How to Stop Vladimir Putin’s Mafia The real enemy is a group of about 100 beneficiaries of the regime and several thousand accomplices. By Mikhail Khodorkovsky
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-stop-vladimir-putins-mafia-1524421182
After Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, I predicted that Russia’s stance toward the U.S. would become more antagonistic. Vladimir Putin always needs a foreign enemy to rally his nation around him and divert attention from the poor Russian economy. Mr. Putin’s aggression has indeed managed to raise tension between the U.S. and Russia. But instead of reinforcing Mr. Putin’s narrative by punishing Russia as a whole, the U.S. should target its response toward Mr. Putin and his inner circle.
Mr. Putin’s conflicts with the U.S. are clearly intended to improve his reputation among the Russian people. Through his policy and rhetoric, Mr. Putin has spread the notion that the U.S. is a cunning enemy trying to undermine Russia and is responsible for Russia’s every problem at home and abroad.
Kremlin propaganda makes clear that Russia’s fights in eastern Ukraine and in Syria are aimed specifically at opposing the U.S. Mr. Putin sees the rest of the West—with the exception of the United Kingdom—as nothing but feeble U.S. puppets. And even the U.K. is a weak but crafty opponent.
But to sustain his illusion of strength at home, Mr. Putin must be seen scoring victories over the entire U.S. alliance. This is why he has targeted the internal cohesion of Western nations. The Kremlin has funded fringe movements in France and Germany, provoked conflict in Catalonia, attempted to influence elections in the U.S., and brutally punished Russian defectors in the U.K. and Austria.
While the Kremlin sees its target in clear focus, the West has often failed to identify its enemy correctly. It is only in recent statements by British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, following the Kremlin’s poisoning of a Russian defector to the U.K., that a gradual awareness has begun to appear. The enemy is not Russia, a country of nearly 150 million people like you. It is not even the Russian government as a whole, which is composed of nearly three million civil servants, most of whom receive a modest salary and work for the benefit of society as best they can. CONTINUE AT SITE
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