The ambiguous international politics of Russia

The British story on the attack on the former Russian spy, reveals all the weaknesses of Moscow, forced to exercise increasingly extreme solutions, to try to bring havoc within the Western coalition. Putin is struggling with an election that seems obvious: the reconfirmation in his role as Russian president is little more than a formality, making the question more and more legitimate if the political system of Russia is a democracy or, rather, a degeneration. Despite the broad internal consensus, in the country there are substantial parts of dissent to which, beyond the repression, must be applied the usual scheme that plans to shift attention to international events. Presenting Russia as persecuted by Western powers is largely in this mode, now widely predictable, but to a public opinion sensitive to national pride, such as Russian, the perception of Western persecution is instrumental for those who want to stand up as a champion of the defense of national values. Yet perhaps the Western reactions to the London affair had not been calculated in the right ways; if, in addition to internal reasons, the project was to divide the western front, perhaps in preparation for new international challenges, the reaction of the West went against the Kremlin's forecasts. What for the United Kingdom was an attack on its sovereignty was perceived by other governments as a possibility that could also occur in their territories and this has raised the level of solidarity for London, succeeding in provoking a union of intentions in countries always more distant. Connected to the question of whether there is an effective democracy in Russia, considerations have been made, about the incident, which have compared the present Russian country to its Soviet ancestor, which used to strike its enemies abroad with the dual purpose of warning dissidents both inside and outside the Soviet Union. Now such a way of acting, which, as already said, is in open violation of the other national sovereignty, constitutes, as has happened, also a danger for civil citizens who have been put at risk by the chemical agent employed. On the other hand, this eventuality can not not be considered and therefore constitutes an attack on the civilian population of another state. What appears is a Russia that is increasingly similar to the Soviet empire, both internationally, thanks to increasingly controversial ways of acting in contempt of international law, and in the internal field where the repression of dissension is the rule and social inequality it is always greater. The picture that emerges is that of an increasingly less reliable nation, which, however, holds a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, now used as an instrument for its purposes of international politics. The Russian model of behavior seems to represent the real emergency on the international level, because it focuses on the systematic transgression of international law and the failure to respect the sovereignty of the states, implemented either through conventional methods, or alternative methods, related to new technologies, such as attacks informatics, whose purpose is to exert an occult influence in the internal affairs of foreign nations. The relevant figure is that Moscow seems to be characterized by a wide-ranging action that aims to alter the internal balance of third countries by increasing the internal contrast between the political and social forces. Until now, the perception of Russia has been very clear in Western countries, but it has been attenuated by those political forces that received aid and funding from Moscow, just because they presented themselves as anti-system and by those social parties that enjoyed interests. economic interests, thanks to relations with Russia. These sentiments are still very present in Western countries and are the main means used by Putin to carry out his disturbing action. Western disdain was to materialize first, for example with the civilian victims of the Russian bombing in Syria or with the interference in American or other political elections. The Russian action, which is protracting too far outside its borders, must be countered by having the awareness that it represents a danger for democracies and the peaceful development of international relations and the isolation of Moscow must be the first step necessary to counter the action of the Government of Russia.