View from Germany: “Russia does not want to tolerate the vagaries of history; Russia wants to shape history”

The West's hopes that Russia would be able to suffocate under its militarism, as Prussia once did, have proven in vain. Russia remains a state with an iron identity and an imperial mission that goes far beyond Ukraine, notes “Focus” magazine from Germany.

Prussia actually disappeared into the mists of history, but Russia has remained, despite all the historical changes! Russia – today it is no longer possible to deny – has a different foundation. Russia has a solid, perhaps iron core.

The former Russian Tsarist Empire is today a historically unique, multi-ethnic state, welded together by fire and iron. Russia is a geographical colossus, spreading over an impressive raw material warehouse that is located in its depths. Russia is deeply confident in its imperial mission.

Russian identity has a solid core that has survived all the shifts of borders and all the historical upheavals from Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great, Lenin, Stalin and Putin. Russia has a history of over 1,000 years, and it has proven its invincibility. Anyone who tried to conquer Russia anyway, like Napoleon, Wilhelm II or Hitler, died.

Empress Catherine the Great acquired a million square kilometers of land and six million people by conquest – including Ukraine.

Lenin lived and died with the idea of his world revolution.

After defeating Hitler, Stalin secured control over half of Europe. His successors reached Cuba, Angola and the Hindu Kush.

Putin stands on their shoulders. He is no less successful than Catherine the Great, he is less ideological than Lenin, he is less cruel than Stalin, but he also wants to be a player.

The idea that Putin would stand idly by and watch NATO encircle Russia was naive. The West expanded and celebrated the “End of History” in a burst of triumph. And it miscalculated.

Today, the colorful BRICS group is not a Putin fan club, but it is certainly a community of interests.

Putin was hosting the UN Secretary General and more guests these days. More than 30 heads of state and government of the BRICS countries were on his territory, including representatives of Brazil, India, China and South Africa. Those gathered for the BRICS summit represent 45 percent of the world's population. Putin speaks of a new "global majority" of the global East and South.

The West can ostracize Russia politically, it can try to fight it militarily and subject Russia to economic sanctions. But it cannot crush Russia. The West cannot magically get rid of this country. It cannot even isolate it, as the BRICS summit shows.

Militarily, the West remains hesitant, as if it does not want to jeopardize negotiations it is not even conducting. Diplomatically, it remains invisible, as if it wants to complete a military victory it did not even seek.

This means recognizing the ineffectiveness of Western policy towards Russia today. The West has not achieved its goals of the war against Russia, namely: political isolation, economic weakening and military exhaustion. Anyone who wants to respond to this Western predicament by calling for a ceasefire or ordering Taurus cruise missiles misses the scale of the issue.

Russia today has a mission that goes far beyond Ukraine, and is expansionist in an intellectual and cultural sense. Russia does not want to tolerate the vagaries of history; Russia wants to shape history, “Focus” stresses.

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