Of course, there will be such a temptation to say: well, you see, there was an attack on the Crimean bridge, which is sacred for Putin, a symbol of the fact that Crimea has finally been annexed by Russia.
However, I would look at these things more broadly. Russian president and its political leadership have no option but to continue military operations on the territory of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin will not back down from his obvious goals, which, by the way, were announced today former Russian president, deputy head of the Russian Security Council, Dmitriy Medvedev.
These goals are the dismantling of Ukrainian statehood, the joining of all Ukrainian territories to the Russian Federation, the destruction and expulsion from these territories of all those who consider themselves Ukrainian.
Thus, the Ukrainian people have no choice. You can either fight with Russia, or simply capitulate to it on the terms of the destruction of your own statehood.
We see that Putin has no ideas to create an alternative Ukraine, in which those who still consider it a part of the "Russian world" could feel comfortable, and Ukrainians and Russians, according to Putin's idiotic interpretations, "one people".
No, these people cannot be some kind of "Soviet Ukrainians" or Ukrainians who will faithfully serve the Russian Tsar. This can be only one and only choice - a choice in favor of the actual destruction of Ukrainianness as such. Only those who agree to be a collaborator and declare themselves "Russian" will be able to survive on the territory of this country. And even these people will not be comfortable if the Russian terrorist forces win. Because they will always be suspected of treason, that they may change their identity (at some point, if the West wins).
I always remember the fate of my compatriots. Those Jews who were in Spain and Portugal at the request of the Catholic kings accepted Christianity. There were hundreds of thousands of them. So what? The kingdom and the Inquisition suspected them of actually remaining Jews, and persecuted them even more than when they had actually practiced Judaism.
Is Putin really taking revenge for the Crimean bridge? Of course, it is more profitable for him that everything looks like that. In today's speech to the members of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, he accused Ukraine of a number of different crimes, characterized Ukraine as a terrorist state.
Imagine: the head of a state that has been killing the civilian population with missile strikes for 8 months in a row; the head of the state, whose soldiers kill, rape and rob; the head of a state that sends its agents into the territory of other countries with poison that kills the citizens of those countries is a real, classic terrorist with a nuclear button accusing someone of terrorism.
But we have to ask ourselves a rather simple question. It is the most important. Let's imagine that there would have been no bombing of the Crimean bridge, that Putin would not have suffered such an obvious disgrace. What would happen? Would Putin not shell Ukrainian cities? Would we not have suffered those blows now?
No, he would shoot. All this would happen. Maybe for some other reason.
One of the main allies of the Russian state has always been, is and will be "General Frost". The main task of the president of the Russian Federation is to freeze Ukrainians and the civilized world. The goal is quite simple: to create such social tension in the civilized world that will bring Europe to its knees and force it to abandon support for the Ukrainian state and its Armed Forces.
Putin is not going to negotiate with the Western world. He wants to dictate his terms to him when the inhabitants of these countries begin to complain about their own governments, not being able to pay their energy bills. When in these countries it will be possible to bring to power those who will fulfill all the conditions of the Russian president and together with him will destroy, and maybe even divide Ukraine, which he hates.
Well, what about Ukraine? Putin cold-bloodedly creates conditions that would force Ukrainians to move as far as possible from their native land. For this, it is important that the territory, which he and most of his compatriots consider to be historical Russia, be cleansed of ethnic Ukrainians and all those who consider themselves Ukrainian. So that millions of people leave Ukraine, leave it empty for the further offensive of Russian troops. Here is the task. This is the essence of this war.
About the author: Vitaliy Portnikov, writer, journalist.
The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.