Op-Ed: Putin’s war against Ukraine will ruin Russia

This article originally appeared in Fox News on January 10, 2023

 

In Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, a young St. Petersburg student, Rodion Raskolnikov embarks on a murder spree to validate his pride. His motivation is simple—he seeks to be exceptional in the same way that Napoleon was exceptional. But, after confessing to his crimes and being dispatched to Siberia, Rodion experiences a spiritual metamorphosis and repents for his sins.

Somewhere in the bowels of the Kremlin, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, KGB killer and former Mayor of Dostoyevsky’s own St. Petersburg, is pondering the impacts of his 300-day special military operation. But there is no chance for a Rodion-like redemption here.

Putin believes he is the reincarnation of Russia’s Imperial and Soviet past. There is no crime, no matter how horrible, that warrants reflection much less redemption when that crime is committed for the advancement of the Russian state. Rodion saw himself as Bonaparte; Putin believes he is the reincarnation of Peter the Great, Alexander I, and Stalin. Peter the Great built cities and opened his country to European thought and mores. Tsar Alexander marched into Paris after vanquishing Napoleon. Stalin subjugated Eastern Europe and terrorized the planet. Putin’s ethno-messianism however may be putting Russia on the road to oblivion...

Read full op-ed in Fox News