What did he announce? Nothing. What has he learned from the two and a half months of “special operations” in Ukraine? Nothing. Did he even say anything in his opening speech at the traditional military commemoration of the 1945 victory?
No, not even once did he say anything, because inexpressive as he was, strapped into a small, too-tight coat and without ever uttering the name of Ukraine, all Vladimir Putin did was to make up stories, to tell Russia an imaginary story in which…
Let’s quote him: “Preparations were openly underway for another punitive operation in the Donbass and an invasion of our historic lands, including Crimea. Kiev was announcing the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons (…) We saw how hundreds of foreign advisers were starting to work and regularly deliver the most modern NATO weapons. The danger was growing day by day (and) Russia gave a preventive response to the aggression.”
It was an “obligatory” decision and “the only right one”, Vladimir Putin adds, but let’s resume. “Another punitive operation in the Donbass” ? How is this “another” when the only previous operation in Donbass that can be traced is the one he himself organised in 2014 to break off a part of this region from Ukraine and place it under the control of separatists armed and financed by Moscow?
Putin thus accuses Ukraine and behind it the Atlantic Alliance of having planned to do against him what he had done against Ukraine. He is taking credit for his own crime, just as he did for Crimea, which he annexed in 2014 and which he is now accusing Ukraine of having prepared “the invasion”.
So let’s resume again. Even if Ukraine had wanted to reclaim the Donbass and Crimea, lands stolen in 2014 by Russia – only exercising its most legitimate rights – Vladimir Putin does not put forward any proof of this assertion, nor does he say how, to whom, or on what market the Ukrainians would have been about to make the “possible acquisition” of nuclear weapons.
This is what could be called “alternative truths”, but on the other hand, it is true that there were foreign military advisers in Ukraine. It is even thanks to them that the Ukrainian army had considerably strengthened its capacity to counter the ongoing aggression since 2014, but would Mr Putin seriously have us believe that with these “hundreds” of advisers, Ukraine was preparing to invade Russia?
Let’s ask again: were the 44 million Ukrainians preparing to invade Russia, the largest country in the world, a nuclear power with three times the population of Ukraine?
This is totally absurd, yet this is what this Head of State dares to claim to the world. This is the fable that he is cooking up with a sauce that mixes World War II Nazis and “neo-Nazis” of his own invention. That’s all he had to say, but really, what else could he have said?
That a People that in his eyes did not exist was able to stop the Russian army to defend its homeland, a homeland that, he said, is not supposed to exist either? That he committed a political error of unbelievable proportions by ordering this invasion? That his army is bogged down, his economy is suffering and his natural resources are losing their natural outlets in Europe?
Or could he have said that his political blindness has brought the United States back to Europe, resurrected the Atlantic Alliance, closed the ranks of EU member states as never before, paved the way for further enlargements of the Union and precipitated its march towards becoming a political union?
Could Vladimir Putin have stated these facts on 9 May on Red Square without having to announce, in the same breath, that he was resigning, retiring from political life and asking Russia to forgive him for the crimes he made her commit and the dishonour he inflicted on her? No, of course not, because then he would quickly find himself before the courts. The only possibility left to him was to make up stories, but where does that leave him?
To nothing but to even more failure unless he is able to claim victory as soon as possible and, in the process, withdraw his troops from a country that he will have to get used to calling Ukraine because Ukraine is its name.
