How to, and well, live without the West. The significance of Vladimir Putin’s far-reaching statements today is as follows. The stage was the right one. The Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok was launched in 2015 as a direct response to the first sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union over the invasion of Donbass and the annexation of Crimea, with the aim of collecting investments for Asian Russia from all major neighboring countries Whether they are friends or not, from Japan to India, from South Korea to Mongolia to North Korea, where Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s long-awaited visit is tomorrow.
The state of the Russian economy, according to Putin
But that of the Russian president, who was personally present on stage at the Far East capital’s university campus, was a long interview conducted by a television presenter, rather than a speech that had been written and planned for some time. And as united as they were, the questions covered a remarkably wide range. Starting with those of a “commercial” nature, essentially aimed at selling the solidity and practicality of the Russian product to foreign investors, it was perhaps the most interesting and least obvious release in recent months. Putin downplayed Russia’s difficulties in the domestic market, arguing that inflation is a well-managed risk and that is why interest rates have risen to 12%, that the ruble’s continued decline does not need to be countered with capital controls, and so on. They are not new ones Taxes of any kind provided. Everything is fine, in short, Russia’s economic resistance is effective, the sanctions policy will only harm those who promote it. It is an interpretation of reality that contradicts even official data. Again, this is nothing new, but given the context of promoting one’s own country, it was difficult to expect otherwise. To give an idea, Putin added that all state officials must use only Russian-made cars “in no way inferior to foreign brands.”
The “mea culpa” on Hungary and Czechoslovakia (but not on Ukraine)
The headlines of the day will all revolve around the strange mea culpa regarding the Soviet tanks sent to Hungary in 1956 and to what was then Czechoslovakia in 1968. “We have long admitted that this part of the Soviet Union’s policy was wrong and only led to the escalation of tensions,” the Russian president said. So far, so good and nothing new. The comment that it is wrong to commit hostile acts “contrary to the interests of other peoples” suggests, given the current situation of the special military operation in Ukraine, rather an argument from the pulpit from which it comes. According to Putin’s claims, this will not end so quickly, because at the time of the cessation of hostilities there is no question of this at all. “Ukraine will only talk about peace when it is short of men and weapons as a result of a failed counteroffensive, but at the same time Kiev would use any breathing space to increase the combat capability of its army.” Nothing else. Also because Ukraine should first repeal the law passed last year that prohibits peace negotiations with Russia. “Once he does it, we will see,” added the Russian president elusively, who instead of peace is thinking about new weapons, “based on new principles of physics that we are working on.”
Trump, the USA and China
When asked about the state of health of the United States, Putin replied that in his opinion Donald Trump was the subject of “persecution motivated solely by political reasons” that “shows the rot” of the American system. In any case, he added, it doesn’t matter who the next occupant of the White House will be. “The USA perceives us as an existential enemy and there will be no fundamental changes in the guidelines of its foreign policy.” For this reason too, he defended his “Asian” turn, which, in his opinion, was accelerated by the US’s attempts to “our economy “and to demonstrate the impotence of the “old world,” he mocked the West’s attempts to slow down China in its rapid approach to Moscow. “The only result achieved is that our relations and exchanges with Beijing have reached an unprecedented level.”
An army of volunteers
In short, keep it up. Putin fully supports Putin’s line. And he adds that the people are on his side, as shown by the 270,000 people who have signed a contract to be called up to the front with the Ministry of Defense in the last seven months, i.e. 1,500 new soldiers per day. All men who offer themselves “voluntarily and consciously” and distance themselves from the hypothesis of a general mobilization that could have unpleasant side effects in the year of the presidential elections that will take place next March.
The warning to the oligarchs
Among the many different and possible questions, we highlight one that is more curious than the others. The interviewer felt the need to ask Putin his opinion on the flight abroad of economist Anatoly Chubais, who headed Rosnano, the state agency for the development of advanced technologies, when he left in March 2022. “They showed me a photo of him in which he appears with the name Moisha Israelievich… I don’t know why he ran away, maybe he’s afraid of getting into trouble because he was in the company he ran left a huge gap…” In the 1990s, during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Chubais set up the system of forced privatizations. He is the father of all oligarchs, a category that the average Russian has very little love for. Putin’s sentence concerning him should be classified under the heading “Talk to the daughter-in-law so that the mother-in-law understands.” A house specialty.