War aim must now be to destroy Putin and his regime

Marco Levytsky
Editorial Writer

So I’m heading for the nearest foreign border
Almaty* may be just my kind of town
‘cause they don’t need the kind of law and order
That tends to keep a good man underground

*Adapted from “My Uncle” about an American getting a draft notice, released in 1969 by the Flying Burrito Brothers. Vancouver in the original has been changed to Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan.

Vladimir Putin is getting desperate.

During this past week he has:

• Ordered the “partial mobilization” of 300,000 reservists, though some reports state that the actual number targeted will be up to 1.2 million.
• Threatened the use of nuclear weapons yet another time.
• Ordered sham referendums in the Ukrainian regions still controlled by Russian forces to join Russia so he can them claim any attack on them is an attack on Russian territory.

For this he has been condemned by virtually every country in the world. Even allies like China and India are telling him to end this war. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has been trying to play a mediator role, not only says Putin should end the war as soon as possible, but return all the territory he has taken from Ukraine – including Crimea.

But let’s take the three points we have highlighted and address them one at a time.

Partial Mobilization: Bids to escape conscription have resulted in all arterial routes out of Russia getting jammed. Planes and trains are also packed as tens of thousands of young men try to flee to neighbouring countries. Some on the Georgian frontier use bicycles to bypass lines of cars and evade a ban on crossing on foot. One man from Kaliningrad said he would do anything to avoid being drafted: “I will break my arm, my leg, I will go to prison, anything to avoid this whole thing.” Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Finland and the Czech Republic have closed their borders to fleeing Russians. The reason is they don’t know who is a legitimate refugee and who is a Russian agent. The EU has banned all flights from Russia. Those destinations still reachable by air – such as Istanbul, Belgrade or Dubai – have seen ticket prices skyrocket to as much as $10,000 and are selling out immediately. Russians have set fire to at least five recruitment offices in the country, including in Saint Petersburg; some local administration buildings have also been under attack.

Even if Putin gets his 300,000 troops they will get about two weeks training, have very low morale and be thrust against battle-hardened Ukrainians whose morale right now is sky high. That’s cannon fodder. Neither does Russia have the logistics to get them to the front in the first place. What’s more Russia can only burn so many bodies in their mobile incinerators to avoid sending the boys home in body bags. Even so, mothers will wonder why their sons are “missing in action”. Many of those forced into service are from oppressed minorities like the Crimean Tatars. Expect them to desert at the first opportune moment. So far this has been a television war for most Russians and what they see on television are all lies. Sooner, rather than later, it’s really going to hit home. Let’s see what happens then.

Nuclear Threat: Putin has been spouting the nuclear threat so often he is turning into the boy who cried wolf. The rest of the world has dismissed this latest threat as a bluff. According to some observers, he will either get killed or ousted in a coup. Nevertheless, Putin is enough of a deranged psychopath that nothing can be taken for granted. The U.S. has been privately warning Russia against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine for months, but warnings have been kept purposefully vague so that the Kremlin worries about how Washington might respond. But, as far as we’re concerned, any use of nuclear weapons, be they tactical, or strategic, must not only be considered an attack on Ukraine, nor even on NATO, but an attack on the whole world, and dealt with appropriately.

Sham Referendums: Nobody else is giving them any credibility. Russian soldiers are going door to door in those regions in which “referendums” are being held forcing people to go out and vote. And it doesn’t matter how they mark their ballots. The count is going to be dreamed up anyway. Remember the immortal words of Putin’s role model Joseph Stalin: “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.” Some observers say even using the word “sham” is too much. “There is not only no legal basis for speaking of a ‘referendum,’ but not even much factual basis for speaking of a ‘sham referendum’. A sham is shambolic, but it does actually exist. What Russia is undertaking is nothing more than a media exercise designed to shape how people think about Russian-occupied Ukraine,” says Yale Professor Timothy Snyder.

“When Russia claims that huge majorities of Ukrainians want to join Russia, they are claiming that Ukrainians like death pits, that Ukrainians like torture, that Ukrainians like deportation, that Ukrainians like to have their homes destroyed and their cities obliterated.

“The ongoing Russian media exercise (‘referendums’) is an obscenity. When Russian media announces the invented ‘results,’ Moscow will be claiming that Ukrainians wish to celebrate their own ongoing genocide by joining the country that is perpetrating it. Such an attempt at public humiliation is despicable. The Russian media exercise is nothing more and nothing less than an element of ongoing Russian war crimes,” he adds.

As one pundit put it: “Russia’s chances of winning its war in Ukraine are falling faster than a dissident oligarch tossed from a rooftop.” That may be a catchy line, but let’s not get complacent. The battle is far from over and it must be continued with the utmost vigour. More weapons need to be sent to Ukraine than ever before. The aim of this war must now be to destroy Putin and destroy his regime. Russia must be “de-nazified” just as Germany was “de-nazified” after World War II. Anything less will leave the world in danger of annihilation by a nuclear-armed psychopath.

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