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Russian or Arab spring? Op-Ed by Victor Pelin


https://www.ipn.md/en/russian-or-arab-spring-op-ed-by-victor-pelin-7978_1088442.html

“The war in Ukraine generated serious questions as to the security of the Republic of Moldova. On the one hand, the recent statements of the minister of foreign affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov are very soothing when he says that Russia does not intend to invade other countries, but this kind of assertions become fully incredible when he adds that Russia didn’t invade Ukraine. This should not surprise us as we convinced ourselves that, as in the case of Ukraine, the invasion can be served as “liberation” to us too…”
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After recruits, mercenaries are coming

The Russian invasion of Ukraine got stuck. Instead of blitzkrieg, the Russian armed forces found themselves involved in positional warfare for which they weren’t ready. The Russian armament and the over 150,000 troops concentrated during about three months along the Russian-Ukrainian and Belarusian-Ukrainian borders were fully engaged in the war against peaceful Ukrainian cities. But things do not go according to plan. At a certain moment, the Russian President Vladimir Putin discovered that the war he waged against Ukraine involves recruits without any military training.

As the crocodile does not ever step back, President Putin has to look for cannon fodder to continue the special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. Problems appeared here.  The truth is the mobilization of reservists is done in accordance with the law on defense, while the army’s defense means a system of political, economic, military, social, legal and other types of measures for ensuring the integrity and inviolability of the territory of the Russian Federation. So, in order to begin an eventual mobilization of reservists, President Putin should admit that he started a war against Ukraine, not a special military operation. But he cannot do this as the war he started is not a defense war, but an occupation war waged against the sovereign and independent state Ukraine. Russia’s Penal Code says that the planning, preparing and starting of a war of aggression is punished with seven to 15 years in jail.

No one has illusions about Russian justice’s courage to investigate the crime of planning and starting the war against Ukraine. However, there are subtleties. We convinced ourselves that the effects of the manipulation of notions gives serious headaches to President Putin. This way, the latter had to invite merchants from Syria so as to continue the war against Ukraine. There is a legal problem here too. The same Penal Code of Russia provides that the recruiting, training, financing or another material support to the merchants and their utilization in an armed conflict or a military operation is punished with seven to 15 years in prison.

Again, no one should have illusions that the Russian prosecutors will try to apply somehow this article and to investigate the multiple crimes committed by Russian merchants the past eight years in Donbas. There are multiple proofs that the citizens of the Russian Federation inspired and led a war in Donbas, announcing the start of the Russian spring, which is the occupation of the Ukrainian territories. These heroes do not stop boasting that without their involvement the war in Donbas would have been impossible. That’s why President Putin’s tears about the eight-year sufferings of Donbas are realty crocodile tears. In such circumstances, President Putin can for now only try to substitute the so-called Russian spring with an Arab spring, which means that he admits the eventual degeneration of the war into a guerrilla one. 

Occupants, patriots and traitors

In the several cities occupied by the Russian troops, these are no way welcomed by the “liberated” citizens. On the contrary, there are tens and tens of proofs that citizens protest against this occupation administration, chanting: “Russian soldiers – fascists and occupants”. It is a normal reaction to the war crimes committed by the occupants who claim to be liberators. In fact, the maximum attributed to Napoleon – a man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on itcomes true this way. This truth is to be now learned also by President Vladimir Putin, who, through the agency of his intelligence services, invested billions for constituting and spiriting the fifth column in Ukraine and in other post-Soviet states that have to meet the “liberators” with flowers and ring-shaped bread on towels edged with lace.

Want it or not, but we have to ascertain that sometimes the phenomenon of corruption has also a positive facet. Indeed, if the money allocated by Putin’s administrator to the fifth column hadn’t been stolen, it is not known how the local administrations in the Ukrainians cities occupied by the Russian troops would have reacted. Consequently, we see that the Russian occupation police forces that came together with the troops find with big difficulty traitors among representatives of the local authorities of the occupied towns. This makes the legalization of the occupation administration imposable, while most of the mayors and local councilors prefer to reason or to join the Ukrainian defense forces. This is actually what real patriots do.

We must admit that we would have never thought about the positive facet of corruption if the propagandists of the Russian imperialism in the Republic of Moldova hadn’t undertaken publicly to denigrate the utility of combating the fight against corruption. These consider that corruption combating is an invention of the West. Evidently, the beneficiaries from corruption cannot think in a different way. Now, after ascertaining the fact that Putin could have been used the money wasted on financing propagandists and the fifth column to change his attitude.

How dangerous the people with two different lungs can be?

The war in Ukraine generated serious questions as to the security of the Republic of Moldova. On the one hand, the recent statements of the minister of foreign affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov are very soothing when he says that Russia does not intend to invade other countries, but this kind of assertions become fully incredible when he adds that Russia didn’t invade Ukraine. This should not surprise us as we convinced ourselves that, as in the case of Ukraine, the invasion can be served as “liberation” to us too.

There is one more thing to be mentioned. For now, we cannot know how the eventual collaborationists can behave, which is how many Moldovan politicians and opinion leaders would eventually accept to play such a role. We know for sure and cannot feel relaxed when a branch of the aforementioned Russian imperial front works on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, which now supports the war in Ukraine. Also, we have in society a kind of mutants who pretend they have and  breathe with different lungs. One of them should be held criminally accountable for making the following call to public opinion: “Pray not for the stopping of war, but for the continuation of this war and for the victory of Putin’s Russia against Satanist globalism”. It is in a Christian stile, isn’t it?

Conclusions

Experiencing serious difficulties, Ukraine resists institutionally and civically before the Russian invasion. The West helps Ukraine and tries to discourage Russia by all the methods it considers suitable given that President Put threatens to press the red button” of an eventual nuclear conflagration. It goes to the ultima ratio – nuclear blackmail.

The big global problem is that Putin cannot step back or he would lose any justification for the dictatorial regime he established in Russia and for the global and internal crises he provoked. That’s why we should expect that he will try to subdue Ukraine by any methods until May 9 – The Victory Day that was transformed into the main propagandistic event.