The translation was done by the AI.
Putin's Russia is heading down an utterly flawed path, descending into a completely predetermined decline. This descent encompasses geopolitical, technological, mental, and economic dimensions simultaneously.
Even venturing down one of these alone today could likely bring a nation closer to catastrophe, yet Putin's Russia is plunging down all four at once.
Its catastrophe is inevitable. If you don’t mind, remember this prediction of mine—it may turn out to be a prophecy.
Geopolitically
Putin's Russia, as it has throughout its history at least since Ivan the Terrible, seizes territories, subjugates the people there, exploits them, and survives at their expense.
This was feasible during the age of empires—every empire, to some extent, operated in this manner. But today, empires are no longer viable.
Even the United States must be cautious. It is democracy that saves the U.S. from erosion and disintegration. The assaults on democracy by the cynical Trump could have fatal consequences for the country.
Putin’s Russia is an empire in a post-imperial world. It is the last dinosaur doomed to extinction.
Technologically
Today’s world is advancing into a new era of genetic, industrial, medical, space, informational, communicational technologies, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.
For Putin’s Russia, these are a black hole. It is undergoing technological regression, losing its capability and prospects to catch up with the modern world or even attach itself to the third-class wagon in this new era.
It suffers from an anti-technological obscurantism.
Mentally
Rashism, great Russian chauvinism, brute force, hatred for those who think differently, a dreadful assault on liberal democratic values and diversity, and the most reactionary, archaic form of Orthodoxy—some of which infects part of our own synod, alas…
All of this constitutes a fatal brainwashing, a path to irreversible savagery and societal and individual degradation.
Economically
Inflation-driven madness doomed to hyperinflation plus stagflation, a printing press for worthless money, de-privatization, the stripping away of private property, and a total abandonment of the qualitative dimensions of security—quality of life, human capital, education, science, healthcare, the environment…
This is a pathological form of insanity devoid of any rational content.
Russia is headed toward an abyss (from the Russian word "бездна," meaning "bottomless pit").
The question is when and whom it will drag down into this abyss—Ukraine, the former Soviet republics, Eastern European states, the West, the world?
Russia is humanity’s curse today; it is the most terrifying threat posed by a state to human civilization when compared to other strategic risks for humanity.
Final Thought
Take note: risks must be managed, and the consequences depend on how they are managed.
But a threat must be confronted. Failure to do so will see disaster strike us—perhaps with apocalyptic force…
January 4, 2025
