Putin and the wolves of Europe

Putin has completed twenty-six years in power this year (he did so in May). He was the second president of Russia, and is its fourth, and for two consecutive terms he and his loyal Dmitri Medvedev alternated as president of Russia and as prime minister. President of Russia is the position that was created to replace that of the president of the Supreme Soviet, the highest Russian authority during the years of the USSR. It was held, in the early years, by the dipsomaniac Boris Yeltsin, and then always by Putin, directly or through his puppets: first Medvedev and now Mikhail Mishustin, who serves as prime minister once Putin has ensured (via the 2020 Constitutional reform, known as the "reset counter" reform) that he can continue as president until 2036. How did he do it? He restarted the count of his terms with a law that "erased" the previous two. In this way, he has maintained the limitation of two presidential terms, but in practice he has added two more (of six years each) because the first two stopped counting.To remain in power, he needs to win the elections, but the tendency of his opponents to die prematurely and in circumstances as appalling as they are enigmatic is well known. Journalists like Anna Politkovskaya, Natalia Estemirova, or Paul Klebnikov, exiled magnates like Boris Berezovsky or his collaborator Alexander Litvinenko, the mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin, or political leaders like Boris Nemtsov or Alexei Navalny form the list of the most prominent figures allegedly murdered by Putin's regime. Beyond these famous names, the victims of political repression in Putin's Russia number in the tens of thousands, including journalists, activists, writers, politicians, etc.Of these twenty-six years, it has been four and a half years since Putin gave the order to invade Ukraine, while in the West it was still being said that he would not dare. In 2022, Putin claimed that the war would be short and that he was carrying it out with the aim of “desnazifying” Ukraine, an argument that neither Putin himself remembers anymore. The war has generated hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides and millions of displaced people and refugees, and for now, there is no end in sight. But the invasion (this one really is) and the war in Ukraine have become geostrategic actors that no longer cause surprise or scandal, but are fully normalized within European politics. Like Putin himself, who for a quarter of a century has committed crimes, violations, and breaches of international law in the face of the passivity of the West, underpinned by all sorts of economic, energy, and logistical interests. Europe has begun in recent years a night that will be long and extremely hot (due to climate change and violence), surrounded by howling wolves. It would be good if at some point someone thought about how Europe itself, instead of trying to fight the wolves that now harass it, has dedicated itself to feeding them.