This shows that the free world still doesn’t yet take seriously the threat posed by the nuclear-armed dictator. Putin is a war criminal, but for now an untouchable one, and an alleged accessory to the mass murders of scores of Ukrainians.
Putin prosecuted the invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea by disguising the identity of his troops and denying their presence, countenancing the use of women and children as human shields as well as the torture of captives kidnapped by Russian-backed troops and militias.
According to Ukraine’s top law enforcers on April 3, Putin also played a role in the mass murders of EuroMaidan Revolution protesters, more than 100 of whom were killed, allegedly under orders by overthrown President Viktor Yanukovych. The Russian government sent 30 agents of its KGB successor and supplied five tons of grenades and ammunition for Yanukovych’s war against his own people. Now Putin harbors Yanukovych and an untold number of former high Ukrainian officials implicated in the murders, shielding the fugitives from justice.
These factors make Putin not only Ukraine’s public enemy No. 1, but one of the greatest threats to world peace today.
Yet, the greed for private profit triumphs over morality.
Germany’s Siemens is still doing business with Moscow as Germany still buys Russian gas and Germans such as Gazprom’s paid gasbag Gerhard Schroeder, the former chancellor, are still apologizing for the Russian dictator. France’s Total and American’s ExxonMobil, like other world energy giants, continue courting Moscow. America hasn’t cut its $1 billion order of helicopters from Russia for use in Afghanistan. Amazingly, despite a belated ban on Ukraine’s industries supplying Russia with military hardware, companies such as Zaporyzhia’s Motor Sich, are still selling engines for use in Russian aircraft.
With such a tepid response, it’s no wonder that Putin’s 40,000+ troops are poised to attack Ukraine from all directions.
We hope that we are wrong, but we expect that Putin will invade Ukraine’s mainland before the scheduled May 25 presidential elections, most likely around the May 9 Victory Day holiday, when he can whip up anti-West and anti-Ukrainian jingoism even more. He will likely not attack before the Orthodox Easter Sunday on April 20.
There are simply too many reasons why Putin will likely attack.
He will not allow the presidential vote to go through which will legitimize Ukraine’s new president and lead to new fall parliamentary elections likely to flush the foul Communist Party and many Party of Regions parliamentarians out of office.
With the pro-West Petro Poroshenko the overwheleming front-runner, Putin has more reason to invade because he knows that with Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine’s march towards European integration and a democratic society will move ahead.
Moreover, Russia remains bellicose. When Russian public support for Putin’s military conquest of a peaceful neighbor reaches 80 percent or more, there is reason to worry about further invasion.
On the diplomatic front, the ever-lying Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is calling Ukraine a failed state, insisting on its dismemberment through “federalization” and constitutional change. Moscow’s message: Surrender or else.
It’s astonishing that Russia, which complains about interference in the internal affairs of other nations, is dictating ultimatums to Ukraine. It’s amazing that Putin, whose dictatorship is disguised as “power vertical” governance, is calling for Ukrainiain “federalization.” (We have long favored decentralization of Ukraine’s government – including election of oblast governors and greater taxing and spending powers on the local level. But Putin’s “federalization” means dismemberment as a sovereign state to justify another Russian land grab of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Putin wants to regain the production of the industrial southeast, which he regards as Russian territory, to feed his war machine.)
Kremlin leaders show only slightly less contempt for their own citizens than they do Ukrainians. As Crimeans are finding out, free speech and public criticism of authorities are not allowed in the Russian Federation.
Putin also doesn’t want a government in Kyiv that exposes Russia’s wrongdoing. The recent reopening of Ukraine’s Soviet-era KGB archives will strip away any nostalgia for Putin’s beloved communist criminal empire.
Putin’s primitive understanding emboldens him to think that he can defeat Ukraine easily. Militarily, he may be correct, but the Ukrainian spirit has proved resilient throughout centuries of subjugation and conquest, and today’s Ukraine is no different. Nobody wants war, but if Putin crosses into the mainland, Ukrainian authorities promise that the battle will be joined. We hope the nation will not be left alone in repelling evil.
