nuclear-news

Vladimir Putin and a world without Russia

7 Oct Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.net/vladimir-putin-and-a-world-without-russia/

He’s supposed to have said it as a joke.

In a 2018 comment, Mr Putin talked about destroying the world in a nuclear holocaust because “what is a world without Russia good for?”

OK. perhaps it was a joke. But –many a true word is spoken in jest.

And here is where I run into trouble, because I am known to have a very sympathetic attitude towards Russia.

I think that Volodymyr Zelensky should have kept to the pledge on which he was elected as Ukrainian President in April 2019. Zelensky promised to honour the Minsk agreements of 2014-15 – to accept the Donbass having a limited autonomy within Ukraine, and to end the years of war between the Ukrainian government and the Donbass. But In an interview with the German daily Der Spiegel, published on February 9, 2023, Zelensky made it clear that he intentionally chose to sabotage Minsk.

Even in subsequent negotiations with Russia, in April 2022, Zelensky’s government came close to a peace agreement with Russia, acknowledging the Donbass autonomy, and rejecting Ukraine membership of NATO. Zelensky quickly scuttled that deal.

That is the background to Putin’s decision to start a Special Military Operation in support of the Donbass – ending the 8 years of civil war in Ukraine, but starting what soon became a full scale war against Ukraine. Some commentators see this as Putin having been provoked into war by the Russia-hating West. Others say that it is Putin’s first step to invading Europe.

Anyway, the Western politics and media have indeed swallowed wholesale the story that Putin wants to take over Europe into a grand Russian empire.

I don’t think that the facts on Russia’s economic and military power actually stack up on that interpretation. And I don’t think that Putin is stupid enough to bring the whole might of the USA and Europe down on Russia. It is more reasonable to consider that many NATO states are uncomfortably close to Russia, – indeed on Russia’s border. Ukraine is the largest European state on that border, and for Ukraine to join NATO would mean that Russia would be almost surrounded by hostile states. If the USA had Canada as a hostile state, that would make USA politicians anxious. So Putin’s resistance to Ukraine being a NATO state is understandable. It comes from fear, rather than part of a grand desire to take over Europe.

In a brief, but telling article, Walt Zlotow has argued that now, 80 years after Russia was our major ally, defeating Nazism in 1945, it is time to stop hating Russia. Zlotow also pointed out that “Russia had neither the desire nor the capability to attack America without suffering its utter destruction from an overwhelming American nuclear capability”.

That last point is an important one. Individual persons matter. Why we haven’t had nuclear war for all these decades, is partly because we haven’t had leaders who were willing to press the button for humanity’s annihilation. Not even the bravado of Kim Yong Un, the pomposity of a Macron, the dogged war-making of successive American presidents – has led to that fatal decision.

Vladimir Putin is intelligent, and he has, in my opinion anyway, some reason and logic in his initial attack on Ukraine, and in his conditions for peace, especially regarding NATO membership for Ukraine. Putin has consistently spoken clearly and reasonably about the possible terms for a peace settlement. Meanwhile Zelensky and the West seem implacably bound to the position of demanding unconditional surrender by Russia as their term for a peace agreement.

So the West is all go for “Whatever It Takes”. The problem that I see, is that despite Putin’s quite admirable diplomatic restraint, and clear argument, he is still the one leader who actually is prepared to launch Armageddon – “what is a world without Russia good for?”

I do put up pro-Russian arguments, mainly because somebody has to counter the prevailing Russiaphobia which swamps us all the time in the media. That does not mean that I think that Putin is a nice guy. I think he’s a ruthless tyrant. But he should be taken seriously, and treated reasonably- not just seen as an excuse to continue this mindless hatred of Russia. Putin is an exceptionally dangerous leader, and we may all pay the ultimate price for our stupidity.

October 8, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes