The murderer gives his deepest condolences | International

All a detail. A gesture that not everyone deserves. The murderer wanted to pay public tribute to his victim. It cannot be said that his words are felt. They are not. In any case, measured and exact, a polite way of offering condolences to the family for the death that he has ordered and that he personally does not feel at all. Let no one see in Putin a divided conscience regarding the life of Prigozhin. That would have been the case in a family or friend's liquidation—something perfectly plausible and probable—but this was not the case.

The words of condolence to the family are not a formality, but neither are they a gesture to mask the reality of the State crime. They are, on the contrary, an acknowledgment. The value of the deceased and the well-deserved tragic end. Therefore, also of the personal responsibility that corresponds to him as head of state, equivalent to authorship. The result of the announced investigation, like that of the string of murders for which he is responsible, we already know. Prigozhin was a talented man with a difficult fate. He made great contributions to the common cause. He managed to achieve the results he wanted, for his benefit and for everyone's. But he also made serious mistakes. Could anyone expect me not to pay them?

As a funeral eulogy, more than condolences, they are phrases for the annals. They condense the moral rules that govern the current autocratic system of the Kremlin, well known and even understood by the Russian population. They are not a novelty brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they come from far, far away. From Ivan the Terrible, if you will, founder of the first state police, the oprichninaaccording to legend. Of Peter the Great and Catherine, and then the also legendary okhrana of the late Romanovs in the 19th century. Of the check of Lenin and of the GPU and of Stalin's NKVD and of Khrushchev's KGB, naturally, Putin's immediate referents, the most prominent and famous agent, and the one who has reached the furthest and highest on the ladder of power.

No one can oppose and even less betray the tsar without paying a price, often the highest, that of life. The authority and power of the State reside in this principle, which the Bolsheviks and Stalin were able to apply in proportions and dimensions hitherto unknown. The tsar's pulse cannot tremble. As soon as he faints, his authority crumbles and his power is jeopardized. Any assignment is a defeat. Any challenge without a stern response, a humiliation. The police, the courts, the deputies, the chorus of the media, everything must submit to the vertical demand of this absolute power.

The autocratic doctrine is blunt: there is no other way to govern the vast Russia, the largest and most diverse territorial empire in the world, which only survives if it expands and begins to crumble as soon as it is challenged and withdrawn. The liberal and democratic concepts that have served elsewhere for the construction of strong states do not apply to Russia. The division of powers, the rule of law, representative democracy, political pluralism and the diversity of parties are only useful as decorations for the absolute and unlimited power of the tsar. That is what works in Russia and what is increasingly popular in other parts of the world, where the force of law recedes in favor of the law of force.

It is sincere and naked power, without hypocrisy or sentimentality. Send who sends And rules over life and death. Even where the death penalty has been formally abolished by the Constitution and laws, as in the Russian Federation. It does not need your legal recognition because it is applied with terrifying flexibility. In jails and police stations. With poison or with a gun. Through simulated accidents or air disasters that do not offer doubts about authorship.

Putin's power, as lethal as that of his predecessors, is the result of a hybridization in which the violent culture of the Lubyanka, headquarters of the police and secret services, and that of organized crime, both merged into mafias that They took over the state and the economy with the collapse of the Soviet Union and corrupt privatizations. The liquidation methods are also a hybrid crossover, typical of both the political police and gangsters. Even Putin's cold words in his funeral message are, always cautious and clear, more of a threat to those who dream of challenging his power than of heartfelt condolences to the family.

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