a) The repeated disregard for the sovereignty and borders of neighbouring countries of Russia has led to the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO and a progressive distancing of several Central Asian countries;
b) The Russian Federation is losing a relevant part of its population, whether on the front lines or as a result of the emigration of many qualified and young professionals;
c) The Russian Federation has 300 billion dollars (mM$) of sovereign financial assets and 200 mM$ of private capital frozen in Western countries;
d) There is a huge and continuous flow of Russian capital abroad;
(e) The Russian Federation is increasingly dependent on R. P. of China, so that important aspects of Russian sovereignty are at risk;
f) No longer had free and democratic elections in Russia;
g) No longer had an average independent in Russia and dozens of independent journalists were (and continue to be) arrested and murdered;
(h) Russia will lose access to the European oil and gas market, the richest market in the world, the same as in relation to critical commodity and metals;
(i) Russia is on the verge of losing access to space launches and partnerships with Western space agencies, along with the destruction of its civil aviation industry;
j) The Russian Federation has been closely linked to terrorist entities or that support terrorism, undermining its international image and further digging the gap with the West+;
k) Russia has been progressively taking an international status of paria state (no other country has had so many international sanctions applied), clearly visible in major international sports competitions.

As much as the Russian propaganda machine sells the image of a great leader, animated by a design - recreating a Great Russia similar to that of Tsar Peter the Great - the facts have shown how unrealistic this imperial drift is, creating a schizophrenia in the Russian leadership in which wishful thinking (not infrequently to heed magic thought) overlaps with reality, and truth is replaced by propaganda and mitomania.

Putin is far from a strategic genius. It has been cornered in Ukraine and the economic and social situation in the Russian Federation is worrying. Contrary to what happened to Peter the Great, whose role in history was plowed by scribes paid by the Russian Empire, Putin’s historical record will be written independently by an immense multitude of historians and analysts from all over the world. The image that will remain for the history books will be closer to a strategic fool who did not quite measure the consequences of his actions and left the country dependent on multisecular historical enemies.

Article from Written By Jorge Costa Oliveira on 19 June 2024 at 02:51.