What comes next, now that Putin is a recognized dictator

Why waiting for Putin's physical death is not an option.

I'll start with a story from my school days, which was in the early 1980s. I can't speak for all the schools in our city and country at the time. But in our high school, we had to take turns publishing a handwritten satirical newspaper called Koluchka. The content consisted of caricatures illustrating school troubles and short captions under them. They explained who was depicted and why the offender was being lampooned. Once, the hero of a cartoon was a sixth-grader known for foul language. He swore out loud during recess and in class, not only with students, but also with teachers. This had an unexpected effect on the brutal sixth-grader. He brought his parents to the school to brag: "Look, I've been featured in the newspaper.” His behavior did not change after he was officially recognized as a bully.

Now, a few more politicized examples, also from that era. In the mid-1970s, the Central African Republic was ruled by Jean-Bédel Bokassa, first as a self-proclaimed president, then as a self-proclaimed emperor. For his fake coronation, he wore shoes later listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive. With his equally legendary ostrich leather shoes, Viktor Yanukovych competed with him in garishness at a meeting in PACE. After Bokassa's accession, he no longer hid the fact that his regime was dictatorial. Rumors about his personal involvement in torture went beyond the CAR. There was also talk of the emperor practicing cannibalism.

At the time, the French government openly supported Bokassa. The reason was the favorable conditions that the cannibalistic dictator provided for the development of uranium, which France needed to create nuclear weapons. In addition, the dictator corrupted the head of the French government, Valérie Giscard d'Estaing. The French press wrote about this openly, which led to his defeat in the elections. But other leaders of the democratic world of that time also had business relations with dictator Bokassa.

Another leap in time. Europe's Last Dictator is the title of a documentary made in 2003 by Belarusian director Yury Kalina. It was about the results of the then nine years of Alexander Lukashenko's unchallenged presidency in Belarus. Nine years later, in 2012, a film with the same title was released by British journalists. Security forces violently disrupt the screening in Minsk. But four more years passed, and in 2016, the director Glenn Ellis used the same phrases to describe Lukashenko in his film. You won't believe it: in 2010, even the Russian media called Lukashenko the last dictator of Europe! He didn't mind too much; he was even proud of it: “look, see what I am like.” The dictatorial status did not prevent Western leaders from taking advantage of the dictator's invitations and choosing Minsk as a platform for negotiations on the Russian-Ukrainian war from the fall of 2014 onward. However, Lukashenko suddenly demanded an apology this summer and declared he was not the last dictator.

Apparently, Batka had known something for years. A few months later, PACE officially declared Russia a dictatorship. This automatically means the official recognition of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has remained unchanged as a dictator for a quarter of a century.  He has, of course, not faced any reactions about this dictator status.

Traditions have mostly stayed the same since my student days. Otherwise, Putin would not have been compared time and again to a school bully. Neither teachers, nor parents, nor the environment can deal with him. On the contrary, the more attention he receives, the more comments and attempts to re-educate him, make him understand, and set him on the right path, the more he realizes his own importance in this dictatorial status. Ultimately, a work of fiction, whether a book, movie, or play, is incomplete unless its plot pits good people against bad people.

Democratic leaders and the democratic world have dealt with Putin, as with Bokassa and Lukashenko, against all odds. They met with him and shook his hand. When Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine began, world leaders began to call Putin to persuade him, urge him to come to his senses, negotiate, and stop the violence. This had only one effect: Putin liked being talked to. Just as that sixth-grade bully enjoyed his own caricature. People remember, they take into account, and they pay attention.

What the next steps will be is unknown. After all, dictatorial Russia, headed by an autocratic president, is still a member of several international organizations, including the United Nations. Still, they were expelled from several UN structures and could not be reinstated. However, the country with a dictatorial regime continues to be a business partner even for EU member states.

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This is also nothing new. During colonization, the conquering Europeans easily conducted business conversations with tribal leaders even when there were vast differences in power. But there is a nuance. The colonizers achieved their goals through such means as buying treasures for glass beads or introducing intoxicants to weaken the population gradually, without war. Dictator Putin does the opposite: he bribes the powers that be with real petrodollars, not with trinkets. He adds, as a psychotropic substance, the long-standing aggressive and, to be sure, talented and therefore influential Russian propaganda machine.

No one has tried to buy Putin directly with money, thus calming him down. It would not have worked: it would have meant admitting one's own weakness and paying tribute to the dragon.

So, as long as a certified dictator can still buy or otherwise butter someone outside the dictatorship he controls, he is not a dictator, but a potential partner. However, if the democratic world even dares to cut all ties with the dictator and isolate him, nothing will fundamentally change. The territory is too large. There are too many potential friends who do not care how they are defined in the civilized world. The most unfortunate thing about this situation is that democratic countries know precisely where the dictator is. There is a natural fear of an uncontrollable monster.

Waiting for Putin’s physical death is not an option. After all, no matter how many days, months, or years he lives, people will continue to lose their lives in Ukraine, Israel, and other hot spots where the dictator throws firewood. The only hope is that one day, hopefully not too far off, everyone will reach a point where they realize a dictator must be removed by force.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine