provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons and ammunition. Now that the USA is out because of Donald Trump and the Republicans, they seem disoriented.
However, Europe is rich and powerful enough to support Ukraine sufficiently if necessary, even if the USA were to fail permanently – it is a question of political will. And when the future of the continent is at stake, it is surprising that the political will is not greater: the EU’s economic output is ten times that of Russia.
The Europeans should have done everything they could long ago to order the necessary armaments, invest in their production or buy them together on the world market. But they didn’t do that, they couldn’t even get the most urgently needed artillery ammunition. This is alarming. Are they really taking their defense and the defense of Ukraine seriously enough? It doesn’t seem like that.
Scholz has still not clearly explained why Germany is still not delivering the urgently needed Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. And the fact that France is so far behind Germany when it comes to supporting Ukraine cannot be forgotten by the fact that Macron can offer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj a more lavish reception in the Elysée than Scholz in the Chancellery. The security agreements that Berlin and Paris have offered the Ukrainians are currently little more than a placebo.
Rhetorically, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz often say the right things. They point to the nature of Putin’s regime and the need to stop him, otherwise freedom in Europe would be at risk. But words don’t resolve a conflict. It’s not enough to say the right things, you have to do them too.
After the shock in Munich – after the death of Navalny and the collapse of the Ukrainian defense at Avdiivka – Scholz and the Western government leaders are therefore faced with a turning point.
If they don’t want to live in Vladimir Putin’s world, if they mean what they say, then they must do everything possible now. And that is where this conflict for the soul of Europe is being decided: in Ukraine.