Merchant of fear: Putin plays in the USSR, but he “can’t intimidate”

On May 25, Defense Ministers of Russia and Belarus Sergei Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin signed an agreement on the procedure for deploying Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus. Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko noted with satisfaction that nuclear weapons had already begun to be transferred to the territory of Belarus.

At the same time, observers cannot understand why Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko needed this. After all, it does not matter where the nuclear weapons are located – in the Belgorod region of Russia or, for example, in the Mogilev region in Belarus. And the responsibility for its application in any case will be on the President of Russia, and not the leader of Belarus.

However, Putin still lives by the idea of ​​the Soviet Union. The communist empire has been missing from the political map of the world for more than three decades, and the Russian leader still wants his country to have all the capabilities of the USSR. Including the ability to place nuclear weapons outside its territory.

Putin’s presidency is actually dedicated to the “return” to the USSR

“Russia is now deploying warheads outside its borders – breaking a taboo respected by all nuclear states. The only known precedent is the one that caused the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962,” notes the Italian edition of La Repubblica.

However, there is a difference – and it is important. The Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded directly at the borders of the United States and could indeed lead to the Third World War. As for Putin’s current decision, it will have no impact on the security of the United States or any other nuclear state. This is a posture, not an act. Another violation of the rules that should guarantee the safety of the world.

However, this should not be surprising either. Putin’s entire presidency is in fact dedicated to “returning to the Soviet Union.” The Russian president started two decades ago by eliminating media freedom and subordinating the Kremlin to parliament and the judiciary. Then the main task of the Russian authorities was the “integration” of the former Soviet republics. It was precisely the belief that these republics “do not deserve the right to be real states”, the denial of the very fact of their existence that led, by the way, to the attack on Ukraine in 2014 and the attempt to annex its territories.

Putin fails to intimidate Ukraine and the West

At the same time, the nuclear threat has always been an important part of Putin’s rhetoric and the desire to intimidate Ukraine and the West.

“Fear is Putin’s most powerful weapon, since his army cannot advance in Ukraine. If the West continues to supply weapons, Russia faces further defeats. At the same time, all experts agree that, from a military point of view, the use of nuclear weapons has no absolutely no sense. .If Putin wanted to use nuclear weapons, he would have ordered this a long time ago,” a commentator for the Berliner Morgenpost notes.

And since it is impossible to intimidate, it remains to increase the “habitat area” of nuclear weapons. At the same time, neither Putin nor Lukashenko seem interested in the fact that they are deploying a deadly arsenal in a country that was seriously affected by the Chernobyl accident and therefore should always remain a state without nuclear weapons. When you trade in fear, you forget about morality and national memory.