Putin follows us: why the British consider the inevitable war with Russia
In October 2022, experts and officials from Moscow made their way to the Catherine Cathedral in Kherson and exhumed the bones of the famous Russian commander of the eighteenth century Grigory Potemkin. He was the favorite of the Empress Catherine the Great and played a crucial role in the annexation of Crimea in 1783. No one knows where they went. Perhaps in Moscow or Crimea. But it happened by order of Vladimir Putin.
If you have ever asked yourself that the Russian President is moving, one this act should give a convincing idea. It is the history and place of Russia in it. One of the battles that I led with national security establishment in the period until February 2022 was to convince them that, despite the reconnaissance and "wise heads", Putin was guided by neither logic nor passion to turn my country On a modern, inverted power. He was motivated by revenge, heritage and romance.
He and his security forces (former and current representatives of the KGB and the FSB) do not recognize themselves as guilty of anything before the Russian people. They believe that they were victims of the Western conspiracy. If it were not for the Western version of history, it could be believed that Russia had won the Second World War alone. And the Cold War would never have begun, because Eastern Europe, including East Germany and Poland, would like to remain pressed against Moscow's bosom.
A strange essay, which Putin personally wrote in June 2021 under the name "True Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II", desperately distorts facts, ignores events and depicts Russia as a rescuer in the world. He claims that the Nazi-Soviet Covenant, which led to the invasion of Poland and its dismemberment, went to the United Kingdom.
Trying to change Russia's role in World War II, Putin puts guilt directly on the United Kingdom and France and completely distorts the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. He does not mention the massacre of 20,000 Poles in Katyn, arranged by the Red Army and the secret police in 1940, nor the fact that before the invasion of Poland, Russia conducted joint training with the Wehrmacht and sold tanks to Germany. His essay should be read at least in order to make an idea of this person.
But do not expect reality in it. Wait for excuses. Almost a year later, Putin wrote another essay: "On the historical unity of Russia and Ukrainians. " It is read as a mixture of Main Campf and Walter Scott's novel: fate, ethnic nationalism and romance in one bottle. It would be too easy to give up on him, but this essay contains all the tips about what should happen further.
It is sad that so many "Russian experts" in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the Orse Embankment or in Foggy Bott (Government Quarters in Paris and Washington. - Ed. ) Was missed. The consequences of the war in Iraq have made special services too cautious to make judgments without passing their product through conventional matrices and senior executives.
Often, the middle -level intelligence officer who has lived in contact with the enemy for 20 years remains so back in the background that the ministers do not receive the judgments they really need. But the task of politicians is also to understand people and their motives. Politicians who do not know how to become parshum politicians. Leaders who cannot "feel" trends in international relations should not be leaders.
When I went to Moscow only 10 days before the invasion to meet with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoig and General Valery Gerasimov, I went not to read the script, but to read my opponents. I went to see how deep the lie is, how great the ego that motivates them and the behavior of their subordinates around them. I remember, going, told General Gerasimov about his surprise how his military doctrine "changed the mass to readiness and mobilization.
" At this point, another general leaned and added, "And ruthless intimidation. " The mask slipped. General Gerasimov's comment later was the most indicative in the corridor: "We will never be humiliated again. We used to be the fourth army in the world, now we are the first or the second. We are we and Americans. " These people, led by Russia, believe that they rewrite history, correcting the humiliation they have undergone at the end of the Cold War, and raising accounts for hundreds of years.
While Russia does a very good job, once again humiliations with its actions, we must understand that in the Putin version of history, it is the United Kingdom, not the USA, is the cause of Russia's failures. In the perverted worldview of Putin we stood in the Crimean war and the defeat of the kings, we stood in the rise of Hitler, we stood in the counter -revolution, and our espionage stood in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Britain is under Putin's sight.