Napoleon, Hitler, Prigozhin
As I write this, a column of mercenaries is driving towards Moscow to topple down a government trapped in a never-ending conflict and under increasing pressure and hostilities from Western Countries.
Everything that I write now will be obsolete in a few hours.
What a land of instabilities and unpredictability is Russia! It's already the second time in my lifetime that I witness the World shaking on its Russian foundations. The first one was in 1991 during the coup against Gorbachev, which brought us to where we are today.
This time, the situation is even more explosive, in a literal sense. Moscow is at war. The temptation for conflicting parties to interfere and advance their agenda is clearly too appealing to be completely ignored.
The warnings above issued to that effect will receive the same disregard than those formulated by Putin himself on day one of this tragic ongoing History:
- A few important, very important words for those who may be tempted to intervene in the ongoing events. Whoever tries to hinder us, or threaten our country or our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to consequences that you have never faced in your history. We are ready for any turn of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard.
We are now a bridge, a couple of pipelines and a dam shattered after this solemn warning.
The response from Putin to these accumulated as well as ongoing events might be of the same style as his invasion of Ukraine in the first place: unexpected, immediate, over-the-line after temperance if not leniency following an unbearable eternity of warnings. I fear that his failures to respond proportionally so as to install a balance and some limits, dooms him to get engulfed into a whirlpool from which he will not be able to escape without drastic, including exaggerated or irreversible, retaliations. The point is, what else will be absorbed in this abyss along with him? Might this be everything else?
I don't even know if we should hope for any particular outcome. The situation is so bad that returning to whatever broken hell we had a few days ago would be soothing.
My feeling is, however, that the situation will escalate badly. I feel it is unlikely that a mercenary will succeed where Napoléon and Hitler failed: seizing power from the Kremlin by marching towards it from another military front. Prigozhin probably has only a few hours left to live. I would not be surprised that he is already dead by the time I publish this. It is possible that Putin will still step down or even be removed in the aftermath of this fiasco, just as was the case with Gorbachev, but I also feel that whoever would succeed him will actually be much more determined and in conflict with the Occident, than open to contrition and reparations, and that instead of restoring dialogue and inviting collaborations with whoever is pointing fingers, there will be some chopping off at whatever has already crossed the lines. It will then become clear that Putin was in fact full of restraint and moderation, despite everybody's impression shaped by the News as opposed to by History. It is extremely worrying in particular that whoever will succeed him may show much less reluctance to engage NATO directly and strike Europe.
Even if Putin stays in place, which remains the most likely scenario, it is also obvious that he's realizing that every additional minute is playing against him and that keeping the status quo will only bring him that little much farther. He will then accelerate all possible ways he has to bring an end to the situation he got stuck in, and that is equally if not even more alarming as nothing should be more feared than the wrath of someone who is slow to unleash it.
We are living worrying hours. I have known peaks of anxiety since 21 February (2022) and as one gets used to everything, I have since come to overlook and ignore the whole issue, although it should hardly be put aside, or only in a way that someone can ignore their having cancer. Well, I am now back feeling all funny and with the taste in my belly that it could all spiral in a few hours out of everybody's control and take us by surprise in the form of an orchid-colored flash in the sky.