RUSSIAN WORLD Putin, the emperor of the West

The Russian “tsar” speaks of a “defensive” and salvific war to build a new world led by Russia. Moscow considers itself the “true West”, the one of traditions. To survive, the Russian president hopes for favorable political changes in Europe and the United States.

Milan () – Without a doubt, it was not necessary to listen to Vladimir Putin’s long and rancorous speech at the Valdaj club in Moscow on October 27 to understand that the goal of Russia’s war is not the reconquest of Ukraine but the defeat of the ‘West’ and the whole world. The “czar of the bunker” has promised that he will dedicate the next decade to this goal, which in his opinion will be “the most dangerous in the history of the world.” Perhaps also to deny the constant rumors about his upcoming disappearance, reflected in the return of his old friend Berlusconi who has returned to the forefront of Italian politics. The vodka toast he gave him on his birthday is a clear sign of good wishes for himself, to stay in power at least until the age of the recently re-elected senator.”

The theme of Putin’s conference could not be more explicit. He spoke about “The World after hegemony: justice and security for all.” The goal of the “defensive” and salvific war is the construction of a new world led by Russia, a new West illuminated by the East. Putin’s relationship with Westerners is marked by a real obsession, precisely what he calls “the West of the unipolar world”, which wants to “make Russian culture disappear” and even its sporting achievements.Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced the leader’s speech as “a text that will mark an era, which will be analyzed for many days”, although nothing of what was proclaimed differs from the crushing daily rhetoric that has been repeated since February 24 and in fact for a long time before. These are issues that Putin reiterates at least since “ Munich speech” of 2007 and basically refer to the dream of the “Third Rome” five centuries ago.

If Moscow is the one true Rome, then Russia is the true West and the Czar of the Kremlin is its emperor, flanked by a patriarch who really wants to be the Pope. “It never occurred to anyone, not even during the Cold War, to deny the culture and successes of their opponents,” Putin thundered, referring above all to the refusal of world sports federations to allow the participation of Russian teams and champions, much more symbolic than Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky, although they were cited as examples of “cancel culture”. It is the heresy of the Anglo-Saxons, who do not recognize the true faith and authentic values ​​and impose sodomite degradation, arrogating the right to admit or exclude those who do not fit. “Some Ukrainian printers refuse to print the books of Russian authors in the Russian language,” he said, recalling “the burning of books by the Nazis, in what pretends to be a liberal society.”

“False liberalism” is one of the definitions of heresy, not in vain condemned by Patriarch Kirill even before Putin came to power. Indeed, in 1997, when he was a metropolitan, he inspired a new religious freedom law that limited the activity of non-Orthodox denominations and completely prohibited “extremist sects”, that is, all religions that could not prove that they had been present in Russia for at least 15 years (after 70 years of state atheism). The “defense of traditions” is Russia’s atomic-spiritual weapon against the world that is in the hands of Satan, “in which every point of view is considered a lie and propaganda”, to assert the rule of total relativism, while that “traditional values ​​cannot be imposed, they can only be respected”. The supreme example of this degeneration, according to Putin, is the MeToo movement, a “contemporary form of ostracism against important public figures”, inventing against them absurd accusations of violence and harassment to eliminate those who are not comfortable for power.

The list of Western heresies is long, and Putin began with the “ecological” one, which today providentially has been left in the background by the world war unleashed by Russia: “The reduction of the multiformity of nature is the premise for the reduction of diversity in geopolitics and world culture,” he said, but without going into details of any specific problem of ecology, climate change and environmental protection. Of course, there could be no lack of resentment for “the collapse of the USSR that destroyed the global balance of political forces and allowed Western states to proclaim the unipolar world order.” Fortunately, “all this now belongs to the past, we are at a crossroads in history: the most important and unpredictable decade since the end of World War II opens before us.”

In reality, the decade appears to be much shorter, since Russia wants to remain a “friend of Western countries”, which it does not consider to be its enemies. Putin is looking above all at 2024, when his umpteenth renewal of his mandate (fifth or sixth, calculating the four years of government) will coincide with the election of the new president of the United States, who will replace the current “servant of Satan” Joe Biden. And the prospect of the return of Trump, or in any case of an isolationist American president, begins in a few days with the mid-term elections in the Washington Capitol, in which the Russians hope to be able to count on new majorities, more reluctant to finance the defensive war in Ukraine. The US is not the only country with which it wants to “renew friendship”: Bolsonaro’s Brazilian sovereignty could be confirmed, and in any case the Kremlin is happy about the sovereign victory in Italy, beyond the declarations of support for the Ukrainians, accompanied on the other hand by not a few nods to the Russians.

Putin tries to conquer that part of Western public opinion -and in particular European- that still feels great sympathy for Russia by talking about the “continuous increase in pressure and the creation of hotbeds of tension on our borders”, as the recent news of the deployment of 150 NATO tactical nuclear weapons in the countries that form the “encirclement”. The goal is to “make Russia increasingly vulnerable and transform it into a docile instrument of its own geopolitical ambitions.” The Atlantic Alliance is in a certain sense Putin’s best ally: the incorporation of Sweden and Finland and the aid to Ukraine are the best demonstration of the “invasion of the West” that forces Moscow to keep its defensive force alert, mobilizing the entire population and having their own atomic weapons ready, “which we have no intention of using”.

The “civil war in Ukraine”, as Putin defined it, because “Russians and Ukrainians are one people”, is also a European war in its own right, beyond the bombastic definitions of the global West. In it, the European crises of the last decade and beyond are repeated in increasingly intense dimensions, where the globalist system has produced a series of contradictions, as the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, president of the Center for Liberal Strategies, notes on Radio Svoboda. from Sofía: “The financial crisis of 2009-10, which stressed the entire economic system of the European Union, and today is raised again with the energy issue; the migration crisis, which in 2015 was partly a consequence of the war in Syria and now continues with the exodus of Ukrainians, more than twice as many as Syrians; and the feeling of the imminent end that the pandemic spread in recent years and is renewed today with the nuclear threat.” Putin knows that the Europeans just want to get out of the nightmare and do not realize that they are fully involved in the war. The political and social events of the coming months, if not of the coming years, should lead Europe to a progressive separation from the US and from Ukraine itself, beyond formal support, to restart a true relationship with Russia.

Washington looks at the war from a global perspective, Europe looks at itself with terror, and Russia is well aware that it has no way out in Asia, where the empire is increasingly firmly in the hands of the emperor in Beijing. It is no coincidence that after his confirmation in power, with the liquidation of the non-aligned forces, Xi Jinping took care to reassure the United States about their common desire for universal peace, without denying the possible use of force to recover Taiwan. Rumors in the Kremlin say that the Chinese leader has instead put off further talks with Putin, eager for guarantees and protections, while benevolently assuring Foreign Minister Lavrov that the “greatness of Russia” will count on the Chinese support.

Between the two true superpowers of East and West, Russia bets on the divisions and weaknesses of Europe, the real political and geographical territory that interests it. The entire cultural, economic and religious history of the “third Rome” is inextricably linked with Europe, and the vaunted “traditional values” are certainly not Confucian ceremonies or Hindu ascetic practices, although Russia has assimilated some inspirations from Asia. The Orthodox Church is a European Church, linked to the apostolic origins of Rome and Constantinople. And from Christian, secular and multiform Europe, the response that Putin expects must come, perhaps with the outstretched hand of the Argentine Pope of the first Rome, to save the Ukrainians from the tragedy without humiliating the Russians, in a new Europe of peace.