Sanctioning the Russian State as the west is now doing is a surefire way to support Vladimir Putin’s plan.
From NATO through Australia, South Korea, Canada, the UK and of course, the United States of America, and dozens of other peoples, the west is reacting to Putin’s horrid actions in exactly the wrong way.
As the sanctions continue to erode both commerce and various public services, which many Russians had become accustomed to, the better the environment wherein Putin’s massive messaging capabilities are and will point to his enemies’ sanctions as the cause of all difficulties for the Russian people.
He will simply turn the sanctions into massive civil unrest back against the west, not a very tough task for him to do when he has the prototypical, autocratic stranglehold on Russia’s airwaves.
A better western strategy?
What if, instead of the current sanctions, roll out an approach that is planned and launched that would endeavour to pull the Russian people out from under Putin’s grip?
That’s right. It will likely take considerable time (months, perhaps several years), but a well-devised, well resourced (many nations participating), well-financed (think businesses of all manner) strategy would focus on bringing all the ethical and moral good works directly to the Russian people even while ignoring Putin and his monstrous machine.
Just as we’re working to support, love and help Ukrainian people during this travesty of Putin’s, we ought to be doing the same thing for the Russian people themselves, and do it indefinitely for maybe two to seven years until the Russian people finally become untrapped and moved to remove Putin and his ilk altogether.
I understand this is asking the impossible, but I believe strongly that the concept demands study and consideration given the crappy options that are otherwise available.
The current approach is driving many older Russians to side with Putin’s phony patriotism because they are not getting the true story out of Ukraine.
The west’s chances of reaching that critical mass of (mostly) old school and rural Russians, who have grown up relatively secure if poor in the Soviet system, are made much more difficult by bestowing on the Russian people these significant hardships that Putin can use as arguments for his phony, “NATO is the devil” storyline.
Think it over.
Alan Morgan is a qathet region resident.
