Paul Goble
Staunton,
December 26 – The regime Vladimir Putin has created in Russia is an “existential”
enemy of the West and an international system intended to limit the use of
violence by one state against others, Aleksandr Skobov says. His aggression
against Ukraine is thus far more than an attack on that country: it is an
attack on the West as such.
Many
Western leaders do not want to acknowledge this, the Russian commentator says,
because it would require them to act; but their failure to understand what
Putin is about and why will not solve the problem but only guarantee that it
will fester and become an ever greater threat to Western civilization (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5C22704D734B3).
According to
Skobov, “the most important aspect of humanity’s progress is the constant reduction
in the level of force and cruelty in social relations,” progress that Western
civilization has played the key role in promoting. But “despite the progress that has been
achieved, today, the world is confronted by a most serious crisis.”
There are “objective reasons” for
this crisis, Skobov says. The world is changing as a result of globalization
and the shift to post-industrial societies, changes that have caused real
problems for many countries. The leaders
of the West bear some responsibility for this crisis, he continues. But the
largest responsibility lies elsewhere.
It lies with “reactionary forces who
consider limitations achieved by Western civilization on the right to use force
excessive” and who seek to throw off any restrictions on their own actions. They back the idea of “everyone for himself,”
and they oppose this to the principle of “’human rights for all’” both within
their own countries and internationally.
“The Putin regime in Russia has
become the shock detachment of the forces of worldwide reaction,” Skobov
argues. It has transformed into the
reason for its existence the struggle with the leadership of the West in the
world and with the spread of Western principles and values.”
And this, Skobov insists, “is hardly
an accident or a historical misunderstanding.”
Because of its criminal nature and
habits of mind, the commentator continues, “the new Russian ‘elite’ has given
rise to a unique political regime, one often called ‘a mafia.’” It is a regime that allows its members access
to unlimited wealth, one based on deception and force, and one unrestrained by
any law.
“The very existence of a more developed,
successful, and attractive social system, in which the dominating elites after
a long struggle have come to terms with their responsibility to society and
with legal limitations on force is something the ruling kleptocracy of the Putin
mafia views as a threat,” Skobov says.
At its base, he continues, the roots
of the Putin regime’s hatred to Western civilization and its political values”
take as their point of departure the radical conservatism of the 19th
century with its attacks on liberal values,” which rejected the French
revolution of 1789 and ultimately led to what Hitler called national socialism.
Because that is the case, Skobov
continues, the Putin kleptocracy is “the ‘existential’ enemy of Western civilization
and its way of life. The Putin mafia not only seeks with all its strengths to
stop the spread of the Western political model … it strikes to destroy Western
civilization from within by corrupting elites and supporting reactionary
extreme right forces.”
The Putin regime can justify its
internal order only by seeking to recover “a zone of imperial diktat, the
possibility to rape an dismember its neighbors” without punishment. And in this way it can provide support for
itself by “destroying the very principle of the supremacy of international law.
Consequently, “the imperial
revanchism of the Putin kleptocracy must not be considered as an exclusively
pragmatic instrument for the achievement of domestic political goals.” It
reflects a desire for greatness based on the destruction of the West and the
West’s values, Skobov says.
Because it possesses nuclear weapons
and says it is prepared to use them, the Putin mafia has become “the main
threat today to peace, progress and civilization “ It has committed war crimes
and crimes against humanity for the entire period of its existence, starting
with the “colonial Chechen wars” and now involving the attack on Ukraine.
“Putin is not simply a thief and
kleptocracy,” Skobov continues. “He is a mass murderer and a fanatic. Death and
war accompany all his rule. Putin is death and war. Putin is the aggressor. No
one threatens Russia with conquest and enslavement. Putin conducts his wars for
the enslavement of others.”
In
order to enslave others, “Putin has unleashed an aggressive war against Ukraine”
and annexed Crimea. And as a result, “Ukraine has become the main field of
battle in the global fight between the Putin mafia and Western civilization.” That
is where the fate of the current international legal order will be decided.
That order will survive “only if the
world has sufficient political will and decisiveness to force the Russian
Federation to get out of Crimea and the Donbass. Therefore, any actions
directed at forcing Russia to leave these places must be welcomed.”
Unfortunately for the West, “stopping
Putin’s aggression only by sanctions targeted at his entourage is impossible. “As long as the countries of the West refuse
to use arms against the aggression, Putin will successfully destroy the
international legal order through his use of ‘hybrid wars.’”
“Sometimes
one must fight for peace,” Skobov says, or as Andrey Illarionov put it in a
recent interview, “tanks will only be stopped by other tanks – or by tank-stopping
means.”
And Skobov concludes: “While the war
is going on, any expression of support and sympathy for the Putin army is a
betrayal of the victims of aggression” and an act of assistance to “the occupiers
and those who would inflict punishment on our common worldwide home.”
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