Putin’s mission of the Empire destroys freedom in Russia

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In December 2003, Russia held the parliamentary elections and Moscow in the United Moscow Campaign posters. They offered the national flag, the bear, the slogan “Strong Russia is Russia United” and a map depicting 145 figures from Russian history – one, was said, for every million residents of the country.

This week, on the twenty -fifth anniversary of Putin’s first presidential victory, the Russians or Westerners cannot say they have not been warned. For a map I told A copy of the date Near the heart of the former KGB agent: Russia is strong when the country is strong; It is a great Christian power with unique characteristics. The pre -condition of greatness is that local and subversive opponents must be neutralized to preserve Russia united behind its leader.

The posters showed Alexander Nevsky, a Middle Ages warrior, who is now celebrating his sponsorship Historical historical gardens All parts of the country to resist Western aggressors. They showed Peter the Great, the Caesar who expanded the borders of Russia and strengthened the state. They even showed Joseph Stalin – not a Russian, but rather a respected tyrant of Georgia in the era of Putin to exterminate the invaders and ensure that the Soviet Union was afraid and respected abroad.

Putin has not achieved his basic goals of the basic war in Ukraine – reducing Ukrainian independence to the blades, and discovering the Ukrainian identity distinct from Russia. As for courtesy Donald TrumpHe may do it. But we must also think about what this might mean for the Russian people, and for the freedoms that are now rejected and have not only enjoyed in short mutations on the centuries.

If the talks with the United States are produced as a result that Putin could depict as it is a victory in Ukraine, it will deal with their Russians who hope for less political repression and a less military atmosphere in public life. Only a minority Opposition. A lot of support, and others still keep their heads down to avoid troubles with the authorities. But everyone knows that Putin will explain a victory in Ukraine as an excitement of his authoritarian rule.

Putin may even remember Catherine, who is older than the tyranny, may remember: “Any other form of government will not only be harmful, but completely destroys for Russia.” But the eighteenth century Empress is not among Putin’s favorite historical figures. She was compatible with Voltaire, the French philosopher. Putin speaks with Taker Carlson.

The repression under Putin is not on Stalin’s dictatorship levels, when millions were in work camps. Russian and independent Western specialists appreciation There are at least 1500 political prisoners. But for each Galina Starovova, Boris Nazouf Alexei NavalnyThose who pushed their lives to oppose Putin, there are many of the lesser persecuted Russians.

The old and young people are both in the Putin network. This month, a military court Heal Alexander Scopov, 67, to 16 years old, in the Aqsa Security Prison for criticizing the attack on Ukraine. In November, Arsini, who was only 15 years old when he was arrested in 2023 due to the war, I lost an appeal Against prison sentence for five years.

The campaign mixes the opposition with Putin’s sense of the imperial mission in Ukraine. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US National Security Adviser, once Note: “Without Ukraine, Russia stops being an empire, but with Ukraine under subtitle and then followed, Russia automatically becomes an empire.” It was a valuable vision, but the effects of internal conditions were deeper.

To achieve glory, the builders of the Russian Empire always felt that it is necessary to subjugate society to the state and it seems that they are not identical to describe threats to national unity. This was true from Evan terribleThe frightening Caesar, which invaded the Khanna Kazan and Strakhan, paves the way for the Russian expansion towards the Caspian Sea and Siberia. Four centuries later, Stalin built a reality of reality in Eastern Europe while imitating Evan’s tyranny, which he had been a fan.

Now the same style reveals in Russia Putin. In his eyes, liberation at home – as under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin – were walking alongside the loss of the empire and the deterioration of Moscow’s position in the world. On the contrary, local repression gives it a free hand to follow up on Ukraine’s mastery and even the field of impact recovered in Eastern Europe.

Thus, victory in the war will delay the next turn Russian history cycleAccording to at least any repression and partial freedom, follow each other like changes in the seasons. Vladimir Lenin Red Horror gave the way to the new economic policy. Then Stalin came, and then the experience melted under Nikita Khrushchev. The circumstances were stressed during the reign of Leonid Prishev and his successors, but Gorbachev Wiltsin changed all of this. Now we have Putin.

Is it imagined that the next Kremlin leader is part of this style, and free at home while pursuing a lesser foreign policy? To a large extent, the answer depends on the results of the war. If Putin’s successor inherits control over Ukraine through an extensive sphere of influence in Europe, and he wants to keep it in this way, the role of the session may be delayed towards local reform for a longer period. He studied Russia’s past, and Putin’s rule is that an empire’s mentality is not compatible with the freedom of the Russian people.

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