Putin like Hitler Can Be Stopped Only by Force of Arms, Skobov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 24 – Aleksandr Skobov, a Russian activist who did as much as anyone to expose the crimes of Putinism before his arrest in April 2024 – for discussions of some of his articles, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/kremlin-arrests-aleksandr-skobov.html – has now summed up his views on what must be done in a closing statement at his trial.
    He says that Russia is now in the midst of a civil war between those who support the values of civilization and those like Putin who are promoting 21st century post-industrial fascism and that this war will not be won in any courtroom but will require the Kremlin’s military defeat – just as was the case with Hitler (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=67BCD32D373ED).
    Skobov begins by noting that he has sought to analyze Putin’s ideology which traces its roots to “the ultra-conservative conceptions of a special Russian spirituality, a special Russian civilization and a special Russian policy,” conceptions that rest on the idea that might makes right and must not be resisted, the same kind of thinking that animated Hitler.
    Such thinking represents “a revolt of archaic, cave-dweller instincts against the legal and moral limitations on force and cruelty established by civilization;” and it has led from the destruction of the Russian constitution to the destruction of international law which rests first and foremost on the idea that there must not be any annexation by force.
    What Russians and the rest of the world must recognize, Skobov continues, is that Putin doesn’t need any part of Ukraine that has been destroyed by his armies. What he needs and wants is for the world to “recognize his right” to take whatever he wants. If everyone does so, the world will again be headed to a world war.
    Skobov continues: “I grew up among people who had seen war not just in movies! They all hated it. For my generation also as for them, it was axiomatic that this must not b e repeated. But the Putin clique has stolen this axiom from us and replaced it with the obscene notion that ‘we can repeat.’”
    Like its Hitlerite predecessor, the Putin clique “has awoken in people the darkest and basest instincts: the striving to rule over others, to suppress, humiliate, torture, and step on the face of another. It corrupted my people turning a significant portion of them into zombies who have forgotten that you can’t take someone else’s property, attack your neighbor or kill.”
    “I hate force,” Skobov says; but because I do, I am compelled to recognize that those like Putin who support these ideas can be defeated only by force. That means Russia itself is involved in a civil war; and the rest of the world is involved in a world war, whether anyone wants to recognize that or not.
    “Tanks invading a foreign country can’t be stopped by calls for peace and conscience,” he says. “Tanks aren’t affected by shame and can only be stopped by other tanks.” Consequently, those who seek to defend human values must be for “more tanks for Ukraine” rather than just calling for a shameful peace.
    And in his last words before being sentenced for crimes he didn’t commit by a government that has no respect for law, Skobov concludes bluntly: “Death to the Russian-fascist invaders! Death to Puti, the new Hitler, a murderer and executioner! And glory to Ukraine!” Such words, of course, make it highly unlikely he’ll ever escape Putin’s GULAG with his life.