On Thursday, a formal British inquiry into the assassination of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko released its findings: Litvinenko was murdered, and Vladimir Putin “probably” approved the operation personally.
No one who follows Russian affairs was surprised. The evidence was overwhelming. A decade ago, two Russian spies had poisoned their former colleague by spiking his tea with polonium in London, leaving a radioactive trail that led back to Moscow. On his deathbed, Litvinenko stated that Putin had ordered the hit. No sane person doubted him.
On Friday, a Kremlin spokesman dismissed the findings as “English humor.” Extradition requests for the named assassins will go ignored. And Czar Vladimir will continue to murder political opponents and critics whenever he wants. We know the famous victims, such as crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya and opposition candidate Boris Nemtsov, but there have been far more deaths.
This is murder as a tool of statecraft.
Just last week, Putin’s favorite henchman, Chechen chief Ramzan Kadyrov, cur of the Caucasus, openly threatened media workers and dissidents who dare to dream of a different path for Russia.
Putin’s Russia isn’t a nation of laws, but it is a land of rules. And rule No. 1 is that no one’s allowed to criticize, mock or challenge the reigning czar.
To borrow the words of one of our own apparatchiki, “What does it matter?” Why should we care about the death of one defector when the world’s ablaze?
Because the second-most-powerful nuclear-armed state is ruled dictatorially by a remorseless assassin. It matters because he ignores international law. It matters because, like Hitler, he has a vision that only war can fulfill. And it matters because he’s as brilliant as he is ruthless, a leader who knows his own people and sizes up his enemies with genius.
When Putin climbed onto the throne, Russia was crumbling. Underestimated at home and abroad, the former KGB officer quickly centralized power, enforced his will, enriched his people (thanks to an oil and gas boom) and, not least, gave Russians back their national pride.
He built a cult of personality that played to the common citizen, sidelining the urban intelligentsia. He tamed the hated Yeltsin-era oligarchs, just as his idol, Peter the Great, had broken the boyari, old Russia’s aristocrats. And he bought influence in Europe, disrupting every response to his bad behavior.
He used natural gas as a weapon, letting East Europeans freeze to death. Western Europeans wept crocodile tears and signed new energy contracts.
After toying with a feckless American president, Putin “liberated” Crimea from Ukraine. When the West failed to respond in a serious way, he invaded eastern Ukraine. In both operations he used thinly disguised security forces, smirking as he denied Russian involvement. Again, he faced a limp response, sanctions designed to protect Western business interests.
Next, he staged a military surprise, deploying forces to Syria under the high-tech noses of Western intelligence agencies. While the Syrian opposition turned out to be tougher than he expected, Putin nonetheless has managed to stabilize the Assad government’s position, insuring that, whatever Bashar al-Assad’s personal fate, a pro-Russian regime will remain in Damascus.
Now, in addition to expanding Russia’s longtime presence on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, Putin’s grabbing an airbase in the interior, just where a Russian presence would block the advance of US-backed rebels.
Again, we will do nothing.
Along the way, Putin’s suffered embarrassments, but no compelling defeats. The West has yet to stand up to him in any significant way. The result is that he now expects to win — which makes him extremely dangerous.
That danger may be coming to a head, because market forces are doing what no Western leader dared: applying the brakes. With oil and gas prices plummeting, Russia’s economy’s shrinking, inflation’s soaring, the ruble’s collapsing, pensions are losing value, wages can’t keep pace — and the first hairline cracks in Putin’s popularity are showing. The czar won’t fall tomorrow, but the grumbling has begun.
For the first time, I believe the Kremlin’s fudging the numbers on Putin’s popularity, which officially remain at an 85% approval rating.
Putin’s single weakness has been his poor grasp of economics. Instead of diversifying Russia’s economy when the times were good, he relied on oil and gas production — which he could control, restricting Russia’s new aristocracy of wealth to the manageable size of the old court nobility. A diversified economy would have diffused his authority.
But in the words of the greatest American economist of our time, Cyndi Lauper, “Money changes everything.” Putin’s inattention to market fundamentals is hurting him now. Although Russia’s projected budget — amended week to week — seeks to fence funds for Putin’s cherished military buildup, it becomes a greater challenge by the day.
Even those cautious Western sanctions add to the pain now, intensifying the effects of plunging commodity prices.
Should we rejoice? Does this mean that the assassinations and invasions might end?
No. In his desperation, Putin could become even more embittered and reckless. Ailing on the home front, he may feel compelled to deliver new triumphs abroad. His throne isn’t threatened yet, but his pride is wounded.
And beware a wounded bear.
Ralph Peters is Fox News’ strategic analyst.
