Category: VIEWS

They would have every reason to support Ukraine. Latin American countries should remember that they too have a powerful neighbour that has long regarded them as their “backyard” and has not entirely lost its desire to impose a suzerainty on them. African countries, for their part, should not ignore the fact that Mr Putin’s attempt to annex Ukraine is as anachronistic and crazy as if France were to set out to reconquer Algeria or Britain to reclaim Nigeria.

When they deal with the future, polls are no more reliable than forecasts. This is the first, universal, conclusion to be drawn from the Turkish elections, and the other two are no less universal, for normally, hyperinflation, the stifling of liberties and the corruption boom should have inflicted the most humiliating defeat on Recep Erdoğan and his party.

One refuses to believe it. One does not even want to consider it, but everything suggests that Vladimir Putin is no longer in control. President, he still is, in title at least, but could a head of state in charge really let pass, without giving any reaction, an insult directed at a Minister of Defence to whom he is notoriously close and at the Chief of Staff to whom he has personally entrusted the conduct of Ukrainian operations?

On May 14, Recep Erdogan may well lose the Turkish presidential election. This is not a certainty, but his eviction is just as likely as Vladimir Putin’s if the Ukrainian forces score a few real points in the war in the near future. Maybe we are on the verge of great changes, then, but are we sufficiently prepared for them and are we even measuring their importance?

One day we will all need them. The day when the failure of the aggression against Ukraine raises the question of a successor in the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Mourza will be as indispensable to Russia, Europe and the world as Nelson Mandela was to his country when apartheid ended.