Fullofbias

I spoke with a Baltic diplomat earlier this month and he said: “Putin is just a hooligan – it’s a hooligan state!”

He was actually talking about Russian military posturing in the vicinity of his country, but clashes in France clearly confirm his viewpoint. It’s not football hooligans as such, but the reaction of the Russian state to their hooliganism – like summoning the French ambassador on the account of arrests made by French police.

Many media outlets have contrasted the Russian reaction to that of British government officials and politicians.  While British dignitaries condemned their fans for street violence and mischief, the Russians endorsed the considerably more dangerous behavior of their compatriots. Some of them even used hooligans’ language, like Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin who said that Europe is simply “not used to seeing real men after all the gay parades”. In addition to all that, some of the ultras appeared to be members of the official delegation.

It entirely fits into Russia’s general line of behavior. There is no purpose or strategy – just the desire to be evil for the sake of it and to engage in all kinds of antisocial behavior. The country is a teenager that will continue to break windows and pee on the porch until he grows up – something that may or may not happen since there are no grown-ups around to look after his upbringing.

Russia’s behavior stems from the 20th century trauma coupled with its unique status of the only East European state that has no real chance of hoping to be integrated into the Euroatlantic community.

That realization, which descended on previously naive and enthusiastic ex-Soviet people late in the 1990s, produced another layer of trauma on top of the first one.

There is no chance at all that Russia will change, while both Europe and America are themselves degrading into political hooliganism, as in the case of Trump, Brexit or Dutch referendum on Ukraine. But it will definitely happen when the pendulum of history swings the other way, the European Union gets its act together and starts fulfilling the project of united Europe without borders and the archaic menace of nationalism.