When will Brutus come?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that it’s the backstab he fears most. The Russian president is particularly sensitive to insidious attacks on his defenseless bombers peacefully dropping bombs on civilians. Still, Putin has this feeling that Brutus is somewhere around, getting prepared to fatally stab the Kremlin Caesar. Obviously, he has reasonable grounds to beware such developments.

The Putin regime is in fact a colossus with feet of clay. One foot is foreign policy, covered with deep cracks, jeopardizing the balance of the whole structure of management of today's Russia. Judge for yourself. Putin’s blitzkrieg in Ukraine has failed. Maintaining the so-called DPR and LPR amid severe sanctions is a pretty extreme and sort of exotic job. Besides, the Kremlin has so far failed to push back the looted terrorist enclaves into Ukraine on Moscow’s conditions, and most likely this plan is not going to work out in the future. Annexed Crimea, the "icing on the cake" of Russian foreign policy in 2014 rock, has turned into a "suitcase without a handle," which will be returned under Ukrainian jurisdiction, as many have already understood. Although, no one really understands how it has to be done.

The brilliant Middle East blitzkrieg of the Russian Federation in Syria this year has almost completely turned into an analogue of Soviet war in Afghanistan. Not willing to give in to the U.S., Turkey and other detractors of the “Russian world,” Russia is being drawn deeper into the Syrian war without ensuring at least a relative success. The second Russian air base on Syrian soil is now under construction as the Kremlin continues to build up its presence, pumping the number of troops up to 5,000 and of warplanes and combat copters – to 100. Specops, artillery, and air defense have also been deployed. Fearing a complete closure of the Bosphorus Strait by Turkey following the accumulating collapse of relations, the Kremlin has intensified the pace of its Syrian Express, deploying as many troops and armored vehicles as possible in the long-suffering country. But the thing is, NATO states near Syria have their own response to Russia’s most advanced weapons. For example, quite surprisingly, the Turkish system named Koral is actually able to completely blind the Russian S-400’s, hi-end surface-to-air missile systems, and even provoke them to fire at the decoys.

Unexpected, and situational, Putin’s ally, French President Francois Hollande craves to eliminate ISIS in cooperation with the Russian leader, who is famous for fine knowledge of the habits of terrorists. However, Hollande will soon discover that his Russian partner is not bombing those whom he had pledged to exterminate, but instead blowing up bakeries and markets in previously peaceful Syrian cities, claiming hundreds of civilian lives. There is no doubt that the French president won’t be able to remain in anti-ISIS coalition with Putin and Assad for long.

Putin's last hope, China, has long ceased to be Russia’s strategic partner, promising joint reign over the whole world and victory over the West. For example, despite Putin's systematic generous gifts to Beijing in the shape of of small pieces of Russian territories, the Celestial Empire is still not eager to save the stronghold of the "Russian world". By the way, together with Ukraine, China plans to push Russia out from the world market of light attack aircraft. Together with Turkey, which recently joined the club of Russia’s major adversaries, China has decided to transport its goods to Europe, bypassing Russia, with the help of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia. In this regard, I think it would be of no surprise to anyone if another “genius” step of Russian foreign policy was a sharp deterioration in relations with China. The circle of enemies around Russia will be finally complete. In this context, the president of Belarus has almost agreed on his further fate with the West, as well as the president of Kazakhstan, who is now actively trying to create a new external balance of power for his country, which will help Kazakhstan survive today’s geopolitical turbulence.

The second foot of the Kremlin's colossus is domestic politics, also starting to crumble in its core. The truckers have showed character, quite unexpectedly for Putin, forming convoys to drive to Moscow for a rally. Tatarstan resurrected the issue of the need to return the sovereignty of the republic. Some other regions of Russia are actually in line to put forward similar claims. The final chord in this symphony would be the return of former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin to the Kremlin. Some Russian political experts accurately point out that this may be the essence of a sophisticated game aimed at “soft” removal of Putin from his throne. For example, Kudrin will first replace the first part of the tandem – Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. And then there may be an announcement on a "sudden fatigue" of Putin who will make the newly appointed Prime Minister technical head of the Russian state until early presidential elections. In general, there are plenty of options but, it is essential for Ukraine (as well as for the whole world) to deprive today’s Russia of weapons of mass destruction and bring the Kremlin criminals to justice for thousands of the Ukrainian citizens killed in the Moscow-orchestrated conflict in Donbas.

There is a feeling that history is accelerating its run. Looking in the mirror one day, Vladimir Putin will see a collective Brutus behind his back, already set for stabbing the tired president.

The final act of the Kremlin drama is soon to be played.

Roman Rukomeda