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Issues from President Putin’s power perpetuation
Since independent and impartial verification is not possible to the desired degree, it will remain an open question whether the presidential election was free and fair. However, the fact that what we have in Russia is an authoritarian system of government, which is intolerant of dissent, points to the non-existence in Russia of core democratic values and institutions.
This columnist wishes it was otherwise because Russians are heir to a great civilization. They deserve much more than they are being permitted at present as citizens. Just two among Russia’s illustrious sons are Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, whose literary genius is hard to match on a world wide scale even today. The latter fact is a pointer to the cultural and spiritual heights to which the Russian people have easily risen.
Prominent Russian pro-democracy political activist, Alexei Navalny’s fate establishes beyond doubt the highly repressive nature of the Russian state. Why wasn’t he allowed to engage in his political activities if what we have in Russia is a country that is tolerant of political dissent and democratic opposition? Moreover, Navalny is not the only activist to suffer repression or be ‘silenced’ in Russia. These factors and more place a huge question mark over the authenticity and reliability of the ‘mandate’ received by Putin.
To be sure, Russia ranks among the most vibrant of economies and is a force to be reckoned with in the area of science and technology. However, human freedom is as important as these assets and achievements. A people who do not enjoy fundamental freedoms and rights is as good as being enslaved. Needless to say, people, wherever they may be, must be spared this tragic condition.
However, no illusions could be entertained in any quarter about the nature of the war in Ukraine. Russia’s ‘special operation’ in Ukraine is nothing but an invasion considering that Ukraine was a sovereign nation. If Ukraine and other regions recently annexed by Russia were ‘historically Russia’s’ and therefore could be re-integrated into Russia on the basis of military coercion, large countries in the Asian continent, for example, would be justified in over-running some of their smaller neighbours, using the same reasoning, if in fact these smaller countries came within the physical confines of their bigger neighbours at one time. South Asia is teeming with such examples.
However, in the event of such seizures occurring in contemporary times, the world would be having on its hands compounded anarchy and world disorder. There could be a temptation on the part of some observers to point to current developments in the Gaza as smacking strongly of such disorder, but the issues in the Gaza are more complex than those in the Ukraine and defy easy bracketing of the former with the latter. The ‘dynamics’, to borrow a term in vogue now, of the two situations are substantially different.
There are no exemplary major powers in the West on these questions in international politics. There is the case of the US, for instance, which, over the past two decades has militarily intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq, for the sole sake of self-interest and has reduced these states to lawlessness and helplessness.
Likewise, Russia has done grave harm to the Ukraine, rather than having done it any good, through its military incursion. The human death toll and linked devastation as a result of the ‘special operation’ by Russia has reduced the Ukraine to a condition of indefinite Longsuffering.
The history of the Ukraine invasion speaks for itself. Two or more years into the invasion Russia is no closer to succeeding in its efforts than it was at the inception. On the other hand, Ukraine is yet to show any tangible signs of decisively beating back Russia.
What we have in the Ukraine is a military deadlock which will benefit neither warring party. But civilian blood is being unconscionably spilt on a mind-numbing scale in the Ukraine and the impartial commentator is prompted to say that both sides are losing in the war.
Given this grim backdrop it is difficult to ascertain as to how Putin and his spokesmen could claim that the military invasion ‘is not a war against Ukraine’, whereas Ukraine is losing in every conceivable sense. Moreover, it is difficult to figure out as to how the bloodletting in the Ukraine is boosting the popularity of Putin at home.
The impartial observer would never be in a position to assess the veracity of these claims because there is simply no way of reliably verifying them in Russia. Russians cannot be blamed for this state of affairs because not all sections in Russia could speak their minds out on these issues without running the risk of inviting state persecution.
It is a debatable matter, moreover, whether the West, which is rendering military and moral support to Ukraine, is being beaten in the latter theatre, given the continuing military deadlock. A situation of deadlock in the kind of war that is raging in the Ukraine should be viewed as a victory of sorts for Ukraine because it is managing to hold back the enemy right now, more than two years into hostilities, though at great cost. The onus is on Russia to prove the commentator wrong on this score by decisively winning in the Ukraine, but this is unlikely to materialize any time soon.
Unfortunately, a deafening silence reigns on the foregoing crucial questions in international politics among those who claim to be progressive-minded the world over. Such silence is marked among the ‘progressives’ of the South in particular. Whereas, it is plain to see that those claiming to be ‘progressive-minded’ and representative of the political Left ought to be deeply troubled over the situation of the suffering civilians in the Ukraine, this is not at all the case. The Russian political establishment seems to be having an intimidatory hold on them.
Even-handed criticism of those wielding repressive power is expected of those who act as the ‘conscience of nations’ in the issue areas that have just been outlined. If Western military intervention and linked atrocities in the South are wrong, the same goes for the ills that are being perpetrated in the same hemisphere by Russia and its allies.