Lets Not Ally Ourselves With Putin


Putin has undeniably committed crimes across parts of Europe and the Middle East but what's really appalling is when eurosceptics side with Russia instead of the European Union. Every now and again I'm surprised with the reality of the fact that many eurosceptic are reluctant supporters of the Russian oligarch. Some people have somehow reached the odd-seeming conclusion that "my enemies' enemy is my friend" even when the subject of that redemption is an authoritarian war criminal.

I voted to leave the European Union because I believe that Britain should be independent, I support parliamentary democracy and I value personal liberty. Europe has undermined those sacrosanct principles with political integration, an unaccountable legislature and an unamendable series of regulations that have made us poorer. When I see what goes on in the Russian state, where dissidents are murdered, where anti-corruption opposition (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) are imprisoned and where neighbouring countries are under constant threat I'm lead to a similar conclusion.

Totalitarian rule is so ingrained into the backbone of his ideology that before Putin had ever even become president, while he was still Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsen in 1999 he lead an intervention and annexation of Chechnya in reaction to several apartment bombings that took place across Russia. The war indiscriminately killed at least twenty five thousand people - but here's the truly perfunctory catch - there's no actual evidence that Chechen terrorists were ever responsible because it was never investigated. When Boris Berezovsky uncovered a public call connected to the attacks, in Ryazan shortly after, it was traced back to the Federal Security Services of the Russian state, itself. Others critical of the Chechen war like journalist Anna Politkovskaya were subsequently murdered.

America offered out an arm of friendship, despite what happened, George Bush back in 2001, when US-Russia relations were strong, sought after a long term friendship with Russia but by 2008 found himself engaged in a proxy war over Georgia when Russia invaded the country.

When Barack Obama was newly elected, he lifted the sanctions on Russian arm exports which were equipping Iran with a deadly stock pile of weapons, signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty that drastically reduced armaments and even opened a transit root through Russia to supply American troops in Afghanistan. But this too was short lived, as just a few years later Putin's Russia would invade another neighbour, Ukraine and this time annexed Crimea, after protests in Kiev lead to the ousting of Viktor Yanukovytch as president. Pro-Russian Ukraine separatists supported by Putin, would shoot down the Malaysian air line, all while intimidation tactics through military exercises were gathering at the border during the Crimea status referendum of 2014.

Just imagine how Crimean tartars, many ethnically cleansed from their land by Stalin must have felt after a long awaited dream of democratic rule and independence, only to have been met over the horizon by Russian tanks, to be captured and subsumed into a shadow USSR - the Eurasian Economic Union - all for the sake of self-sufficiency off the tax receipts of oil and natural gas revenues.

Yet still having contracted for more than two consecutive quarters the Russian economy is in recession, the intervention incurred sanctions and disrupted important trade links. Not least, the greater tragedy of the many lives lost in Donbass. Like Mussolini's Italo-Ethiopian war no measurable advantage was gained, other than a display of power, a postponing of electoral defeat and the retention of influence in the region.

The case of Syria isn't far removed, under the guise of repelling ISIS, Russia has bombed hospitals, schools and civilian populated areas to target anti-Assad forces immersed in the population. He's backed the Syrian dictator, supplying him with weapons and fighter planes. Leaving us all to wonder if he is really incapable of shame. Meanwhile across Europe he's launched propaganda campaigns against Petro Poroshenko, Emanuel Macaron and Angela Merkel.

Domestically Putin's regime is entirely corrupt. He's spent his carrier in politics rising through the echelons of the Kremlin on a wave of money laundering, both collaborating and propping up crime monopolies all while squandering public money on loans for close personal friends. The state has been reduced to a shallow imitation of a democracy, even excluding from consideration the monopoly the state has over the media, the most recent election he won on the pretext that opposition candidates were not allowed to campaign and were only selected on the ballot with granted permission of the Kremlin.

Should we engage with Russia for mutual interest? Absolutely but should we seek an alliance? Certainly not, if Putin throws down the gauntlet over the territorial integrity of Eastern Europe, Donald Trump must be willing to pick it up, because truly nothing can shame this man.

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