There are lots of things Russia’s Putin can kill – but not the truth

Joe Bennett is an award-winning Lyttelton-based writer, columnist and playwright.

OPINION: I salute all 120 New Zealand MPs. I salute the journalists Glenn McConnell, Anna Whyte and Katie Ham. I salute the head of New Zealand Intelligence, and Sinead Boucher who owns Stuff. All of these people have been sanctioned by Russia.

As a young man, I saw Russia as a country short on luck but long on soul, the land of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol and dear queer Tchaikovsky.

I studied Russian at school and loved the exoticism of the alphabet and the complexity of the grammar. I hoped one day to go to Vladivostok, which name means Ruler of the East. It is seven days by train from Moscow. From Vladivostok, I would travel up into the limitless wastes of Siberia just to see the nothing. I never got there.

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But I’ve known a few Russians, including Viktor the trawlerman whom I met in the Empire Hotel. He was playing the accordion. We went out on the town and ended late at night in the stinking bowels of his ship, drinking vodka out of teacups and singing Kalinka.

So I have nothing against Russia. But I have everything against the regime. And the regime is Vladimir Putin.

 

Thirty years ago, Russia broke free of a long nightmare. Putin returned it to one. The previous regime was ostensibly Communist, his is effectively fascist, but there’s no real difference. Tyranny is tyranny.

Nothing happens in Russia without Putin’s approval, so he is solely responsible for the horrors of Ukraine, for every ounce of misery. For every maimed child, every dead child, every rape, every murder, every landmine, every abandoned pet, every bewildered grandmother, every bombed apartment. The unspeakable butchery and barbarism are all on him.

He’s done the full Macbeth. For the sake of power and ego, he’s forfeited any decency he may once have had, any kindness. He’s caused the death of a hundred thousand of the compatriots he purports to serve. Tens of thousands more have fled the country to escape his illegal war.

Like Macbeth, he needs to be defeated militarily. There’s no point in negotiation. He lies. His words mean nothing. And besides, there is nothing to negotiate. He invaded a sovereign country and must be driven from it. The west should unhesitatingly provide all the weapons Ukraine needs to do the job. To fear escalation is to play into his hands. If we’ve got a tank, we should send it today.

Like Macbeth, he’s a dwarfish thief. He and his cronies have looted their country. He has palaces, watch collections, but no-one he can trust because he himself is untrustworthy. He lives a life of isolation in a bullet-proof vest. ‘And that which should accompany old age, as honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,’ he must not look to have.

He’ll die alone. When his time comes to twist the sweaty sheet – and let us hope it is soon – there will be no-one to hold his hand. His mistresses will have long since high-footed it for the Steppes, clutching their jewellery. His cronies too, the toadies and lickspittles, the Peskovs and Lavrovs, the bald liar at the UN, they were only ever in it for their own ends.

He knows all this. And he knows his lies are lies. When he calls the Ukrainians fascist he knows who the real fascists are. Just as with Trump, his every accusation is a confession.

He knows that though he sends out thugs to beat protesters, throws opponents into prison, poisons others with polonium and sanctions those he cannot reach, the truth cannot be killed and will prevail eventually.

‘Eventually’ is little consolation to the maimed, bereaved or dead, but every sanctioning is a medal on the chest.