Vladimir Putin is no genius, but occasionally he is right. After the U.S. and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, Russia’s president stated that any such deal had to address the root causes of the war. Putin was right, though not in the way he imagined.

As the courageous democratic activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, formerly a political prisoner in Russia, stated, “For once, albeit accidentally, Putin has told the truth: Long-term peace in Ukraine is only possible by ‘eliminating the root causes of this crisis.’ The main ‘root cause’ is an old deranged KGB officer in the Kremlin who views the collapse of the Soviet empire as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,’ calls his opponents ‘national traitors’ and Ukraine an ‘artificial state,’ and idolizes Stalin and Andropov. Without ‘eliminating’ this ‘root cause’ there will not be peace not only in Ukraine, but in Europe as a whole.”

Kara-Murza is right. Russia’s road to peace, decency and normality must begin with Putin’s departure from the political scene. As long as this “old deranged KGB officer” remains in charge, Russia will remain in the Stone........

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