Cynicism and Government Lies – La Libre

Since Saturday, Vladimir Putin has been quick to play the card of the state's lies and monotony, cynically using the brutal attack in Moscow to serve a now well-established narrative: that of a country victimized by an “external threat.” A case from Ukraine. The master of the Kremlin – who ignored (arbitrarily?) the information sent by the US about the risks of an attack on Russian soil and grouped it as “an attempt at intimidation and destabilization” – thus tries to hide his indifference. The lack of intelligence and security services, and the regime's lack of capacity to counter the Islamist threat, is even greater.

The subterfuge is crude and obscene, a dictator blindly predictable by his own obsessions and a quest to reconfigure the Russian Empire “without borders.”

Freshly reappointed as the country's leader at the end of an electoral farce, Putin is using emotions among the Russian people to further entrench his power and strengthen nationalism at the cost of increasingly violated freedoms. Ukraine and more bloodshed. Cynicism, again and again…

Whether or not the offensive will mark a turning point in what Moscow now openly describes as a “war” with the “collective West” remains to be seen. But if empathy for the Russian people, victims of this horrific massacre, is clearly appropriate, it should not distract the rest of the world, especially European countries, from what is essential: the Russian regime is asserting itself more and more every day as an illegal aggressor. whose imperial ambitions directly threaten their own security. These countries must demonstrate unfailing resolve and solidarity to support Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity and to establish a balance of power with Moscow in a non-repudiatory logic. As the events of the weekend proved it once again: Vladimir Putin has no limits.