Like the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has a unique art of propagandistic staging. Aggression is glorified as the liberation of oppressed brothers, while tyranny is extolled as a humanistic form of government. In yesterday’s imperialist delusion, one can recognize the historical ages of Putinism itself. From the mythology of a Western conspiracy against a peaceful nation to Soviet nostalgia, the entire political imagination of the Moscow regime is here. Yesterday’s gesture was more than a challenge to the West. He wanted to be a manifesto of the future world order.

Because Russia is a revisionist state, and its fundamental goal is to overthrow the order that was established in the decade after 1991. The demonization of the West, the condemnation of the United States, transforms the vitality of the image on which Putin has based his own symbolic authority. The synthesis of Russian messianism and the glorification of Soviet power is an expression of Putinism itself.

The harshness of Vladimir Putin’s speech is a mirror of historical metastases that affect the Russian state itself. Unable to adapt to a role that is no longer imperial, the Russian state decides to return to its usual environment. Arena of aggression, state crime, threat of global annihilation. Nuclear weapons are the epitome of historical greatness.

In the eyes of Russian officials, complicit in the construction of a totalitarian regime that attacks the foundations of international freedom, Vladimir Putin has given a simulacrum of legitimacy to a barbaric occupation. More than ever in recent times, the nation is carrying out the dismantling of a sovereign state with pomp. A permanent member of the UN Security Council is currently a state that operates outside the boundaries of international legality.

Failures in the theater of military operations will bring the brutality of the Russian Federation to a paroxysm: attacks on the civilian population are already a daily reference point. Crimes against humanity are the only way to fight against Putin’s Russia. As for the nuclear threat, this is the last redoubt of protection of the Moscow regime. Asserting imperial prestige is inseparable from Vladimir Putin’s survival: defeat in Ukraine would mean the end of his own tyranny. Read the entire article on Contributors.ro