Russian journalist and political commentator Andrej Okun notices helplessnesswhich is operated by Vladimir Putin and the entire Russian leadership after the invasion of the Ukrainian army into the Kursk region. Meanwhile, on the third day of the campaign on Russian territory, the Ukrainian army occupied more than 400 km² of Russian territory and at least three dozen settlements were drawn into the fighting.
However, Okun disputes the view that now “the aggressor is reaping the rewards and paying for the war he started.”
“However, the problem is that the real aggressor does not pay for it. He sits in the Kremlin, although now his important body has probably been moved to some bunker for safety. And he doesn’t even bother with public speeches: he sits down at the table under the cameras, says something, rolls his eyes in confusion and crawls away,” states the journalist.
Otherwise, however, according to him, it does not seem that “retribution” will fall on Putin in any way. “He was in a good mood yesterday. After an unpleasant conversation about some kind of ‘situation’, he asked Finance Minister Anton Siluanov with a smile how he went on a motorcycle holiday to Crimea. Life is a fairy tale. What kind of retribution are we talking about?’
There is a debate in the Russian opposition about the responsibility of “ordinary Russians” for the establishment and maintenance of the dictatorship in Russia and the degree of support for Russian imperialism, in which completely opposite opinions are voiced. According to Okun, these are “people who, like all of us, have shown themselves to be powerless in the face of the lying state and the criminal bloody war it has unleashed.”
In any case, it is clear that the Kremlin regime left them at the mercy of the Ukrainian army.
“They, our fellow Russians, are now suffering, leaving the war zone in panic, losing their homes, loved ones and relatives. There are queues for humanitarian aid. They, hostages of a geopolitical war special, listen to the consolation of 10,000 rubles spat out by the master of life. And in the end, the real aggressor and mastermind of all this injustice is unlikely to experience any reduction in quality of life. The earth and the people will bear it all. And at the right moment, rats will climb out of the crevices and squeal about his genius, about the cunning of the West and how we returned to the borders of our own state with a heroic victory. So now it’s not the aggressor who suffers, but the most ordinary people,” says the journalist.
At the same time, it is important, according to the author, that “during this time, the current regime did not make a single clear proposal, the authorities do not say anything sensible, which gives the impression that they themselves do not really understand how to get out of the historical crisis”. Andrej Okun believes that it is not just an impression and the authorities really do not know what to do.
“Putin, on the other hand, was able to squeeze only the ‘situation’ and ‘circumstances’ out of himself for three days, and then he gave the refugees 10,000 rubles each. He then hid, as he usually does in any critical situation. That’s all. A crisis of political will, a dead end of organizational abilities and a complete lack of ability to promptly resolve the situation. All you have to do is calm down and accept that it’s time to stop the war.”
In Friday’s post then describes how an arc of sorts closed.
“I remember them telling us in February 2022 that the ‘special operation’ was a pre-emptive strike. Apparently, it was simply necessary to start the war first, otherwise they would attack us themselves, and then it would be much more difficult. And here we are. Two and a half years of war have passed and the VSU are anchored in the Kursk region. This is an interesting preemptive strike. Food for thought for all who still think this war has real meaning.”
Andrej Okun belongs to those who already at the beginning of the invasion they believed that a war with Ukraine would hasten the fall the current Russian regime.
“When Putin announced the mobilization on September 21, I thought: ‘This Russia will arrive,'” Andrej Okun writes on social networks. “Simply because the state system in our country cannot work in a mode of constant tension. It was created to profit from the oil and gas sector, but was not taught how to survive in emergency mode. Putin’s Russia lived and functioned according to the news on paper. Nobody was interested in the reality until the moment when the Ukrainian army began to decisively attack the Russian army. That’s when the system administrators decided to enter the engineering department and see what was going on deep inside the system.
And there was a bacchanalia, with frenzied locksmiths running around driving pins into the pipes so that the valve would not explode now, but later. Smoke, soot, rough mats, impenetrable darkness and boiling water gushing from every crevice. Scalded and dazed, the administrators scrambled out, not knowing how to make the whole thing work. The war hastened the collapse of the existing regime, and the conscription of reservists for the Ukrainian war only intensified the agony. The state system has already begun to eat itself like a coiled snake.”
According to the author, all this is a consequence of the fact that the regime never cared about people and their lives.
“For many years, the Russian authorities did everything to divide the people and suffocate them with misery. They supported the loyal ones and got rid of the enterprising ones. They systematically displaced criticism and turned a blind eye to many problems. All this resulted in sabotage on a national scale and the beginning of a war, the end of which is already generally known. The snake has begun to eat itself, and it seems that it will do so quickly, as it turns out that it is not as large and well-fed as everyone thought.’
