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Behind the Attempted Assassination of Putin

May 4, 2023

In Diary Norman Finkelstein Russia and Ukraine Russia-Ukraine War

BRACING FOR GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

 

Behind the Ukrainian Assassination Attempt on Putin

 

 

It has been widely speculated that if the Kremlin is pushed to the brink, it might resort to nuclear weapons.  However, from early on, I have repeatedly maintained that—a Russian military defeat being most improbable—the real danger would come if and when Ukraine faces the prospect of defeat.  That danger now looms large.  It is conceded in private that Ukraine cannot prevail in its vaunted military offensive.  In fact, Washington has coerced Ukraine into launching the offensive even as it knows full well nothing good can come of it.  The murderous cynicism defies words.  The U.S. needs a face-saving way out of this military-foreign policy debacle so it’s hurling massive numbers of Ukrainian youth to their death. “We did all we could for Ukraine,” Biden will then lament, “but they just can’t win.”  That, however, won’t be the end of the story.  Washington supplied cutting-edge weaponry to Ukraine with virtually no oversight.  The Ukrainian armed forces are riddled with crazed Nazis.  As defeat impends, they’ll be looking for that one last hurrah.  They’re almost certainly behind the assassination attempt on Putin reported today.  (Demented as it is, the Biden administration wouldn’t greenlight such a provocation while Zelensky wouldn’t dare act on his own.)  Tomorrow these Nazis might target a Russian nuclear facility.  Will it be Samson and the Temple? Or Götterdämmerung?  What’s certain is, everyone who provoked Russia into this war, and every coward—including Bernie Sanders and The Mod Squad—who went along with blindly dispatching state-of-the-art precision weapons to a military filled with far-right loonies bears responsibility for what might soon befall humanity.