Writing at the London School of Economics, public intellectual (and spiritual justice warrior) Anne Applebaum nails Putin’s claims to legitimacy… and shows how to delegitimize him, thwarting his aggression.

The Kremlin, 1800, Public Domain, courtesy of Wikimedia

Excerpt:

“Putin’s goal is to maintain the dominance of his clique. For some time now, the ex-KGB inner circle has believed that the greatest threat to this power and this money is not the West, but Western democracy rhetoric. Putin and Medvedev do not seriously fear western military attacks, but they do fear popular discontent, public questioning of their personal wealth, open criticism of the basic tenets of Putinism and, of course, political demonstrations of the sort that created the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and which followed Russian parliamentary elections in the winter of 2011.

“To stave these things off, they believe they must work hard to maintain their legitimacy, both at home and abroad. … For all of his professional wariness of the real thing, Putin continues to adhere, in word if not in spirit, to the language and to the appearances of democracy. Indeed, appearances matter to him enormously – the appearance of democratic politics, democratic discourse and capitalist economics – and it is this which gives his regime its novel and deceptively powerful ideological edge.

“The need for legitimacy had also inspired some of Putin’s harsher rhetoric about the West, and especially about the United States. More than once, he has accused the United States of encouraging the spread of weapons of mass destruction and encouraging terrorism. He has openly compared America to Nazi Germany. … Putin has spent the past decade trying to promulgate an alternate post-Soviet history. In his version, 1989 was not a moment of liberation, but the beginning of economic collapse. The hardships and deprivations which Russians experienced during the 1990s were not the result of decades of communist neglect and widespread theft but of Western-style capitalism and democracy. Communism was stable and safe; post-communism has been a disaster. The Soviet Union was great; Russia was, until Putin’s arrival, a failure. …

“This context makes Putin’s harsher verbal attacks on some of Russia’s neighbours easier to understand. In the past, his most vitriolic rhetoric has been reserved for those countries which have most successfully navigated the path from communism to democracy, and which maintain the most open and pro-Western political systems: Poland, Estonia, Georgia and, at least until its most recent elections, Ukraine. …

What is to be done?

Continue, as does Anne Applebaum, to declare the truth about the illegitimacy of Putin and his Kremlin to the end of puncturing his presumptuous claims. It is by knowing the truth and the truth making us free that we may lead the footsteps of the people of Russia back on to the Paths of Righteousness.  And Peace. As Applebaum observes:

“However, the events of the past eighteen months have raised questions about the durability of Putinism. In recent years, the building blocks of Putinism have begun to look weaker. Clearly the growth of the internet has helped to undermine Putin’s monopoly on the media.”

And, thus, here we are: UkrainianGlory.org.

Forward this link to invite your friends to visit us and help us spread the truth about Putin’s moral and spiritual fraudulence and the nobility of the Ukrainian resistance.

Glory to Ukraine!