This question is NOT a far fetched one….
Several people believe it IS one Europe and even America must ask going forward after the Russian’s get finished grabbing more of the Ukraine territory ….
Europe and America are pilling on sanctions and weapons against the Russian’s trying to hurt the Russian country enough that its leader President Putin finally stops his aggression against the Ukraine….
What will be left is an economically hurting and isolated Russia….
And THAT some feel….
Will be far more dangerous than things are now….
The author’s of the linked piece below are talking about a Russia AFTER Putin is gone….
These wishes of-course come squarely up against a politically reality that has been present since WWII….
The fight between democracies and communism …
The inherent distrust is bound to preclude ANY effort to establish a working relationship with anything led by Valdmir Putin…
Mind you?
Several European Union countries are STILL doing business with Russia , getting their oil and gas from that country….
Several countries are also looking the other way even as the atrocities come across their TV’s…
The piece below argues for Russia as part of Europe….
Led by conceivly by a guy Putin is holding in jail, Alexei Navalny ….
THAT seems impossible right now….
People just can’t just look past the situation on the ground in blood right now….
And Putin, though isolated ?
Isn’t going anyplace soon…
Russia, a great power inhabited by a great people, now stands humiliated on the world stage. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a crime against peace, and his conduct of that war is a crime against humanity. Putin may be adept at poisoning opponents and jailing dissenters, but his army cannot refuel tanks or fight at night. Having failed to conquer Ukraine in a swift coup de main, Russia turned to bombing hospitals and daycare centers in a failed effort to terrorize the indomitable Ukrainian population. Putin’s aggression has been rendered impotent by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a Churchill in an OD green t-shirt.
Putin’s personal humiliation may be well deserved, but a humiliated Russia is a grave threat to international peace and security. A vision of a better peace in Europe is now more essential than ever before—not merely a ceasefire or an end to atrocities and occupation, but a just and therefore enduring political order. The United States, still the indispensable nation, must lead the West in shaping that peace. That peace cannot include Vladimir Putin or the generals who committed war crimes in his name and under his orders. However, that peace must include Russia. When the Soviet Union justly disintegrated, President George H.W. Bush envisioned “Europe whole and free and at peace.” That vision is as vital today as it was 30 years ago. Russia is a European nation, and peace in Europe must embrace Russia as vital a part of Europe.
The vision of Russia as a vital part of Europe has deep roots in Russian history and promising shoots in contemporary Russian society. Peter the Great and Catherine the Great earned their honorifics not because of their fleeting wars of conquest but through their enduring commitment to education and modernization. Recognizing that the benefits of free markets required free people, Alexander II freed the serfs in 1861, four years before the U.S. ended slavery and without a bloody civil war. Fierce Putin critic Alexei Navalny continues this tradition, battling the regime’s corruption and brutality from behind bars. Tellingly, Navalny leads a political party known as Russia of the Future. Equally effective and equally organically Russian, the music of feminist rock band Pussy Riot challenges autocracy in Russia and around the world.
Nevertheless, Putin’s brutality has equally deep roots in Russian history and society, and any realistic foreign policy toward Russia must recognize those roots. Putin continues a long tradition that views Russia as an empire and as the seat of a Slavic civilization separate from and opposed to the West. In 1833, Czar Nicholas II embraced an ideology of “orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality.” This ideology posited the czar as the father of the Russian nation, leader of the Slavic civilization, and defender of the Russian Orthodox faith, answerable only to God. While rejecting overtly religious appeals, Stalin continued the autocratic, nationalistic, and imperialistic elements of this ideology, dismissing the internationalist pretensions of doctrinaire Marxism. Putin’s regime is firmly grounded in czarist and Stalinist traditions and enjoys considerable support among the Russian people. The Levada Center, an independent polling agency in Moscow, placed Putin’s approval rating at an astounding 83 percent. While acknowledging that polling is inherently difficult in a propaganda-saturated dictatorship, it would be foolhardy to ignore Putin’s considerable domestic support. It’s noteworthy that his approval is strongest among the same segments of the population that supported the czars: Orthodox Christians, rural populations, and older Russians.
The central question thus playing out in Ukraine, and in Russia, and across the globe is this: Is Russia a nation that is part of Europe, or an empire that is opposed to Europe? Putin, in the czarist and Stalinist traditions, is the most recent advocate of the latter view. The United States must lead the West in achieving a better peace based on the alternative: Bush’s vision of Russia integrated into a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace. Moving from Putin’s Russia to the one Bush dreamed of will be a trek that must follow these principles…