Vladimir Putin wants not only to seize new territories, but to own history. History often falls victim to autocracies and dictatorships. Reshaped historical narratives become compelling explanations of all-powerful leaders and serve their propaganda as one of the instruments to preserve and increase their political weight.
No wonder that Russian President Vladimir Putin comes up with absurdly manipulated historical facts to push his geopolitical policies. But it is more than just lies or manipulation. It is a well-grounded philosophy that not only revises the past, but also becomes his instrument to reshape the present.
Isn’t that what Putin does when he plays the “independent republics” card, with which the post-Soviet space that emerged 30 years ago is generously dotted by his bloody will: South Ossetia in Georgia, Moscow-created Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics in Ukraine and the breakaway Transnistria republic in Moldova – God knows how many more such black holes the Kremlin leadership can create with the help of mercenaries and propaganda.
Putin is offended by the collapse of the Soviet Union. His love for that bygone era is actively cultivated in Russia even 30 years after its implosion. Putin manipulates the notion of democracy by comparing artificially created pseudo-states with the real ones that constituted the USSR. He may indeed not see the difference between Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia and the conjured formations of LPR, DPR, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, or Transnistria. In this way, Putin suspends the understanding of freedom as a hostage to his biggest political intrigue – the confrontation between the West and Russia.
According to this primitive formula, if the U.S. once divided the USSR into some 15 republics, why can’t Russia today break those republics into smaller ones?
Having amassed nearly 200,000 troops with weapons and military equipment around Ukraine’s southeastern borders, Putin refuses to directly talk with the political leadership in Kyiv. Literally, he ignores any attempt at dialogue and sends messages through European interlocutors. This seems to be his response to the Ukrainian leadership’s unwillingness to negotiate with the Russian installed puppets whose Moscow-armed formations have been fighting in Ukraine’s two easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donets for nearly eight years.
The parallels are blustering, but quite possible for a man offended by the historical collapse of the state he seems to consider his homeland, the USSR, and who is already personally expressing doubts about Ukraine’s sovereignty. “I am convinced that Ukraine’s true sovereignty is possible precisely in partnership with Russia,” Putin wrote in a diatribe in July 2021.
Putin acts as if he really sees no difference between the sovereign state of Ukraine and the quasi-republics that are under his own military control. It is as if the Russian leader is trying to teach the world a lesson by creating imitations and empty simulacra on copies of real historical facts.
Putin’s version of history distorts understandable values to help manage his own country. If you don’t know how to create, then ”protect” and take away. Russia’s hybrid or covert invasions of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and Georgia’s Abkhazia, and Moldova’s Transnistria province under the guise of “protection” was done against phantom enemies he conjured.
Isn’t this what happened to the Soviet Union? While the West was recovering from World War II, building democracy and competitive market economies, the USSR was building tanks to defend itself and intimidating its own people with U.S. aggression. A Ukrainian diplomat who survived Stalin’s death as a child recounted how his entire family stayed awake, gazing up into the night sky. “We waited that every second we could see American missiles that were going to destroy us,” he recalled vividly for the rest of his life.
The Soviet Union, in fact, was built on falsehoods, lies, and unrealistic, artificial ideals. Putin is deliberately repeating this failed scheme and therefore risks his empire falling just as loudly.
“The Soviet Union, in fact, was built on falsehoods, lies, and unrealistic, artificial ideals. Putin is deliberately repeating this failed scheme and therefore risks his empire falling just as loudly.”
Soviets waited 70 years for the promise of a bright future, they were still waiting when the shithole collapsed. Once it did collapse, the slave states saw that it wasn’t the US that was the enemy to the USSR, but Russia. Putler can’t accept that none of the Soviet slave states were forced into NATO, they couldn’t join quickly enough, and as a result all of them prospered, while Russia went nowhere.
And worse yet, more than half the kozel in the RuSSia blame the US and the West for their hardships. They are lied to on a daily basis but choose to ignore their lying eyes. Trump stole their pensions and Bush stole their roads. Yeah yeah yeah…
The best Soviet lie was about the West being jealous of Russia, and wanted a lifestyle like theirs. 🤣
I remember the story of the World Fair. I don’t remember who was chief in the USSR at that time but I believe POTUS was Johnson and he invited the USSR chief to the fair and he said no, that the fair should come to him.
Well, Johnson took him up on it and brought the US display to Moscow. The Kremlin though it would be a bust so they started giving free tickets to people to go see, thinking the USSR way of life would be SO much better.
People lined up for miles to get in and see the US display and the chief was surprised and decided to go see what was so interesting.
There were new inventions like electric toasters, dishwashers and a microwave that had everyone astonished.
Afterwards, the Kremlin told everyone it was all a hoax and a Hollywood production.
Ok everyone, go back to your pens….lmao…
It could have been Khruschev or Brezhnev, the fair covered the end of Khruschev’s reign and the beginning of Brezhnev’s.
I remember my wife going to Holland for the first time, just before Christmas, after the fall of the SU. Boy was she surprised when she saw shops full of food and other goods, it was then she realised the SU was full of shit.
Nice story. My wife tells the story about the first time she saw red shoes. She found out they were from France and thought to herself, if the SU is the best country on earth why don’t we have red shoes?
You couldn’t even buy a proper bra in the SU. 😂
Not a bad thing though. 🤣
“Putin – the Crude Revisionist who Ignores Lessons of History”
On the same note, too many Western politicians have also ignored the lessons of history. Then, they too are crude revisionists.
Alas, the very bitter lessons of the 1930s could have come to good use now. Had our inglorious clowns in politics have remembered, we wouldn’t be here today, with 200,000 mafia troops ready to attack an innocent nation.
We have no Churchill anywhere to be seen either, just a load of appeasers hoping that Russia doesn’t attack them if they throw Ukraine under the bus.
Worse than Putin himself are the laughable asslickers in the West who admire him. They are total scum, i just hate the fuckers!