The only thing that makes democracy better than other systems of government is its emphasis on collectivity. Two good heads are better than one. The greatest undoing of men is the possibility of an imagination of invincibility. When they get to that level, they start promulgating some spurious ideologies of the non-existence of God. They do it to prepare the foundation of being worshipped as god. This is rampant with autocrats and dictators. It started from the olden days when they were addressed principally as Kings. Nebuchadnezzar was so highly elevated that he ordered his people to make his image and compelled men to worship him as god. Whoever disobeyed this injunction was either thrown into fire or the lion’s den. Remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who were thrown into fire because they refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar as god.
The cheapest way Satan lures men is by swelling their heads that they are not ordinary. The fall of man came when he ate the forbidden fruit that Satan convinced him will make him be like God. He eventually lost his glory and ended up in dust. Nebuchadnezzar was made a human monkey and wandered in the bush for seven years, cohabiting with other animals during that period. He came back from that experience with a declaration that there is God that rules in the affairs of men. He was lucky to come out alive. Some of his likes were slain on their throne. Jezebel was a wicked Queen, who killed people just to amass their wealth. At the height of her wickedness she was thrown out of a window to her death and was eaten by dogs. Till date, her name became synonymous with wickedness. It is now a proverb to say as wicked as Jezebel. Hitler committed suicide after he lost the war that was meant to make him the ruler of the whole world. Such are the fantasies of dictators and their generation never learns from history.
If they have such disdain for God, their creator, you can imagine how they regard fellow men. Hitler declared that he will use Africa as testing ground for his nuclear arsenals. There was a champion those early days called Goliath. He was a giant, who was so powerful in the art of war, that he confronts a whole country single handedly. His strategy was to appear in the war front and demand that the enemy country presents a man to fight with him with a covenant that whoever wins will enslave the people of the enemy country. As he was shouting on the mountain taunting Israel to trump up a man that will challenge him, even the King of Israel was hiding from his presence, until one young musician, shepherd boy, called David appeared on the scene. He came to bring food for his elder brothers who were fighting in the battle. Even his brothers were docking for cover from this evil, blood thirsty demon called Goliath. David was embarrassed at how this uncircumcised Philistine was embarrassing the army of God’s people. He volunteered to fight Goliath. When Goliath saw him, he disdained him and vowed to feed David’s flesh to the birds of the air. In all honesty, both of them were a mismatch. One had the arrogance of power, while the other had the will of victory. One fought to prove a point that he was the greatest, the other fought to protect and save his people from destruction and shame. He was willing to give his life in defence of the honour of his people and country. There’s always the God-factor, whose interest in all this is truth and justice. At the end of the day, the giant was brought down, not by the intercontinental ballistic missile available then, but by a stone shot from a shepherd’s catapult. Not only did David feed Goliath’s flesh to the birds the giant boasted of, he killed the giant like a mere bird, with a stone. All the dictators referred above ended disastrously.
The modern day Putin is nothing more than a reflection of the olden day Goliath, while the modern day Zelensky is nothing more than a manifestation of the olden day David. Putin has been amassing his army around Ukraine for months and taunting the people of Ukraine and the West. Putin lied he was not planning to invade Ukraine. He was bidding his time so he can catch Ukraine unawares. His background is spying. He wanted to use the art of deception to ambush Ukraine and occupy it. After taunting Ukraine for months, Putin eventually, unilaterally ordered an invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February, 2022.
Let us be clear, apart from having the arrogance of power to prove a point that he is the most powerful person on earth, there’s no other reason for the invasion of Ukraine by Putin. Putin said he doesn’t want Ukraine to be a member of NATO, Ukraine is not. He said he doesn’t want Ukraine to be a threat to his power and his country, Ukraine is not. Indeed, Ukraine, which was one of the cities, where some nuclear power plants of the old Soviet Union was located abandoned their nuclear arsenals just to prove that they do not intend to pose a danger, militarily, to its neighbours. Ukraine, since its creation, has not carried out any offensive against its neighbours. On the other hand, Putin had attacked them before, through some Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine and dismembered the country. Before Zelensky came to power, Putin had taken over Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine and annexed them directly and indirectly. Ukrainians are known as fun loving, happy people. To buttress the point that they love life and entertainment, they elected a movie comedian their President. So Putin has absolutely no reason to attack Ukraine were it not for self aggrandizement. Any man who is prepared to shed blood just to acquire wealth, power and influence has no soul. President Joe Biden told Putin frontally, “I look at your eyes and see that you do not have a soul”.
