The Last Tsar of Russia

Or why even though Vladimir Putin has to die, he probably just needs a hug.

Vladimir Putin is the face of modern Russia. Born in 1952, his story is woven intimately through her history. His grandfather Spiridon Putin was a noted chef who was once left a massive tip by Rasputin for the quality his work and the similarity in their names. He eventually became the personal chef to both Lenin and Stalin. His son would marry Putin’s mother. World War 2 left it’s mark on Putin’s family, as it did to most every Russian family. His father was left severely wounded and several of the relatives on his mother’s side died. Young Vladimir Putin was youngest of his parents children, and the only one to survive beyond youth. Functionally, he grew up an only child.

Young Vlad made his name as a KGB agent before leaving the agency to pursue a political career in the office of the Mayor of St. Petersburg in 1991. He rose quickly through the ranks, eventually joining the office of premier Boris Yeltsin. He made himself indispensable, and ran Russia in all but name by 1999. He became president in 2000 and has been on top of Russian politics ever since. Since 2004 he has centralized a huge amount of political, military and financial power in Russia under the direct control of himself and his friends. They have followed in the footsteps of many Russian leaders of the past by doubling down on their autocratic power, and promoting a traditional view of Russia, separate from the rest of western civilization. Putin’s government rests on the approval of Russian conservatives. These folks reject political liberalism, gay rights, and foreign immigration as “western degeneracy” and see Putin as a champion of Russian culture and values.

The war he has unleashed in Ukraine in the service of these values has been cast in the west as a battle between liberty and autocracy. Before the shooting started I sympathized with the Russian position for a variety of reasons, but the brutality of the war has changed my mind. The Russian Federation has been openly celebrating it’s crimes against humanity in general and Ukrainians in particular during the war in Ukraine and the war itself was explicitly launched on the premise of erasing Ukrainian national identity, and this remains the stated goal of the Putin regime in Ukraine. Russia has massacred hundreds, if not thousands of Ukrainian cultural and political figures in the territory they’ve occupied. Most Ukrainians seem to have no interest in seeing how many others must be handpicked for death by the Kremlin for the process of Russification to be completed. They would rather fight.

The other alternative to Ukraine being swallowed whole by Russia is the complete collapse of the Russian Federation. If this happens, Vladimir Putin must die. As the President of Russia, he bears ultimate responsibility for his nation’s sins. He is the villain of this story, and I’m anticipating he will get a villain’s end, but as any student of storytelling will tell you, a good villain must be relatable. They need to have moments that make you wonder if they’re really the good guy…at least until you remember the ocean of blood they’ve spilled in service of their goal.