POO-tihn doesn’t want to end the war, that much is clear.
But here’s a question, rarely asked: can he?
I came across an open letter by Soviet-born writer & filmmaker Eduard Topol to Trump that digs into this, and it’s worth sharing.
Here it is, as a thread ⤵️
1/n
Dear Mr. President!
Dear Donald!
As the author of 50 books & a dozen films about 🇷🇺, I consider myself entitled to inform you.
You must know that putin cannot stop the war with 🇺🇦, even if you gift him your Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower in New York, & a dozen of your golf clubs. 2/n
And not because he doesn’t want a break from war, but because he simply cannot
Because he knows 🇷🇺 history
The return of 🇷🇺 troops from Europe after the victory over Napoleon led to the anti-tsarist uprising in 1825
🇷🇺’s defeat in a War with 🇯🇵 led to the 1905 Revolution
3/n
The desertion of a million Russian soldiers from the Russo-German front during World War I forced Emperor Nicholas II to abdicate and caused the February Revolution of 1917.
The peace signed by Lenin with Germany allowed the Bolsheviks to execute the entire royal family.
4/n
The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989 marked the beginning of the USSR’s collapse.
Knowing this, Putin cannot end the war with 🇺🇦 and bring his troops home.
5/n
Only the opportunity in May 1945 to keep almost his entire army in Europe as occupation forces helped Stalin avoid a postwar coup.
That is why Putin dreams of occupying Ukraine, as well as the Baltics, Finland, Poland, etc., to keep his army far away from Moscow.
6/n
He remembers how 525K soldiers returning from 🇦🇫 in 1989 turned into bandits who terrorized the entire population of the USSR.
And he knows what will happen if 1.5M soldiers, trained to kill, loot, and rape professionally, return home from the Ukrainian front.
7/n
The war with 🇺🇦 has allowed Putin to get rid of 2M of the most active opponents of his regime, whom he forced to flee 🇷🇺, while the rest of the young 🇷🇺 men he either drove to the front or recruited into punitive services.
Today, any war—against 🇺🇦, the Baltics, NATO, anyone at all—is the best way to enforce 🇷🇺’s obedience to Putin & his junta.
8/n
Unfortunately, none of your advisers will explain this to you
I don’t want Putin—a KGB man, a thief & a murderer of millions—to keep brazenly deceiving you, lying, & misleading my President
Of course, I’m not a military expert or political scientist, but I’m a writer with a good memory
9/n
I remember how Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II managed to push oil prices down to $9 per barrel, gave the Afghans “Stingers,” and thereby stopped Moscow’s takeover of Afghanistan and destroyed the USSR.
10/n
If you want to stop Putin and the imperial ambitions of at least half of Russia’s population, you need to do the same—bring oil prices down to at least $25 per barrel and give Ukraine the weapons that will help it crush the aggressor.
Wars of aggression must end in defeat or peace 🕊️ will never return.
That’s the argument of my latest op-ed for🇨🇭Switzerland’s leading paper: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German)
Here’s the summary in a short thread 🧵
1/9
What’s happening in 🇺🇦 is not a “conflict.”
It’s not a misunderstanding between two sides.
It’s a war of choice by russia: a criminal act of aggression under international law.
It will only end when russia stops attacking. Not when Ukraine stops defending itself. 2/9
Western Europe says it supports 🇺🇦, but too often from a safe emotional distance.
Solidarity is duly expressed & aid provided, but it comes with a subtle detachment and implicit insistence that the war, however grave, is ultimately Ukraine’s ordeal, not Europe’s. 3/9
“Too many people are dying — thousands each week — in a terrible and senseless war.” Trump keeps repeating
moscow’s war of choice is truly terrible, but to call it “senseless” is to miss the point
a few highlights from latest op-ed in a thread 🧵
1/9
russia has been killing Ukrainians for the crime of being Ukrainian since 2014 — predictably, methodically, relentlessly.
russia’s war is also criminal, under the very rules of warfare America helped enshrine in 1945.
2/9
Is it senseless for 🇺🇦 to fight back? A war for survival is immensely costly — but to shield your children from Russian missiles is not a choice; it’s a duty. Kyiv has no real options but to resist: Because failure to defend your home is dishonor, followed by annihilation.
3/9
🧵A thread on #russia & #china in the age of appeasement
Picture a plump, aging man wearing water wings in a Beijing pool, cursing under his breath. Not the fondest memory for Khrushchev — best known for staring down Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis
1/n
As he bobbed awkwardly, Mao Zedong circled around him, relishing the humiliation of a supposed ‘peer’ he knew couldn’t swim 2/n
The scene remains a near-perfect metaphor: the mistrust and tension that colored Russia-China relations then — in 1958, when China’s GDP was less than a quarter of the Soviet Union’s — and now, when russia’s crumbling economy is barely a tenth of China’s 3/n
Let's discuss in detail yet another effort by the phudo-expert Charap to regurgitate kremlin's sewage and present it as candy.
#Thread (link to the article in the last comment)
2/ he wants a “neutral” peacekeeping force for 🇺🇦 knowing full well that russia has sabotaged the UN’s ability to act. The General Assembly overwhelmingly condemned russia’s war of aggression, yet the Security Council is impotent thanks to russia’s veto.
3/ Worse yet, through this 'innocent' comparison, Valdai Sam launders the kremlin’s biggest lie: that there're 'two sides' to this "conflict"
There aren’t. There’s russia—a fascist aggressor waging a criminal war—and 🇺🇦, defending its sovereignty.
🇪🇺 isn't 'neutral' because it stands for restoring peace. Supporting a victim isn’t aggression; it’s justice.