Putin waits for Trump

In a recent interview with The All-In Podcast, Trump stated: "I heard that if Ukraine goes into NATO it's a real problem for Russia. I've heard that for a long time and I think that's really why this war started." This is one of the main falsehoods frequently repeated by pro-Russian propagandists. However, coming from a man seeking to become president of the United States again, it raises questions if he is even on the right side of history. 

It is evident that while peaceful and semi-peaceful summits occur worldwide, Russia will not concede on the Ukrainian issue nor cease hostilities until after the U.S. presidential elections. This is a crucial factor for the collective West to consider when planning further assistance to Ukraine.

Theoretical constructs may suggest an accelerated end to the Russian-Ukrainian war, but Putin is banking on Donald Trump winning the next U.S. presidential election. Consequently, discussions about initiating a genuine peace process in the coming months appear futile.

The dictator is trying hard to escape his situation. However, he sees only one way forward for Ukraine: to surrender to Moscow and become, at the very least, a Russian puppet.

Putin focused on destroying Ukraine but missed a crucial point: the longer the war continues, the more it reveals that Russia is a paper tiger. Despite their nuclear arsenal, using it would be disastrous. The best move now is for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, but Putin isn't ready for that yet.

Russia started a war it can't win. Delaying it increases their risk of losing, a fact some in the Kremlin are starting to realize. One might wonder why there aren't any Russian political elites capable of removing Putin from power through various means.

Putin's insistence on saving face is blocking an end to the war. Why haven't there been generals and colonels in the Moscow Military District who could rally their troops to overthrow the criminal Putin regime? The rewards for such a bold move could be significant political benefits, while others would face consequences for the regime's crimes.

Russians are totalitarian, viewing any attempt to appease them as weakness. However, Putin's hides the true impact of the war on Russia. The country faces severe losses in lives and injured soldiers, leading to critical labor shortages. Munitions factories have extended shifts to 12 hours, with Putin urging an additional 4 hours of work, calling it a patriotic duty.

The dictator is currently in a poor mental and psychological state. If you watch videos of his visits to North Korea and Vietnam, you can see how nervous he is, and how he speaks. If he had a choice, he would never have sought a partner like Kim Jong Un.

Putin has already made many strategic mistakes, initially underestimating the United States, the European Union, and NATO, and believing that the war in Ukraine would end quickly with his victory. Now, he is seeking assistance from the young Kim, who has become his last hope.

Proxy wars between Russia and the United States have persisted since the Korean War. However, the Americans refute Moscow's claim that by supplying weapons to Ukraine, they are directly engaging in a war aimed at dealing a decisive blow to the Kremlin. If the United States and NATO were truly involved in the Russian-Ukrainian war, no Russian soldiers would still be on Ukrainian soil.

But talking, meeting, and negotiating with Putin, an international criminal, seems pointless. Dealing with a murderer and a robber requires getting rid of him as the only solution.

Putin feels surrounded. All European countries occupied by Russia after World War II are now part of NATO. He believes that defeating Ukraine will be key to regaining control over Eastern Europe. The tyrant wants Ukraine for the same reason China wants Taiwan: he doesn't want a neighboring country where people live better than in Russia. However, if Taiwan doesn't want to become part of the People's Republic of China, Beijing can't force them to.

Recently, the dictator has started to panic because the tide of fortune has begun to turn against Russia. Moscow is starting to lose ground. Ukrainian drones are destroying Russian military equipment, oil infrastructure, and personnel. Ukraine could win a war of attrition, provided it has constant support from the West. Meanwhile, Russia is running out of equipment and soldiers, whom it regularly sends into the meat grinder of military attacks.

But despite Putin pinning all his hopes on Donald Trump, the Kremlin is very concerned. They now realize that if Joe Biden is re-elected, assistance to Ukraine could continue indefinitely.

Time is not on Russia's side, it's on Ukraine's. A prolonged war would devastate Russia's economy. The United States, the EU, and NATO are committed to supporting Ukraine until Russian troops withdraw. When will Russia finally realize this?

The Kremlin now claims that supporters of Ukraine aim to dismember Russia. If the West truly desired Russia's dismemberment, it could have pursued this during the post-Soviet crisis. Instead, it supported Russia in maintaining its nuclear status and persuaded Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons.

The West's main mistake was recognizing Russia as a stabilizing force in Europe before Putin began envisioning the restoration of the Russian Empire. Russians cannot understand why states that are not lucky enough to be their neighbors suffer from being forced to live next door to them. They question why the countries that Moscow once forced into the Warsaw Pact rushed to join NATO at the first opportunity. This sentiment extends to Finland and Sweden, recently admitted to the Alliance through an accelerated program.

For 337 years, Russia ruled over Ukraine and claimed it as its own. Now, they find it hard to accept Ukraine's efforts to restore and defend its independence. Russia has always used threats and manipulation to get what it wants, but this time, those tactics are unlikely to work.

Russia is threatening others with its nuclear power, risking provoking a full-scale war with the world's strongest military alliance, NATO, solely because its leader desires to occupy Ukrainian territory.

This is the story of one little crazy man who, driven by pride in his "greatness" and "exceptionalism," decided to go all-in and came into conflict with the entire Western democratic civilization. 

After the defeat of Russia, Putin, his ideologues, representatives of his criminal regime, propagandists, and all those who portrayed Ukrainians as inferior people deserving destruction will have to answer for their crimes against humanity.

The genocide of Ukrainians, exploited by Putin's government to zombify Russians with revanchist imperialism, has manipulated the Russian population into believing that others are responsible for Russian crimes in Ukraine, absolving them of guilt.

This herd mentality, steeped in imperialistic ideology, has isolated Russia as an "unlucky island" detached from civilization. It seeks to align with rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and several African states. Hopefully, Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders will realize their divergence from such geopolitical alliances in time.

The West must be prepared to respond to Moscow's provocations and those of its accomplices by enhancing its defense production capacity. This is necessary to safeguard itself and its allies from the growing alliance of totalitarian regimes. 

Putin fears that ending the war himself would spell his downfall. How can he justify such a senseless war that costs countless lives and national wealth? Had he played his political cards differently, Ukraine wouldn't have turned into an enemy of Russia. This should serve as a cautionary tale for China.

By attacking Ukraine, Putin aimed to reshape the global order, but he will not succeed. The only outcome Moscow will gain from this bloody war is a sharp decline in Russia's international stature, reducing it to a regionally weak state with diminished future influence. These will be the negative consequences the Kremlin will soon face from Russia's war in Ukraine.

Source

About the author. Viktor Kaspruk, journalist.

The editors don't always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.