Träffsäkert! Världen har nu sett Putlers fula tryne så oberoende hur kriget utvecklar sig har han förlorat.
Former President of Poland: In the long term, China wants to vassalise Russia. Erdogan is playing his game well. Le Pen will get a beating for her love of Putin.
WAR
r/ukraine - Former President of Poland: In the long term, China wants to vassalise Russia. Erdogan is playing his game well. Le Pen will get a beating for her love of Putin.
- In 2002, I had a long, private one-on-one conversation with Putin. He told me directly that for him one of the most important tasks was to rebuild a great Russia. The obsession with this, and therefore with conquering Ukraine, was growing in him. Putin's initial dream was increasingly becoming a plan," says former president Aleksander Kwasniewski in an interview with Gazeta.pl.
RUSSIA
Jacek Gądek: - Putin has been in power for 22 years. Do you think he planned war with Ukraine from the beginning?
Aleksander Kwaśniewski: - Did he plan this war at the beginning of his presidency? I doubt it. But he certainly dreamed of conquering Ukraine even then. I have actually proof of this.
What proof?
I had a long, private, one-on-one conversation with Putin in 2002. He told me plainly that one of the most important tasks for him was to rebuild a great Russia. Just as he believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest disaster of the 20th century, so he believed that great Russia should rebuild itself. At the time, he was a young president, had only been in office for two years, and had no instruments to take over Ukraine, but he was already talking about it. Both in conversation with me and later in public. Putin never really recognised Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a people.
I think that Putin's obsession with a great Russia, and therefore with conquering Ukraine, was growing. Over the years, he has seized successive opportunities to rebuild the empire on the one hand and test the West's reaction on the other. After the war with Georgia in 2008, that reaction was too weak, as it was in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea and the detachment of Donbass. This only encouraged Putin to prepare a full-scale war with Ukraine. Putin's initial dream increasingly became a plan.
Why now?
I see several explanations. The first: Putin is getting older.
He is 70 years old...
...and he won't get any younger. Two: 22 years of one-man rule means a disconnect from reality. Third: Putin looked at the world and decided that the timing was favorable.
Because?
According to Putin, the US is in crisis because Joe Biden as an elderly man will not take harsh action. Because, according to Putin, everything is weak in Europe after the Angela Merkel era and is yet to be built anew. He thought that China would not stand in his way because it had similar plans for Taiwan. He also believed that he had the money to finance the war, because Russia had built up a huge surplus thanks to the oil and gas trade. Finally, he saw the choice of an inexperienced actor as president of Ukraine as facilitating the war. Putin expected a blitzkrieg and launched a war.
Almost a month on, the mass of commentary is that Putin has already lost the war. But is this not wishful thinking?
In the long term, Putin will indeed lose. For - firstly - Ukraine is being born before our eyes, even if it is physically destroyed. It is no longer possible for Ukraine to be part of Russia other than under occupation and terror, and Russia does not have the strength to occupy it all. After 30 years of Ukrainian independence, Putin has finally helped Ukraine to believe in its own identity, strength and pride. The Ukrainians will be Russia's enemies for centuries to come.
Putin has already lost also because the world has seen his true face. I cannot imagine that - even after a truce or peace - Putin can return to the salons. He will always be regarded as a war criminal. But should one talk to Putin as President of Russia? Yes, you should. But you absolutely must not believe him.
In the short term, Putin has not won either, because he has buried himself in the war - after all, it can last for months. In the medium term, on the other hand, if Putin succeeds in capturing Kiev and installing an obedient government there, then with lying propaganda he can strengthen his position in Russia. But this would be a Pyrrhic success.
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