It has been self-evident for years that Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to “neutralize” anyone who poses a threat to his presidency for life. And no one posed a greater threat than opposition leader Alexei Navalny. This is why I asserted – in “Protests Unmasking the Insecurity and Cowardice Behind Putin’s Swagger and Bravado” on August 29 – that Putin ordered secret agents to poison him.
The simple fact is that, even more than President Trump, Putin lives in mortal fear of free and fair elections. Because he knows that he would not only lose in a landslide but face immediate arrest on charges of unprecedented corruption and multiple murders to boot.
In other words, to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison (or worse), Putin knows he must rule for life. This is the dictator’s paradox: a purported strongman ruling with an iron fist but living in constant fear of his own people.
Accordingly:
International condemnation has cascaded on Russia after the German government said on Wednesday that tests conducted on Alexei Navalny showed the Putin critic had been attacked with the nerve agent Novichok [a Soviet-era nerve agent].
The EU, NATO and several Western governments have called for an explanation from Moscow following the German findings. …
Alexei Navalny continues to be treated in an intensive care unit and remains on a ventilator.
(Euronews, September 2, 2020)
Of course, Novichok is the same Soviet-era nerve agent Putin dispatched assassins to use on former Russian spy-cum-dissident Sergei Skripal two years ago in Salisbury, England. Prime Minister Theresa May promptly expelled a planeload of Russian diplomats and imposed crushing sanctions.
Russian oligarchs are still reeling from the fallout. After all, they found in London a safe haven for their ill-gotten billions. Now they’re living very dangerously indeed in fallback havens that are anything but safe – not only from equally corrupt hosts but also from Putin’s mercenary wrath.
But May had no choice – as I posited in “Skripal, Et Al: Russia Taunting Britain with Brazen Assassinations,” March 13, 2018. The question for German Chancellor Angela Merkel is: Will she emulate May? After all, she and Germany have far more to lose. This, not least because Germany is almost as dependent on Russia for gas as former Russian satellite states like Ukraine.
On the other hand, there is no question that Putin can rely on Trump doing what no other US president would do, namely remain silent. After all, Trump has played deaf, dumb, and mute despite US intelligence showing that Putin put bounties on the heads of US soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
Hell, I’d bet Trump couldn’t even say who Navalny is to save his life.
In any event, this latest poisoning substantiates my abiding assertion that Putin is not only a coward but an incompetent too. After all, Navalny is now in dubious company with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the aforementioned Skripal, which makes his the third (high-profile) poisoning Putin has bungled.
I duly ridiculed his attempts in “Pussy Riot: Russia’s ‘Vlad the Poisoner’ Strikes … Again,” September 19, 2018.
Yet Western media have bought his manufactured reputation as a political Professor Moriaty hook, line, and sinker, whereas a reputation as a political Inspector Clouseau is clearly more warranted.
Related commentaries:
Protests unmasking… Viktor Yuschenko… Vlad the poisoner… Skripal et al…