Ukrainian expert: – ‘Putin is being held hostage to his own ideas’

crown.at: You studied in St. Petersburg in the 1990s. Do you have any friends in Russia?
Oleksiy Jachno: I still have friends there, my aunt also lives in Russia. However, we have not communicated in recent months. My aunt is a very nice woman, but you can tell she is already under the influence of propaganda. You cannot write about everything to do with war, all communication is especially dangerous for itself. The current Putin regime is neo-Stalinist, dissidents are persecuted, people are spied on, the economy is militarized, there is a cult of leaders, it idea of ​​great power. Unfortunately, many in Russia are under the influence of this propaganda. Communication is now very difficult.

You escaped from Ukraine about two months ago, you still have family and friends there. Do you keep in touch?
My sister is in western Ukraine, her husband Yuri is a soldier in Mykolaiv in the south. We chat regularly. Jurij sent me a video in July who shows him that he finds a Russian helmet with the coat of arms of Ukraine and the words “Glory to Ukraine!”. Apparently a peasant on the southern front found it, painted it and left it to the Ukrainian soldiers. So the rural population helps the troops. For Yuri, the helmet was very welcome, because the army lacks helmets and other equipment.

Oleksii Yahno’s brother-in-law, based in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, sent him this video:

Are the EU and other Western countries providing sufficient military aid?
A day feels like a week, a week often feels like a year. So it’s understandable that we keep pushing. that the West will help even faster. Military aid is still desperately needed. But we also understand that politics and the atmosphere in society do not change so quickly.

Do Europe and USA Looked too long at Putin?
The West has made mistakes in the past, even if they don’t like to talk about it now. In April 2008, the NATO summit was in Bucharest, where Ukraine, mainly under the influence of France and Germany, slammed the door to NATO. Denying Ukraine’s membership was, in my view, a strategic mistake. In the same year, the West reacted too little to the Russian aggression in South Ossetia (the Georgian war in August 2008, ed.). 2011 marked the beginning of Russia’s hybrid warfare in Syria. As a result, Europe has faced many problems, in 2015 the refugee crisis. Parallel to Syria was the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Here too, one had hoped for harsher reactions from the West. Since Putin met no resistance, his conclusion was probably that one can go further. That is why we are in the situation today, in an aggression on a much larger scale.

You have been following the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin for over 20 years. How do you rate the current regime?
Putin has developed an idea of ​​​​the purpose of a powerful superpower that he must create. This is the main idea of ​​his ideology. For this he is willing to sacrifice not only the lives of others, but also his compatriots. From his point of view, it’s all worth it. It all started in 1999 with the explosion of the residential buildings.

Putin allegedly ordered the attacks at the time to blame them on Chechen terrorists and thus create a mood for the war against Chechnya. See that ex-KGB agent’s handwriting?
There is no such thing as a former KGB agent. Bluffing and intimidation is their tactic, and it is still part of Putin’s toolbox. He hopes that the West will collapse because of intimidation and accept Russia’s terms, especially with regard to gas supplies. Now the situation is Ukraine, but what will the situation be in the future? Does he want the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic?

So Putin’s regime threatens all of Europe?
I am convinced that if Ukraine does not follow through, Putin will move on. Ukraine is only the first goal, the first leg. Of course, we can’t know his plans in detail, but after the aggressive approach so far, his goal is to create a new world order.

Relying on diplomacy was the wrong strategy?
A Russian proverb says: Appetite belongs to food! You have to put Putin in his place, otherwise it is unpredictable in which direction it will go. From this point of view, it is inconceivable that one could return to a status quo, even if many ask for it, especially when it comes to gas supply.

The invasion of Ukraine started more than six months ago How do you assess the current situation?
With his bluffs, Putin himself becomes the hostage of his ideas. He has come to a dead end and does not know how to proceed. In his view, it is not possible to withdraw and not to go any further. According to him, the conquest of Ukraine should have happened quickly. He started from self-drawn conditions, but the reality looks completely different. It is no longer the age of empires and colonial wars, in which territories are conquered and one country dominates another. The world has changed, economy, technology, everything is developing fast, there are other energy sources. But Putin and his entourage ignore all this and also ignore the fact that Ukrainians are a separate people. They do not want to recognize that the world they imagine no longer corresponds to reality.

So are you hopeful?
The perspective of Europe and the West on Russia has changed, which gives a lot of hope. There is now a chance that after the breakthrough in the north, the breakthrough in the south of Ukraine will also succeed. Of course there are different scenarios, but I hope that the resilience of the Ukrainian troops and society plus the help of Europe and the West will lead to victory.