«Putin only makes propaganda, the facts have already denied it. Right to arm Kiev»

“Biden’s is a speech of pride and firmness of democracies, as opposed to Putin’s ethical nightmares”. Giampiero Massolo, former head of the secret services and general secretary of the Foreign Ministry, defines that of the Russian president as “a political propaganda speech that says nothing new about the causes and responsibilities of the war and moreover, as President Meloni said, is contradicted by the facts”.

Melons in Bucha and Kiev, the crown of flowers and the premier’s tears

Nothing new?
“Only two. The first is that so far we have witnessed a lot of ambiguity about the red lines crossed which would have end-of-the-world consequences for Putin. Yesterday he reiterated that essentially they are identified with the maintenance of Russia’s territorial integrity, but in relation, and this is the novelty, with the supply of long-range weapons capable of striking Russian territory. An obvious warning, brutal in its formulation, in the face of a great shrewdness of the West in supplying armaments. The other novelty is the freezing of the START treaty, the last major agreement for the balance of strategic nuclear weapons, which expires in 2026 and had been interrupted and resumed several times. That Putin does not get out of it but freezes it means that there will be no immediate operational consequences, but it certainly touches the raw nerves of Western public opinion”.

Putin also announced new nuclear tests…
“He also said that Russia will not resort to nuclear power if the Westerners do not.”

Did he demonstrate strength or weakness?
«Putin has entered into a long-term logic. He is convinced that the number of his soldiers and the possible contradictions in the Western field can be exploited by him to take advantage. He also knows he can count on a substantial arsenal, albeit obsolete and in the hands of poorly coordinated, massive and non-selective armed forces in attacks, so much so as to shed a lot of blood. I don’t think he wants to subjugate Ukraine any more, but he believes he can consolidate what he conquered and control the four territories whose independence he first declared and then annexed. He doesn’t have the slightest intention of going towards a real dialogue, he himself doesn’t want it. He believes he can still make conquests. The offensive that he is preparing to launch is functional to this goal. He is all the more reason for the West to continue with the tactics and strategy of helping the attacked defend themselves, and giving them the maximum advantage to sit at a future negotiating table, which is not in sight, in the best possible position. But to argue that the West wants to wage war on Russia and defeat it on the ground is to fall into Putin’s propaganda. Let’s help a country attacked in the interest of international law and the future balance of security in Europe, which cannot be made to measure for a state that violates every rule. The West has one basic rule of engagement: do not allow direct conflict with Moscow. There can be no military victory for Ukraine, such as regaining all the territories that Russia has seized since 2014, without a direct confrontation between the West and Russia. That there won’t be. We just want to avoid finding ourselves in a Europe where the law of the strongest prevails».

Putin challenges the degeneration of the West…
«Language that must be read in a historical-cultural key. I’m not surprised by Putin’s claims of moral superiority. We knew that Russia did not recognize itself in the liberal world order. We had hoped for it, after the fall of the Wall, but Russia proved to be a brutal revisionist power: a failed state, based on the war industry and energy extraction, on which Putin bet. But Biden is strolling the streets of Kiev, NATO is expanding on Russia’s borders with Finland and Sweden, and Ukraine is indomitable: it is clear that Putin has lost the bet”.

Does it still enjoy approval internally?
«Aside from the bastions of the security and military apparatus, there is a dose of consensus in his public opinion, stimulated by the nationalist rope and moral supremacy. But after a year of war, the US can afford to consider Kiev safe enough to send the President there. A great show of strength. Putin’s is the solitude of the autocracy opposed to the strength of the American president who reaffirms it in the square in Warsaw. The power of democracy”.

Read the full article
on The Messenger