His Worst Nightmare May Just Be Beginning

 

“We were told they would welcome us.” 

Russian Soldier sadly texting his mother moments before he was killed

“We have to realize that we are now faced with a new normal for our security… This is just the beginning of the adaptation that we need to do as a response to a much more aggressive Russia.” 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg,  on CNN, February 27th.

“This morning, two cruise missiles hit Freedom Square [in Kyiv] … Dozens were killed. 

This is the price of freedom… We are fighting just for our land and for our freedom.” 

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressing the EU Parliament remotely on March 1st. The translator cried.

After a sputtering start, Vladimir Putin is still expected to prevail quickly, with strong backing from a dwindling number of own his people, under his now obviously false pretext of NATO provocation and protecting Russian security. He may ultimately succeed in conquering Ukraine as he mounts a new, massive assault, but that would only be the beginning of an unwinnable occupation. Ukraine, with its own language and European culture, was never comfortable with Russian domination. Slaughtered or starved to death by Joseph Stalin during WWII, repressed to the max under subsequent brutal Soviet regimes, tired of walking the line between its natural ties to the European Union and its desire not to aggravate its malignant Russian neighbor now permanently fractured, after several faltering steps into democracy, a stabilized Ukraine slowly came to the realization that Russia was a despised enemy. Not the yielding population Putin expected.

Russia violated their 1994 treaty to respect Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for the latter’s relinquishing of its nuclear arms stockpile. First, by annexing Crimea in 2014, then by sending “little green men” (Russian soldiers wearing unmarked uniforms) and massive weapons to Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and finally by completely and totally invading Ukraine with unbridled domination an absolute goal. Putin was sending a clear message to former CIS countries and NATO: all Russian border areas were going to have to accept Russian dominance and control or else. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a harsh example of “or else.” This invasion, Putin was certain, would fracture NATO unity, particularly Germany that was now totally dependent on Russian natural gas to survive a cold winter, and deter any expansion of the defensive organization. 

The years of many Europeans’ pressure to disband NATO, as no longer necessary by reason of Soviet collapse in 1991, has ended. This anti-NATO sentiment was echoed strongly by Donald Trump based on his “special relationship” with brother “genius” Putin. Most of the rest of the world have all just discovered that a rogue “elected” Russian dictator was even worse than his Soviet predecessors. NATO allies had once prepared to block a Soviet invasion of Europe that never came. That invasion had to await the arrival of a deranged autocrat, perhaps even guilty of war crimes, three decades after the Soviet collapse.

As Russian forces stationed in Belarus crossed the border with Ukraine to attack Kyiv, we should remember that in 2020, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko faced six months of major waves of popular protests demanding liberalization and constitutional reform. Calling these masses of protesters “rebels” incited by “foreign interests,” Lukashenko was forced to rely on Russian power to retain his position after a very questionable “election.” As Russian power is clearly showing its weak underbelly to the world, Lukashenko has to be concerned that his own alliance with Putin may well result in his own ultimate demise. 

At a minimum, Russia’s flailing miscalculations and obvious lack of local Ukraine support, suggest that Russia will have to think twice about attempting to discipline former CIS nations should they even contemplate breaking ranks with their purported Russian masters. The writing is on the wall. CIS Kazakhstan required Russian troops in January to contain popular unrest. The world assumed that this nation was thus solidly in Putin’s pocket. Putin recently requested that Kazakhstan both recognize its newly formed “republics” from eastern Ukraine and contribute its own military forces to the Russian effort to contain Ukraine; Kazakhstan said “no!” 

Even China refused to support Russia in a veto of the UN Security Council’s condemnation of Putin’s invasion. There were hints that China might even honor some or all of the international sanctions on Russia’s financial system. Switzerland, brutally neutral throughout its modern history (even during Hitler’s reign), with a banking secrecy system that has lured deposits from corrupt despots for decades, broke with their own precedent to freeze all Russian deposits. Monaco followed suite.

No one believed Putin’s allegation that Ukraine, under the leadership of a Jewish president whose family faced the Holocaust, was a Nazi regime. Russians, once told by Putin that he had no intention of invading Ukraine, now know that their leader clearly lied to them. Russian troops, believing they were engaging in practice maneuvers, found themselves in an unprovoked war where they were despised. Stories of plunging morale among Russian soldiers are rampant. 

Russia has also resorted to easily proven, digitally-artificial-robotic, testimony and staged military events on social media, resulting in Facebook, Twitter, etc. and overall European bans on Russian media networks. Russians are lining up to ATMs for cash. Many credit cards no longer work in Russia, and the normal Apple and Google Pay systems stopped allowing people to use these mobile pay services for fares on the Moscow subway. Russian bank values dropped off the cliff as their stock market remains closed.

But for Putin, his entire raison d’etre for his invasion – stopping NATO and its expansion at or near Russian borders (an anti-NATO mantra repeated consistently since 2007, beginning with his statement against the US’ efforts to add new members, “Against whom is this expansion directed?”) – has dramatically backfired. He now faces an expression of NATO unity never before contemplated. Infamous “Fortress Russia” is unraveling. Even vulnerable Germany, dependent on Russian natural gas supplies, was enveloped with anti-Russian rage, as it also mounted an unprecedented effort: sending weapons to Ukraine. 

After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s speech announcing that military support for Kyiv, “the EU also announced it would bar Russian planes from EU airspace and expel Russian state-owned media outlets Russia Today and Sputnik from all 27 members of the European bloc… The EU said that its defense aid package could include fighter jets and that member states are willing to provide them. ‘We’re not talking about just ammunition,’ EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. ‘We are providing more important arms to go to a war.’… ‘Just like President Putin has unified Ukraine against him and against Russia, President Putin has also unified the NATO alliance,’ former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, who also served at NATO, told SiriusXM radio.” Los Angeles Times, February 28th.

Putin now faces his worst fears: NATO expansionism on steroids. Blowback. A self-fulfilling prophecy. “Finland and Sweden, after decades of neutrality, have signaled a new interest in joining the alliance while more autocratic members of the defense pact have excoriated Moscow… And in an effort to shore up Ukraine’s defenses, the European Union for the first time will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday [2/27].” LA Times. The European Union is also considering Ukraine’s application for membership from … probably too late. 

Yet isolated, out of touch with reality, surrounded by advisors unwilling to tell him what he needs to hear, Vladimir Putin seems to have moved from mentally unstable to utterly insane. Fortunately, Putin alone cannot cause a nuclear strike. He does not control the actual triggering system. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and Mr. Putin has to realize that his ultimate demise has moved to inevitable… perhaps sooner than he might imagine.