Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 27 – The Kremlin
and its supporters have acted in a predictable fashion following the death of
US Senator John McCain. For these people, he was the last Cold Warrior and a
died in the wool Russophobe, someone whose passing was “the death of an enemy”
(themoscowtimes.com/news/enemy-is-dead-russia-reacts-us-senator-john-mccains-passing-62677).
For
them, the late American politician was a Russophobe because he criticized the
authoritarian actions of the Putin regime at home and its aggression against
Georgia and Ukraine since according to their lights Russia and Putin are one
and the same and criticizing the Kremlin leader is the same a criticizing
Russia.
That
of course has been the view the Putin regime has been promoting for years, but
what is striking over the last several days is understanding of many Russians
that McCain was, as he himself observed, “a better friend of Russia” than those
in the Kremlin and that he believed the Russian people “deserved a better
leader” than Vladimir Putin.
In
an impressive display that Putin has failed in his effort to convince Russians
otherwise, commentator after commentator in Moscow has made the point in their
articles about the passing of Senator McCain that Putin and Russia are not one
and the same thing and that Russians deserve a better system than the one the
Kremlin leader has imposed.
Among
numerous examples are the following: echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/2265954-echo/, https://echo.msk.ru/blog/partofair/2266516-echo/
https://echo.msk.ru/blog/pozner/2266450-echo/ echo.msk.ru/blog/karamurza/2266378-echo/,
echo.msk.ru/blog/kasyanov_mihail/2266236-echo/
and republic.ru/posts/91921.
Sadly, McCain’s lessons on this point
have made less headway in the West where authoritarian leaders and their
supporters are all to happy to join with the Putinists and view Putin and Russia
as one and the same thing and to consider any criticism of the Kremlin leader
as an attack on Russia deserving denunciation as Russophobia.
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