Putin Will End in Total Defeat
Putin governs incompetently and has failed at anti-corruption, bringing Russia economic depression, ruble devaluation, and a withered people's livelihood. Yet he clings to office, tampering with the constitution to stay president for life. He suppresses the opposition and launches wars opposed by many inside his own country, routinely sending police to beat and detain civilians in the name of stability. That such a lone, tyrannical scoundrel still has many supporters is astonishing. He could never have dreamed that his supposed blitzkrieg would only meet stubborn resistance, and that the enemy would refuse any "treaty imposed at the point of a bayonet"; the blitzkrieg has turned into a war of attrition. Russia is sanctioned to a shambles, anti-war protests have erupted in major Russian cities, and it is beset by troubles at home and abroad, dragging down the whole world and creating countless tragedies. History has once again proved how great the harm of dictators is; may no one ever have to live under a dictator's rule.
Russia's recent leaders have been worse one after another, nearly squandering the patrimony left by the Soviet Union. The people are full of grievances, the economy is stagnant, and despite holding the world's largest land resources, its GDP is less than that of Guangdong province alone, reducing it to a second- or third-rate power. It has the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal but lacks the right direction and leadership; internal and external affairs are in chaos, crony capital runs wild, officials are corrupt and lawless, so it can only start wars to deflect domestic contradictions. Unfortunately the Putin clique has overestimated its own strength, overestimated domestic support, and underestimated the anger ignited among people at home and abroad by the war.
Russia has done China every evil: seizing Haishenwai, splitting off Outer Mongolia, and during the Sino-Soviet split threatening to carry out surgical nuclear strikes on China. Putin sells mountains of weapons to India while splitting away our South Tibet, all the while staging political shows to brainwash our people. Such tricks will eventually be exposed; those who sow the wind cannot reap the whirlwind. Let us see how long a war a worn-down Russia can drag on. I boldly predict that in this war Putin will gain nothing, only taking away universal wrath and leaving himself surrounded on all sides.
It is only the Ukrainian and Russian people who have paid a terrible price for this dictator's private ambitions. Putin brandishes nuclear deterrence, thinking the whole world fears him, but if Putin dares to fire the first nuclear bomb, the taste of the second will be his and his family's to swallow. A nuke is deterrence before launch and nuclear suicide after. So in this war Putin has been irrational throughout. His actions only show that he has lost his mind; long rule over Russia has swelled his ego until he lacks sound judgment of the world.
Some say that without Putin Russia would be utterly miserable. Frankly, such talk is pure ignorance. Russia controls the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal; even a pig as president, no one would dare do anything to Russia. As for the claim that China needs Russia's protection—that is even more of a joke. Historically, every time Russia "helped" China, it sliced off a bit of territory. When China's strength flagged, Russia eyed it greedily; among China's neighbors, only Russia has seized the most Chinese territory and never returned it.
Ukraine has only tens of millions of people, yet when Russia bullied it, Ukrainians did not wait to die but rose up to defend their homeland. China has 1.4 billion people, an economy already second in the world (some economists even think China is already first by purchasing-power parity of the renminbi), and nuclear deterrence. Would anyone dare bully such a great power if it did not lose its head? This is all just persecution paranoia. Economic tugs-of-war are merely business competition; handle them with intelligence and strength, no need to blow them up to ideological levels. When the time and heat are right, what should come will come; what should not come has its own reasons.
China must see Putin for what he is, refuse to be kidnapped or used by him, and stay out of a senseless war that harms our national interests and our development. This kind of war that destroys peace and tramples on other people's lives is loved only by bloodthirsty types.