The warlord in the Kremlin shows where megalomania leads. Russia bombs itself more and more into the 20th century every day. Even China is demanding "dialogue," which Putin sees as impossible. In order to survive politically, he needs success on the battlefield. But that is not in sight - not even by means of an atomic bomb.
What was previously suspected is now certain: Vladimir Putin has succumbed to megalomania. His baseness, contempt for human beings and propagandistic lies have reached a level reminiscent of Hitler. To understand his cynicism, one has to consider the alleged reasons why he invaded Ukraine and what his goals are now. Putin thought he was surrounded by NATO and wanted to remove alleged "neo-Nazis" and "drug addicts" from the Kiev government - another pipe dream. Nothing is left of his intentions, fortunately he failed to subjugate and wipe out Ukraine.
Therefore, the warmonger hatched a new perfidious plan. He lets Ukrainians in the Donbass vote in pseudo-referendums as to whether they "want to go home to the Russian Empire," but doesn't wait for the result because the "yes" has already been decided. If the Ukrainian army wants to recapture the annexed areas including Crimea - even if they succeed with heavy weapons from Germany - then the tyrant in the Kremlin will announce that it is an attack on Russian national territory, that his country must defend itself and therefore men Hundreds of thousands of calls to arms. The aggressor declares himself to be the attacked - this is madness.
But those who are mistaken are often mistaken. The plan will again not work out, on the contrary, it is the beginning of the end of Putin as Russian ruler. The Ukrainians will continue to put up fierce resistance. They know what they are fighting for: for their homeland and their freedom. If Ukraine as a nation needed afterbirth assistance at all, Putin provided it with his war. Ukrainians will reject, despise and even hate anything Russian for decades and probably even centuries to come - and who could blame them.
Domestically, Putin will gradually come under pressure, and there are already first signs. The war soon reached the urban upper classes. Despite draconian penalties, young people in particular are protesting against the slaughter in Ukraine. Putin has created a deeply corrupt country where everyone is, and perhaps has to be, their closest to getting by. The flight of young and younger men from Russia, the run for plane tickets, is not a flawless sign of pacifism and resistance to the state. It's one thing to support the war in polls - if only for opportune reasons - but it's another thing to meet a highly motivated opponent at the front and sacrifice your life for the imperial dream of a megalomaniac.
As in the GDR and other dictatorships or autocracies in recent history, the silent people are passive accomplices, albeit often against their will. It is a vital consideration: Is resistance as an individual against a supreme state power worthwhile if you have to spend years in prison and protest achieves nothing? Even Russians know that life is far too good to die on the battlefield for a mini-Hitler. Even criminals would rather serve their sentences than be targeted by Ukrainian tanks.
Putin has turned Russia into a kleptocracy, a mafia-like state, a deeply corrupt system with a seemingly untouchable elite of egomaniacs. This was shown, for example, in the behavior of the son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who apparently fell for a fake call from someone posing as an employee of a recruitment agency. "You have to understand that my name is Peskow," which is why he will "of course not" go to the front. Yet Father Peskov is the one who bleats day after day at Putin's nonsense about the necessity of war. But others should die for it.
Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda and bringing the media into line, Putin has never managed to give his imperial aspirations an ideological superstructure that would be worth dying or being crippled for. What really counts in Russia is wealth, a fancy car, holidays abroad and branded clothes - but that's about it. The occasional tedious speech, not calling war a war, parading troops in Red Square, and commemorating the - indeed - gigantic military achievements of the Great Patriotic War is not enough to form an army of volunteers. The fanatics in the "People's Republics" are a minority, the Wagner mercenaries kill for money.
All of this also minimizes the risk of an atomic bomb being used. Yevgeny Popov, a member of parliament loyal to Putin, recently said: "We will not be the first to attack the western states, we will not organize a nuclear massacre in the world." Nuclear weapons would be used "only in response" to a nuclear attack against Russia - but that never happened and is not in sight. Putin alone cannot send nuclear weapons anywhere. A single atomic bomb, even one with limited effect, would not do much militarily. If the Russians ignited several, they would burn their soldiers with them. Apart from that: China and India would no longer (couldn't) stand by Russia's side after the dropping of a tactical nuclear bomb.
The Russian warlord will not turn the tide on the front line even if he sends 300,000 troops. The deficits of the army are not gone: the losses of men and material are horrendous, the military leadership - or better: the one that is left - moves according to the judgment of all experts tactically at the level of the Second World War. Your education is abysmal. The skills to coordinate an attack on the ground, in the air and on the water are low. Putin's would-be empire is a technically and intellectually developing country. The birth rate is miserable, the population has been shrinking for years, which is only accelerated by the exodus of hundreds of thousands who have no desire for dictatorship and war.
In terms of foreign policy, things are getting tight for Purin anyway. China is calling for a ceasefire to be reached through "dialogue and consultations" and a solution "that takes into account the legitimate security concerns of all parties." Which is a warning to Russia not to make it worse than it already is. Turkey, which has so far shown understanding for Russia, officially rejects "unilateral referendums" that touch Ukraine's territory. Even North Korea attached importance to the message that it did not want to send weapons to Russia. That may be a lie, but it is still a statement against Moscow.
Putin got lost. His end is near, too much is coming together for him to be able to hold his own domestically. Unless - and that's all he has left - he establishes a dictatorship modeled on North Korea. Then he would remain head of the Kremlin, but he would ruin his country even more than before. Maintaining a regime of terror, waging war, and funding bread and circuses costs billions of dollars and ultimately leads to ruin and political instability. Hopefully sooner or later Russia will experience its zero hour, just as Germany had to and was able to start over after the Second World War. That would be the great opportunity for the country to finally arrive in the 21st century.
