Chaos in Russia proves we need a strong NATO more than ever

IN the end, Vladimir Putin will not survive this.

Mad Vlad may yet live longer than Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mouthy maverick who led his repulsive Wagner mercenaries in open rebellion against Moscow. But Putin is finished.

He is finished even if regular Russian troops put down the Wagner threat.

Putin will never survive this contemptuous challenge to his rule, and the questions being suddenly asked by former allies about his disastrous war on Ukraine.

If history teaches us anything about Russian leaders, it is that they can survive anything — apart from looking weak.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin both survived attempted coups — but not for ever.

And so it will be with Putin.

He looks weak today in a way that he has never looked weak before. He looks raging, out of a control, a despot who feels history closing in.

Putin looks like a leader who now understands he made a catastrophic error when he invaded Ukraine.

He is a leader who is no longer in control of his armed forces.

He is a murderous dictator whose day is done.

Until yesterday, millions of Russians looked up to Putin as the restorer of their national pride. Not any more.

It was a lie, and it has always been a lie.

The mutiny by Wagner mercenaries — a ragtag army of ex-convicts and former special forces who have done most of Russia’s dirtiest fighting in Ukraine — makes Putin’s triumphalist propaganda impossible to believe.

Russia is poised on the abyss of a civil war.

Good news for the brave people of Ukraine. But there is no hiding from the fact that Putin’s collapse will make our world a far more dangerous place.

Where Nato will be more important than ever.

As recently as 2019, President Emmanuel Macron was calling NATO “brain dead” and saying that the EU — that famous fighting force — should start thinking of itself as a military power.

This gormless prattling ended with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s coming civil war will make talk of Nato’s demise even more ludicrous.

Whoever replaces Putin, it is unlikely to be Nick Clegg.

When Putin goes — as he eventually will — he is almost certain to be replaced by an even madder, warmongering Russian nationalist who is even more keen on reaching for those nuclear weapons.

Europe will turn to Nato to defend itself from whatever hell comes next.

Nato has been the great defender of the West’s freedom for 74 years.

And we will soon need it more than ever.

So how bitterly ironic that as Russia tears itself apart, we are not choosing the best man for the job of leading Nato.

Because the best man for the job — Defence Secretary Ben Wallace — has been vetoed by the American President for the crime of being British.

How our enemies must chortle! There’s some gossip that Mrs Joe Biden would prefer a woman to lead Nato. Perhaps it is even true.

But nobody seriously doubts that Wallace — the great galvanizer of western support for Ukraine after the invasion of Russia — would be perfect to lead Nato.

Unlike all the other proposed candidates — Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez, Danish leader Mette Frederiksen and the current Nato chief, former Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg — Wallace has actually heard a gun fired in anger.

The other candidates are pen-pushing career politicians. Ben Wallace is an old soldier.

A graduate of Sandhurst, from 1991 to 1998 Wallace served in the Scots Guards in Germany, Cyprus, Belize and Northern Ireland, where he was mentioned in despatches, and did a fine job organising the evacuation of Kabul in 2021.

But Biden’s loathing for our country is so deranged that he will not countenance a Brit as the leader of Nato.

Not even when Europe is being ripped apart by the worst conflict since 1945.

Not even as China bullies free Taiwan. Not even as Russia gears itself up for civil war. Nothing matters more to the old booby Biden than scoring a few petty points against the detested British.

Rishi Sunak was in Washington earlier this month.

DANGEROUS OLD FOOL

And while Biden’s administration rolled out the red carpet for the leaders of France and South Korea — and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was treated to a lavish state dinner — no such courtesy was offered to the UK’s young Prime Minister.

Biden is a pathetically small, petty old man. And we should be furious.

How far gone does the President’s brain have to be to not want Nato led by the best candidate?

Biden is increasingly erratic. Last week he ended a speech on gun laws with a doo-lally sign-off line — “God save the Queen, man!” — that his flunkies are still at a loss to explain.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s painstakingly arranged trip to China was undermined in a mad moment when Biden casually dismissed Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator”.

Analysts suggest that Biden’s unscripted outburst has totally undermined Washington’s efforts to steer US-China relations on to a healthier basis, and pivot China away from Russia.

Biden endangers us all. The dangerous old fool is no longer a joke.

“Sleepy” does not quite cover it. “Gaffes” don’t quite describe his bizarre behaviour.

And allowing his puerile anti-British sentiments to harm Nato’s leadership — and the freedom and security of the western world — should not go unchallenged.

America is a mess. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the ancient mediocrities they elect for their presidents.

That’s their problem. Our problem is that we kidded ourselves during the Brexit debates that leaving the European Union would bring us closer to the US.

Time to stop deluding ourselves. The only thing special about this relationship is how much Droolin’ Joe Biden hates us.

But let’s stop thinking that Biden is a joke.

For the world will become an infinitely more dangerous place when Putin’s despicable regime is finally gone.

Whatever blood-thirsty Russian nationalist replaces him, they are far more likely to seek to establish their credentials on the battlefield.

We need Nato more than ever. And Nato, Mr President, needs Ben Wallace.