I have taken the title from the new book by Llibert Ferri, a journalist and great expert on Russia, Eastern Europe, and what was (and ceased to be) the Soviet Union. Putin watches us It's a disturbing and clear-sighted title for a book that recounts the situation in Europe and the West, from 2021 to the present day, as a result of the policies, decisions, and actions of the Russian dictator: that's what Ferri, not one for euphemisms (as he made clear in his article this Sunday on current fascism), calls him. He does so through a selection of articles published in this newspaper, which the author expands and updates with commentaries made in light of the evolution of the war in Ukraine, arranged as chapters, making it a very interesting read.
The constant backbiting by Trump and his administration sometimes causes us to lose sight of the fact that Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing war represent the worst crisis NATO has had to face since the Cold War, and also the most serious threat Europe has faced since World War II. This Sunday's massacre in the Ukrainian city of Sumi, with a Russian bombing of the civilian population, is a bloody reminder signed by Putin himself. That the massacre occurred on Palm Sunday, when the victims were on their way to religious services, is also no coincidence. It's like saying: "Your God can't save you, but I can kill you."
A sadistic form of messianism, when messianism is precisely one of the keys to understanding a certain Russian collective identity. The idea of the redeemer who takes or spares life in the name of a higher good, which is the homeland, is repeated in the regimes of the Tsars and Bolsheviks, and now in Putin's. In the words of writer Sofi Oksanen: "A patriotic, militaristic, and misogynistic identity that has borrowed elements from Tsarist imperialism and the Soviet past. A mental framework in which the key is unconditional support for the regime." Ferri quotes these words from Oksanen and then recalls the novel Heart of a dog, by Mikhail Bulgakov (author of one of the great Russian novels of the 20th century, The Master and Margarita), in which an experiment involving the sexual organs of a lapdog and the body of a criminal serves as a caricature of Bolshevism: the extreme fear and servility of a large part of the population are the foundation of power, and so it is with Putin.
The episode of the ambush against Zelensky in the Oval Office by Trump and his repulsive Vice President Vance gives an idea of how Putin's tentacles have lengthened, with the White House transformed into a receptive terminal for his interests. In Europe itself, the Patriots for Europe group—with Orbán, Salvini, Le Pen, and Vox—is, as Ferri says, Putin's Trojan horse in the European institutions. There remains always the lofty and demanding example of Aleksei Navalny, murdered by Putin in one of Russia's harshest prisons, and of all those who refuse to bow down to fascism.
