Putin’s dictatorship is following the same steps it took against Ukraine in 2022
Vladimir Putin is not satisfied with his war of aggression against Ukraine and is already paving the way for other attacks.
The Kremlin launches a hoax against the Baltic states that it used to invade Ukraine
Russia threatens 12 countries, including Spain, identifying 21 military targets
A law to justify Russian military aggression against other countries
Although many media outlets have overlooked it, on May 13, the Russian State Duma passed a new law to “strengthen the protection of Russian citizens abroad“. The State Duma’s own website pointed out bluntly that this is a rule to provide Russia with a pseudo-legal justification for attacking other countries when a Russian citizen is prosecuted by a court not recognized by Moscow, i.e., by any Western court: “by decision of the President of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation may be called in for carrying out tasks to protect Russian citizens who have been arrested, detained or subjected to criminal or other prosecution under decisions of foreign courts or international judicial bodies in which Russia does not participate.”.
Vyacheslav Volodin, head of the State Dumna and a leading figure in United Russia (Putin’s party), cynically stated that Western justice “has turned into a repressive tool for punishment,” a statement coming from one of the leaders of a dictatorship that persecutes, imprisons, and murders dissidents.
Russia is using the same falsehood against the Baltic states that it used to justify invading Ukraine
In case there were any remaining doubts about Putin’s dictatorship’s intentions with this law, on May 25, Russia announced that it would appeal to the UN’s International Court of Justice against Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, accusing these countries of “Russophobia” and “violations” of the rights of Russian-speaking citizens. This is precisely the excuse cited by the law passed by the Russian State Duma 12 days earlier to justify further Russian aggression against other countries.
Moscow already launched that hoax against the Baltic states last year. It’s not a new lie from the Russian government: Putin’s dictatorship already used that same hoax as an excuse to invade Ukraine in 2022, and it has also used that same false accusation to justify the presence of Russian troops in parts of Georgia and Moldova.
Coincidentally, that same pretext was used by Hitler in 1938 to invade the Czechoslovak region of the Sudetenland, an invasion that ended up spreading to the rest of that country and that laid the groundwork, the following year, for the German-Soviet invasion of Poland.
Moscow’s campaigns to weaken NATO and facilitate that aggression
It must be remembered that Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are NATO members, and any aggression against these countries would oblige allied nations to come to their aid. Putin knows this but seems not to care. He has long been testing the Atlantic Alliance’s capacity to respond to aggression against one of its members. In fact, much of Moscow’s propaganda campaign is aimed at severing ties between allies so that Russian aggression can go unpunished. Putin needs a weak and uncooperative Europe, one that prefers to remain paralyzed by fear and cowardice rather than defend an allied country attacked by Russia.
In the West, there are parties of various ideological persuasions openly promoting a policy that would favor Moscow in the event of such an aggression, calling for the withdrawal of NATO member countries, promoting isolationism, and omitting any criticism of Putin’s aggressive and expansionist policies. I will not tire of warning about the situation this could lead to: an emboldened Russia, with a dictator who needs a constant state of war to maintain absolute power within his country and thus prevent Russian citizens from holding him accountable for their misery and for the hundreds of thousands of young Russians Putin has sent to the front to die as cannon fodder.