Ned Brown | February 23: A date of tyranny

SOME OF you may remember watching demonstrations in the late 1960s protesting President Johnson’s war in Vietnam. It was a war that American youth neither supported nor wanted to participate in. I believe we are witnessing a similar reaction by Russia’s youth as it relates to Putin’s folly in Ukraine. Putin does not have their support for his unjustified invasion of Ukraine.

There is another factor at play that will not win the support of any Russians under the age of 40: Perestroika & Glasnost 2.0. When Russia was falling behind the rest of the world economically in the mid-1980s, President Gorbachev knew the Communist Party had to change its economic model to keep up. It was then that Russia opened up to outside investment and began importing foreign goods. Suddenly, a Russian could acquire a Sony television set or Adidas sport shoes. Ironically, when Gorbachev left power in the early 1990s, the Russian generals made a fleeting attempt to shut down the borders from outsiders and goods; that lasted about one week.

A young woman in her 20s was being interviewed last Thursday on the streets of Moscow. She said, “Putin has ended my life as I knew it. I cannot travel to EU countries or the UK. Why should I suffer for his stupid war?” I suspect she has hundreds of thousands of young fellow comrades who feel the same.

PUNISH YOU

On Thursday, Putin summoned his oligarch cronies to the Kremlin whereupon he threatened them with: “If you do not support me, I will punish you.” By Friday, the European Union, United Kingdom and United States of America announced they will begin seizing Putin’s assets. Now they need to get Switzerland and Monaco to go along; that’s where Putin’s real assets are. They all have a road map with the release of the Panama Papers, which Putin is most displeased about. What is a politician in Russia with no assets to a group of ruthless oligarchs? Expendable!

Ending on a grim note, our NATO leaders proclaimed that Putin will never be able to sustain a war in the Ukraine when Russian soldiers start coming back in body bags. Putin solved that media problem; they won’t. He had the Russian army deploy mobile crematoriums to Ukraine, where the soldiers remains just ‘disappear’.

Let’s hope for two things that could end this invasion. First, the seizure of Putin’s and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s assets. Second,the resolve of the Ukrainian people to defend their country, and the democracy they created. Unfortunately, the invasion of the Ukraine on February 23 is a date of tyranny that will be remembered, as have September 11 and January 6, when the US Capitol was ransacked.

Ned Brown is an author and political adviser based in Charleston, South Carolina. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.