The demonization of Vladimir Putin and Russia by the British political establishment and media has never been as intense as in the wake of the recent Ukraine peace talks in Minsk.<\/p>\n
Rather than preparing British public opinion for peace and a negotiated settlement to a conflict which thus far has cost the lives of over 5,000 people and seen over a million displaced, the opposite has been evident: British public opinion is being prepared for a continuation and intensification of the conflict.<\/p>\n
The characterization of the Russian leader has been so off the scale it is hard to imagine anyone being na\u00c3\u00afve enough to take it seriously. When he\u2019s not being compared to Hitler<\/a>, an especially offensive caricature for historical reasons, he is being accused of harboring ambitions of forging a \u2018Russian Empire\u2019.<\/p>\n That such accusations stem from a nation whose government has played a key part in reducing Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya to a state of chaos in recent years, a consequence of the UK\u2019s attachment to Washington\u2019s brutal and disastrous assault on the Arab and Muslim world, only makes them all the more hypocritical if not downright noxious.<\/p>\n But then this should come as no surprise, as we\u2019ve been here before, haven\u2019t we? Remember when Venezuela\u2019s Hugo Chavez was being similarly demonized and held up as a dictator? His crime when he came to power and remained there on the back of numerous democratic elections was his refusal to allow Venezuela\u2019s wealth to continue to be shipped out of the country, as it had been for decades, by a small group of Western-supported oligarchs.<\/p>\n