On Wednesday, in another amusing rebuke to Russian diplomatic antics, Britain won an important vote at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Specifically, the United Kingdom defeated a Russian motion calling on Britain to conduct a joint British-Russian investigation into the March 4 nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. The Skripals were poisoned in a small British town by Russian intelligence officers acting under orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin. And while the Russians deny their involvement in the Skripal attack, they know that the U.K. knows that they are responsible.
As an extension, Putin and his sidekick troll/foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, intended the OPCW vote to aggravate Britain and to restore Russia to a position of diplomatic power.
On the aggravation side of things, a Russian victory in the vote would have been the equivalent of a judge calling on a murderer to investigate his crime alongside a police officer. In short, a Russian way of giving London a two-fingered salute.
On the diplomatic side, a vote in Russia’s favor would have allowed Putin to claim that the international community is in his favor and thus a foundation for Russian propaganda efforts to discredit British claims of Russian culpability. The great lie of Putin’s propaganda is that it is Russia who abides by international norms and seeks peace and tranquility, while the West conspires against it. A win at the OPCW would have served that end effectively.
Yet, the diplomatic incentive here is especially great for the Kremlin in that it has been surprised by Britain’s post-Skripal success in aligning so many nations to expel Russian intelligence officers. Those expulsions embarrassed Putin and his pre-World Cup effort to attract international favor towards Russia.
Still, Putin hasn’t simply embarrassed himself with this latest failure to outmaneuver the U.K.; he’s made a fool out of himself. After all, the nations that chose to side with Russia at the OPCW don’t exactly form a who’s who list of morally fastidious democracies. They are China, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Algeria, and Iran.
By winning the support of these nations and no others, Putin’s Russia is unveiled for what it is: a mafia state. Putin likes to win, but when it comes to Skripal – from the failed assassination to the continuing mismanagement of its aftermath – Putin can’t stop losing.
