Fear raced through the mind of a young Russian KGB operative on the night of 9 November 1998, as the streets of East Berlin turned into chaos. Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Putin sat in his office in East Berlin taking phone calls from operatives on the streets, explaining the Berlin wall was coming down, and there was no stopping the growing pandemonium. He watched terrified from his third floor office as protesters began tearing down the fence surrounding the KGB complex, and breaking into buildings.
He knew beyond a doubt his superiors in Moscow expected him to sacrifice his life to save the secret files of political deportations, murders, tortures and other heinous crimes committed by the KGB, and the feared East German Police known as the Stasi. The problem was, there were just a few low ranking officers and file clerks in the building that could never hold back such an angry mob.
Knowing the rioters had no firearms, Putin put to work the skills of intimidation he had learned over the years. He walked into the yard brandishing his pistol. He told the angry throng the building was set with explosives and KGB operatives with automatic weapons were ready to repel any invasion of the building. Although it was November, sweat ran down his face as he stood his ground. Unsure Putin was telling the truth, but knowing the KGB and Stasi were capable of anything, the mob moved down the street toward other targets.
Being assigned to a new job in the Kremlin, Putin had a front row seat as he watched his beloved Russia begin to crumble, and it angered him. By the end of 1991 the great U.S.S.R disappeared from the face of the globe, and United States President George H.W. Bush was formally acknowledging the 12 new break away republics.
People that knew Putin state he went into a deep funk stating over and over that every dream he had for his blessed Soviet Union was now gone. However it was that state of mind that helped Putin climb the political ladder. When Putin decided to run for president in 2000, old communist political hacks jumped at the chance to once again have a true KGB hard liner that believed in old Mother Russia back in the Kremlin.
From the very beginning Putin made no excuses when he stated the U.S.S.R. must be rebuilt in his life time. Most people forget that in 1999 as Russian National Security Advisor, Putin arranged for Russian forces to enter Kosovo, nearly creating a war with NATO. From that one incident Putin learned a lot as to how the west would respond to such incursions.
He knew full well that pulling old Russia back together could never be attained with out first bringing Ukraine back under its umbrella. Ukraine had the natural resources, man power, and ports on the Black Sea that were essential for his plans.
So on 18 March 2014 Putin signed an annexation treaty with Crimean leaders taking control of the peninsula from Ukraine. Immediately Russian troops marched into Crimea taking control of all major government operations. As usual most western nations condemned the annexation, but did nothing to give Putin reason to fear any type of serious reprisals.
Through out the winter months of 2021 into 2022, Russia moved massive forces up to the Ukrainian border. Putin stated Ukraine was an integral part of Russia and must be retaken, and that Ukraine was in need of demilitarization and deNazification. On 24 February Russian forces invaded Ukraine in blitzkrieg fashion rolling over Ukrainian force and seizing large swaths of the country.
However this time the world reacted, sending Ukraine billions of dollars of lethal weaponry to not only stop, but roll back Russia’s forces. Regrettably as Putin sees his dream being shattered by outside forces he can not control, he has ordered a scorched earth policy destroying every peace of Ukraine’s infrastructure. This is the real Putin we need to fear. A dangerous man that would much rather see the world dissolve around him, than lose his radical dreams of power.
This is the opinion of Gerry Feld, whose column is published the second Sunday of the month. He writes about issues from a conservative perspective and is a published novelist.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Putin is dangerous and must be feared
