A recently released Russian political prisoner has suggested that the West bears responsibility for the Putin regime and thus its crimes.
According to the prominent anti-Putin dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, “The responsibility for what the Putin regime is doing there is shared by Russian society, a large part of which chose to close their eyes to the abuses and repression.”
Who could disagree?
“But,” continues Kara-Murza, “let’s not forget the responsibility of those Western countries who for years preferred to deal with Vladimir Putin and do business, knowing full well who he was and what he represented.”
Ouch. You mean we’re also guilty?
Kara-Murza is wrong to imply that Russians and the West bear equal responsibility. They don’t. But he’s absolutely right to argue that the West can’t pretend not to have made Putin possible, and perhaps even inevitable.
The lion’s share of responsibility for Putin and his crimes belongs to the Russians, above all to the political and economic elites, but also to the broad masses. The former shared Putin’s imperialist dreams and fascist inclinations, and they wholeheartedly supported his killings, wars and invasions.
But the Russian people, for the most part, closed their eyes to their country’s transformation into a monster or nodded understandingly, even approvingly. Some, such as the murdered oppositionist Alexei Navalny and his........