The best president Russia never had

I don’t often watch two-hour videos. But a couple of years ago I did watch this one. It helps to explain today’s news that Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison. May his memory be a blessing. Radek Sikorski, once again Poland’s Foreign Minister, said it well on NPR this morning: Navalny will be remembered as the best president Russia never had.

The relevance of Boris Godunov

I also enjoyed, so to speak, a performance of Mussorsky’s Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi opera about 10 years ago. In it, Godunov is elected Tsar after murdering the rightful heir. That may be historically accurate or not. But it is hard not to see in this most Russian of Russian operas parallels to Putin. That too tells you something about Navalny’s death.

As with Godunov, it really doesn’t matter whether Putin ordered Navalny murdered. It is possible Navalny succumbed to the harsh conditions in a Siberian prison. He should not have been there. A classical political prisoner, Navalny challenged Putin’s legitimacy and might have competed in a fair election to displace him from power. That was enough to earn him a decades-long sentence and eventual death.

How the West should react

There is little the US and Europe can do to respond directly to Navalny’s death. A few sanctions maybe on prison and security officials? A week or two of badmouthing Putin?

Putin won’t care about any of that. What he cares about is Ukraine. And what he understands is power. He has enjoyed for months now watching Washington twist itself into knots over military assistance for Kyiv. The time has come to straighten that out. One way or another, the House needs to take an up or down vote on the aid package. There is no doubt now that it will pass if the Speaker allows it to be voted on.

But that should not be the end of the story. The US needs to remove the qualitative limits on what it ships to Ukraine. Washington should be supplying whatever weapons Kyiv needs to win the war this year. Nothing short of that will bring about a quick end to a war that has already gone on far too long. Russian defeat is a sine qua non for peace.

What should Russians do?

His own guilt and a pretender combine to bring down the operatic Godunov. That isn’t a likely outcome for Putin. The presidential election there is but a month off (March 15-17). Putin has already eliminated any serious rivals, but there is always ballot destruction or I suppose write-ins that could at least embarrass him.

Another possibility is a palace coup. AP has identified a few possible replacements if Putin were to disappear. But that isn’t likely either. If nothing else, Putin has made sure that he faces no serious rival or risk of rebellion, including among people close to him. .

Putin is 71. That is already above the life expectancy at birth of the average Russian male. Of course he has lived a privileged existence as a KGB officer and politician. But that may not lengthen his years. Holding power seems to keep people alive more often than it kills them.

More than likely…

So more than likely we’ll have to put up with Putin for a while yet. But we shouldn’t put up with jackasses in the US who support his geopolitical objectives, his invasion of Ukraine, or his claim that life is better in Russia than in the West. Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and others in this category need to be shown the exit.