sMany years ago, US President George W. Bush asked a reporter during an interview, "Who is Vladimir Putin?" Since then, many people have tried to define Vladimir Putin.
A speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, once said in his typically servile and lackey-like attempt to feed Vladimir Putin's inflated ego: If there is Vladimir Putin, then there is Russia.
Given the Kremlin's ongoing, obviously false and propagandistic apocalyptic nuclear blackmail campaign aimed at influencing Western voters, Russia will outlive Vladimir Putin. What is now clear, however, is that the war on the European continent will not stop as long as Vladimir Putin is president of Russia.
That is why Vyacheslav Volodin was wrong. As long as Putin exists, there will be war. War in any form has always been the essence of Putin's rule, and it still is today.
Putin firmly believes in his war victories and, more importantly, in his ability to emerge victorious. This is not about WW3, in which Russian propaganda, in conjunction with Vladimir Putin's Western lackeys and enablers, is now massively circulating in order to frighten Western voters.
Wars as justifications for the persecution of the opposition
Putin is obsessed with the war he is currently waging in Ukraine, and he will not consider ending it unless forced to do so, or if he is unable to do so for some other reason.
It has enabled Vladimir Putin to unite the Russian majority behind the unjust war he started, especially because the war's effects are still almost invisible to the majority of the Russian population.
The war justifies Vladimir Putin's almost sadistic purges of Russian oppositionists and dissidents
The war justifies Vladimir Putin's almost sadistic purges of Russian oppositionists and dissidents, especially the few who have the courage to openly oppose the war. The war enabled Putin to begin confiscating the Russian elite's capital and assets.
Above all, however, the war offers the prospect of Putin becoming a historical figure in Russian and global history.
Vladimir Putin is currently using people like Viktor Orbán with a false peace agenda to win the war. This is because he needs to restore Russia's financial, human, and military potential. This will allow him to comfortably attack again on a much larger scale, using the Republic of Belarus as a second front against Ukraine, followed by the Baltic states and Poland.
Three fronts
The concept of war as a political means with Putin is multi-layered: the war against Ukraine, the domestic war against Russian dissidents and opposition movements, and, above all, the war against the Western global order, which ultimately means the war against NATO countries.
In order for Vladimir Putin to comfortably continue the war in line with his plan, he must intimidate and demoralise all his enemies, both at home and abroad.
At home, Vladimir Putin must destroy and crush Russian dissidents and the opposition.
Externally, Vladimir Putin will now target Western voters, politicians, and prominent figures who help Ukraine and/or oppose Russia.
In Ukraine, Vladimir Putin considers a combination of military and psychological warfare to be extremely effective
In Ukraine itself, Vladimir Putin considers a combination of military and psychological warfare to be extremely effective.
Putin views horrific acts of terrorism, like the recent airstrike on a children's hospital, as extremely useful because he believes that such attacks allow him to demoralise the Ukrainian people.
He assumes that these airstrikes will eventually allow him to subvert the majority of the Ukrainian population, which currently rejects Russia's imperial expansion, and persuade the Ukrainian people to surrender and submit.
The symbolic, however significant, arrest warrant against Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny, the failed assassination plot by the Russian intelligence service against Armin Papperger, the top executive of Rheinmetall, and the recent airstrike on the children's hospital in Kyiv may appear to be random acts of Russian aggression, deviation, and cruelty.
There is only one winner in all wars
However, all of these episodes represent measures taken by the Kremlin to maintain and win the war.
Moreover, these episodes give a coherent and detailed indication of what to expect from Moscow in the coming months and possibly years if Moscow is successful in its attempt to prolong the current war.
Vladimir Putin's Russia will continue to escalate its actions because it can afford to and because it fears no significant retaliation from the free and democratic world, which, naturally, cannot respond in the same manner as arrests, assassinations, and air strikes on civilian facilities.
Although Vladimir Putin is generally the only unconditional beneficiary of war among the Russian elites, his grip over Russia and the ongoing purges in Russia encourage him that he will not face any significant domestic opposition in the near future
Vladimir Putin's Russia has already started lowering the bar and will keep doing so as long as it believes that its grip over the Russian population is not in jeopardy and that Western "Putinverstehers" like Viktor Orbán are solid and firm in their support.
Vladimir Putin is now preparing for a new round of battle with Ukraine and the West. The war against Ukraine is now being enriched by guerrilla warfare against the West, which includes terrorist acts and assassinations carried out by Russian intelligence services or various agents, including Western criminals or traitors that Russia has been able to recruit in the West.
Although Vladimir Putin is generally the only unconditional beneficiary of war among the Russian elites, his grip over Russia and the ongoing purges in Russia encourage him that he will not face any significant domestic opposition in the near future.
This is particularly true if he succeeds in temporarily stopping the war by intimidating the West and holding fictitious peace negotiations, facilitated by individuals in the West who support Vladimir Putin's agenda, such as Viktor Orbán.