Whatever has a beginning, must have an end. Putin, like the proverbial Goliath, disdained President Zelensky as a comedian and declared that he was going to remove him through military operation. Zelensky is too little for a full scale war with Russia. When he made up his mind to invade, he declared it a military operation. He intended to overun Ukraine in days. His intention was supported by American intelligence which predicted that Kyiv will fall within four days. Putin was happy, the war will be over within a week and before the threatened and imposed sanctions start taking its tolls on his people, the war would be over and Ukraine will be firmly in his hands as a bargaining tool against the Western countries. As with the way of dictators, he marshalled his troops on the highest expectation that the sound of a bomb will make Ukrainians scamper for safety. He sounded the bombs, taunted Zelensky, established a government that will take over from Zelensky in Russia.
Unfortunately, the God-factor came in. Zelensky was not afraid of bombs and missiles. He had his pockets filled with stones and vowed to kill the invaders like birds. The war is one month now. Putin has not made any significant progress. Putin is now feeding the flesh of his soldiers to the birds of Ukraine. They don’t have food, fuel or faith to fight. They are being killed like chicken and their bodies packed like sadine in containers waiting to be exported back to Russia in body bags. Their Commander in Chief told them they won’t meet resistance but they met destruction. They are downcast and are running away from battle. Ukrainians are now on the offence. Russia is now beginning to be on the defence. This, unfortunately, is marking the end of the man, Putin. He has run his course and will soon be brought to an untimely end.
Firstly, Russia economy will collapse within the next two months if nothing urgently happens to end the war. With the fall of Russia economy, internal unemployment and economic hardship will hit the people like a bomb. Internal disaffection and uprising, such as Putin never imagined, will pervade Russia. He will try to use iron fist, like before, to quell the uprising, but the people will persist, which will bring down his regime. They will persist because the level of economic hardship will be such as to pose existential threat on the citizens of Russia. If they support Putin, they will die of hunger, if they rebel against Putin, they will die by hanging. However, they stand greater chance of surviving if they bring down the regime of Putin so another leader can emerge and reconcile Russia with the world which will lead to the lifting of sanctions on the beleaguered Russia.
The lifestyle of oligarchs will soon haunt Putin. Oligarchs, by nature, are wealthy, fun loving individuals who abhor anything that will rudely interfere with their lifestyle. They are prepared to give you free hands to run the government as you wish but you must deploy the instruments of power to protect their vast economic empires and pleasurable lifestyles. Putin has failed the oligarchs. They are now running helter-skelter today around the world to cushion the effects of sanctions on them from Europe and the America. They will not close their eyes and allow Putin destroy what they have laboured to build. The oligarchs will soon have enough of it and turn against Putin. They have enough money and connection to bring him down and they will soon do that. Putin’s military will soon rebel against Putin which may bring his regime to a bitter violent end. Nobody cherishes seeing his friends, family and business associates die wretchedly and undignifiably in front of them for no just cause. Soldiers in war front soon develop psychological problems when they fail to achieve their mission. They soon become irrational and may turn their guns against the man who sent them to die without just cause.
From the way things are going, if this war lasts for months, Ukraine may even win Russia because the effects of global sanctions against Russia will be unbearable, giving the Ukrainians edge militarily against Russia which may end in their victory. In the likely event that such a scenario happens, Putin may end the whole thing by suicide or end up in the Hague to be tried as a war criminal. There’s no light for him at the end of this dark tunnel. Putin wants to be worshipped as god but will inevitably end up as dust. He can still do a very noble thing to stop this war now and retrace his steps and save himself and country this eternal shame. Can dictators learn from this and change their evil ways? only time will.