The Russian sequel
Today, I had brunch with friends and colleagues from my Moscow days — one of them French and now living in Paris with his Russian wife; the other one Russian, in the process of applying for a UK visa with his family back at home. All of whom I have known for the better part of 15 years — except from my friend’s wife, but it doesn’t feel like it: she’s very cool.
Naturally, we got to talking about the current state of affairs in Russia, almost a year after it unilaterally started a war against neighboring Ukraine. People who know the situation better than me, and try keeping an impartial take despite the wave(s) of propaganda flooding the place, all confirm what I could only assume: things are getting decidedly worse behind this new iron curtain. What was once a fairly amenable authoritarian regime (as long as you didn’t frontally challenge it) has turned into a full blown dictatorship, with President Putin pulling all the strings he can in a country that is gradually shutting itself away from the rest of the world — with the possible exception of China.
Given the radical choice that Putin made of invading a country that borders the European Union, this turn of events was to be expected, and it is pretty certain he did. The man may be dangerous but he is not crazy — which is precisely what makes him dangerous. The idea of veering away from Western influence was ostensibly a goal here, no matter how detrimental it is to the country: in the short term, significantly decreased economic prospects; in the long run, a global trajectory that will once again slow down as the rest of the world keeps going at pace. In a manner parallel to what took place a century before, albeit with different ideologies being brandished — and arguably to a lesser degree as (some of) the atrocities that plagued the 20th century are luckily inconceivable today. This will take years, likely decades to course correct — whenever that is even possible.
Evidently, the first victims of this situation are the Ukrainians, who are currently fighting to retain sovereignty over their own country against an enemy which is (still) trying to invade it. And the dreadful fighting that is ongoing in and around Bakhmut stands as the latest example of the price Ukraine has been paying in this conflict — through no fault of its own. But Russia itself, as well as Belarus and other satellite nations, is another collateral victim of this tragedy started by a megalomaniac intent on reaping the wealth of a nation to his benefit and that of a small group of like-minded sociopaths.
No good will come of this, but a lot of bad does and will…