Today’s Russia is fascist because its goal is to restore a lost empire. Russian fascism longs to be portrayed as on the march. Its leaders fluff for autocrats. Moscow’s bot armies debase democracy. Its state calmly commits genocide. The Kremlin only wants power to do these things, while pushing borders outward.
In the eyes of any sane observer, this quest is mad. Today it rings increasingly hollow even inside jingoistic Russia, where popular support for the invasion has softened. To be clear, Moscow is still dancing a deadly quadrille of destruction and hate, at full tilt, without internal opposition. Ukraine is the main victim. Africa, the Middle East and Latin America are also paying steep prices, daily – to say nothing of the attritional decay of politics in Europe, North America and Asia.
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