Become a Putin-understander!

Right at the beginning of his speech at the Valdai Dicussion Club – and every listener must have noticed this! – Putin said that the West’s view of Russia and him was biased and that Western politicians did not engage in dialogue with the Russians and with Putin on an equal footing and at eye level.
    In my opinion, Putin is right about this.
    There are deep-seated prejudices against the Russian people in the West. It is claimed here that Russia is an imperialist state, or that it wants to return to the USSR and restore it. Putin has clearly and succinctly expressed his opinion on the USSR in a bon mot: “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.”
    As for Russia’s purported plans to conquer Europe, Putin has repeatedly said in recent months: “It is absurd to say that Russia wants to conquer European countries.”
    What does Putin want? Recognition of Russia’s importance in the world as a large, expansive country, as a central power with influence and not just a regional power, a Great Power that has successfully solved some problems in recent decades and has a strong economy and nuclear power: he wants to deal with all states on an equal footing, he wants his speeches to be discussed in the West and not go unheard. He wants to make Russia’s voice heard in the concert of nations.
    What is so wrong with that? There has been no talk in Russia in recent decades of reconquering Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Lithuania. If that were the case, the European media would have been jubilantly reporting on it in sensationalist articles for a long time... And it would indeed be completely insane to attempt to restore the Soviet Union.
    Quotes from statements made by Putin, the president who has been in office the longest anywhere in the world, are almost always shortened, distorted or not reproduced at all in the German press. People here don’t want to hear him; above all, they don’t want to be seen as “Putin-understander”. Yet in diplomacy, we only have one chance in the upcoming negotiations. We should become “Putin-understanders”!
    I think that European politicians are still cooking up the same old disastrous recipe from 2008 in Bucharest, namely to bring Ukraine into NATO. They are planning to station European soldiers in Ukraine as supposed guarantors of security. Even the new head of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, warned against doing this a year ago in the German “Stern” magazine. That time he said that Russia would never accept European security guarantees. His warning has fallen on deaf ears. The Starmers, Merzes, Macrons and Melonis stubbornly continue on their path.
    European politicians currently have nothing else on their minds but the war they are planning – allegedly defensively! – for 2030 in the East. They are arming themselves, arming themselves heavily, even though there is no talk in Russia of arming itself beyond what is needed for the war in Ukraine!
    I am surprised that Putin is not defending himself against such unreasonable demands (“security guarantees”). Would it not make sense to commission another country to provide forces for security guarantees and also to involve the UN in the negotiations on the war in Ukraine?
    It would be important to eliminate the causes of Russia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine, namely NATO’s eastward expansion! This can only be achieved through direct and unprejudiced negotiations. Self-reflection and reflection on our own behaviour would be necessary on our part, urgently necessary!

Susanne Wiesinger, teacher of history and social studies, Freiburg, Germany