West’s flawed optics are fueling geopolitical disasters

This statement reflects, like a drop of water reflects the ocean, the vast number of false assumptions the West has about Russia.

They believe Russia has always been a democracy, and suddenly there was this aberration. They think it’s temporary, that Russia will eventually return to the club of democratic nations.

The truth is, Russia has never really been a democracy. You could arguably count the roughly year-and-a-half period from the founding of the Russian Federation until the 1993 parliament shooting as democratic.

But throughout its history, Russia has been ruled by more or less predatory forms of authoritarianism. Putin is not an aberration; he embodies the classic image of a Russian ruler. He fits naturally alongside Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Nicholas “the Bloody,” Lenin, and Stalin.

They say Russia has always been part of Western civilization. Look at their ballet, Tolstoy’s works, their artists and composers.

But in reality, Russia has never truly been part of Western civilization. Russian culture is a thin layer of gilding over an ocean of barbarism. The cultural life described by Tolstoy — the metropolitan elite — was just 500 families in a multi-million-strong empire.

This flawed perspective leads to geopolitical disasters. If the Putin regime is just a temporary deviation, then we can afford to wait it out. But what if it’s the opposite?

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About the author. Valeriy Pekar, lecturer at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

The editorial team does not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.