Grigory Yavlinsky’s web-site, 12.10.2021  

Photo: Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, 15 January 2020 // Sputnik/Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via REUTERS

An article on Ukraine published by Vladimir Putin in July was completed yesterday by Dmitry Medvedev. If someone could still doubt the intentions, now everything has become obvious: Russia is moving towards war.

There is no point in discussing either the form or the content of what has been published under the signature of the former President of Russia, and now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. It is clear that rude xenophobic and chauvinistic statements against a neighbouring sovereign state are nothing more than a provocation.

There is also little point in analysing what preceded the publication of this text (an attempt to identify topics for discussion at the hypothetical talks between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky), or what the publication coincided with (the visit of US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to Kyiv and Moscow and Putin’s telephone conversations with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron). Even without any coincidences, there cannot be a good or bad moment for such writing. Such an article is a hysterical refusal to negotiate. And, certainly, this is a failure: a diplomatic failure, a moral failure, and a state failure.

Putin’s July article, among other things, was also a warning to our entire country, a declaration of intent. The chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan in August this year, creating a feeling of letting it loose, brought the war even closer and made it more real (See The Failure, 11.09.2021). However, in September, Russian citizens had the opportunity to speak out against the war with Ukraine at any moment – in the Duma elections, it was necessary to vote for the only party that put the anti-war agenda at the core of its programme. However, voting for the communists along with [Minister of Defence] Sergei Shoigu and [Foreign Minister] Sergei Lavrov only strengthened the authorities’ intentions.

In fact, for the Kremlin, these elections were primarily a plebiscite in support of imperial nationalism and the Soviet policy of limited sovereignty. Whether such a system needs a parliament at all, was explained in detail by another Kremlin writer in his article, which by a surprising coincidence, was also published yesterday.

The next step in Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine has not been long in coming. So far, these are only words. However, these words are already written in the language of war.

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