Monday, May 17, 2021

Hitting Putin Where It Hurts

The real front in the Russia-Ukraine War is not in the Donbas.

Ukraine touched a nerve in Russia:

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy risks another escalation with Russia after Ukrainian authorities charged a Ukrainian oligarch and a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin with treason.

The start of the legal onslaught against Viktor Medvedchuk in February was reportedly one of the triggers behind Moscow massing the largest concentration of Russian troops at the Ukrainian border since the start of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Mr Medvedchuk, who counts Mr Putin as the godfather of one of his children, has been a divisive figure in Ukrainian politics, openly courting the Kremlin at a time when Ukrainian troops are battling Russia-backed separatists in the country’s east.

Ukrainian prosecutors on Tuesday evening unveiled the details of the treason charges against the 66-year-old oligarch who flaunts his close friendship with the Russian leader who is loathed in Ukraine for having annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Russia loses more by having its powerful friends in Ukraine defeated than by losing a village here or there in Russian-occupied Donbas. This supports my belief that rather than fighting Russia on a battlefield that Ukraine's best weapon to defeat Russia is to become far less corrupt than Russia

You can see how much this hurts by how blindingly stupid Putin's response was:

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that neighbouring Ukraine was becoming 'anti-Russia' and that Moscow would be ready to react to what he said were threats to its own security.

Putin was speaking a day after a Ukrainian court placed Viktor Medvedchuk, a prominent pro-Russian politician who says Putin is godfather to his daughter, under house arrest.

Putin is upset that Ukraine is "becoming 'anti-Russia'"?  

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, seized and annexed Crimea, pretends it is only supporting oddly well equipped "separatists" in what is Russian-occupied Donbas in the east, effectively blockades Ukraine's Sea of Azov coast, and repeatedly threatens Ukraine with invasion.

What does Putin expect after all that? Is he that vodka-addled, paranoid, and/or ignorant of reality? Or just one of the best liars in Russia?

#WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings