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But let’s face it. Putin could care less about Western threats as he sits in his enviable position of being able to shoot.
Putin’s final game is USSR 2.0, almost 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His next moves come at a sensitive geopolitical moment, with Western fears of invasion of Ukraine, colonization of Belarus, an energy crisis across Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel resigning as EU chief negotiator and worried unusual foreign policy of US President Joe Biden. .
Without firing a shot, Putin managed to send the West into a collective panic – or at least a place where they feel the need to appease the old authoritarian.
With so much power, Putin could shoot for a land bridge between Russia and Crimea itself – a move that could be partly designed to free up Ukraine’s blockade of the northern Crimean canal, which once corresponded to 85% of the peninsula’s water needs.
Most recently, Putin opened another front with the West by forming a military alliance with what is often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator,” Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Encouraged by the Kremlin’s support, Lukashenko went unpunished by imprisoning opponents, forcing them to shoot down a Ryanair plane with a political opponent and sending migrants to its border with the EU’s neighbors.
Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and security expert, told me that the country had already been severely punished and that targeted Russian companies had been effectively vaccinated by lucrative contracts from the defense and intelligence services.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Russia and China pledged this week to work together on a closed trade network that would reduce dependence on the international financial system and restrict trade in US currency.
Inside, Putin is shaking state power through fear and cohesion – mainly by banning civil society groups, imprisoning high-profile opponents and threatening Russian nationals working for foreign embassies.
What are the tools left in the Western diplomatic toolbox? Depressive few. However, some options remain: banning travel to Russia, blocking these multimillion-dollar property deals that have turned London and Miami into playgrounds for wealthy Russians – and even ordering the immediate expulsion of Russian nationals from the West. In other words, everything needed from direct military conflict.
Showing a lack of determination, whether in diplomacy, on the battlefield or on the chessboard, is never a winning strategy.
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Sources 2/ https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/21/opinions/putin-russia-europe-chessboard-michael-bociurkiw/index.html The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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