
Third, and following on the same remark, Putin clearly does imagine that “if you are a billionaire, you can get any woman, especially if she is a participant in a beauty contest, and especially if you are the billionaire who is the organizer of that competition.” In this way, Putin showed that he shares Trump’s view given the latter’s earlier comments about how available women are to anyone who is “a star.” And fourth, Putin declared that he had difficult imagining that Trump “ran to the hotel to get involved with our girls of low social responsibility.” As Orlova says, that remark suggests just how the Kremlin dictator views all those “who poorly fulfill their social obligations.” But then Putin added that of course, Russia’s prostitutes “are the best in the world.”What is striking about that remark, Orlova says, is that Putin didn't see the fact that Trump is married as being a limiting factor even though both leaders like to talk about “family values.” Instead, it was only a question of opportunity and perhaps of price – a reflection of the pattern in Russian today when those at the top get divorces and then take lovers.
In addition to commentaries like hers, the Russian Internet in the wake of Putin’s latest comments has been filled with stories detailing how the FSB now and the KGB earlier gather compromising information on visiting foreigners and ordinary Russians, including their use of a special system of sound and video recording. Little of this will be new to those with experience in Russia or the Soviet Union, but some articles, especially one entitled “The FSB Film Studio. How the Special Services Take Compromising Videos in Hotels” do provide confirmation--if confirmation is needed--of just how vast and, for the Kremlin, vital that system remains.“Only one question remains,” Orlova says. “Why does Vladimir Putin head the rating of the most influential people according to Forbes and his Philippine colleague Rodrigo Duterte isn't yet on it?” Clearly, their vision of what people are like and what the powerful can do to them in order to remain in power are all too similar.
Related:
- Three Russian answers to the question 'Is a Putin-Trump strategic alliance possible?'
- Outline of possible 'Big Deal' between Putin and Trump on Ukraine emerging, Oleshchuk says
- A Trump-Putin deal on Crimea could trigger a much bigger war, Israeli analyst says
- Trump and Russian sanctions
- Trump's pick of Tillerson for Secretary of State while dismissing CIA intelligence on Russia causes consternation
- Putin wants to do more than to install Trump as US president: he wants to destroy the West