Sergey Zaporozhsky, businessman and political scientist
Putin’s speech to the Russian diplomatic corps was a wonderful x-ray image of his current inner state.
What did we see in similar meetings a few months ago? He was self-confident, macho, an ace, a savior and master of Russia who spoke roughly and familiarly with his subjects.
And now? Insecure, floundering, trying to justify what he has done in recent months.
Before, a boa constrictor addressed the audience. Now the boas were sitting in the hall. And the speaker clearly understood this.
Not once during those 25 minutes did the diplomatic corps punctuate Putin’s speech with applause. There was none, even at the end of the President’s statement. Who can remember such a thing?
The steel has vanished from Putin’s voice. Do you remember his reaction to the delay of the Angara rocket launch? A kind teacher asked that everything be investigated unhurriedly.
Putin has begun feverishly demonstrating his humanity. He wants the bureaucrats not only to fear him, but to love him. But Putin still believes that love can be bought. That’s why he announced to the diplomats his plans to improve their well-being. Three or four times, in some cases.
At the moment, Putin is at a political and economic impasse. He climbed into someone else’s apartment (Crimea) and tried to seize one staircase (Novorossiya) in an apartment building with many. He only succeeded in the first. But Putin does not know how to maintain this apartment and keep it running. There is an apartment, but none of the necessary documents. And the residents are living hand to mouth already, but cannot leave the porch. And then there are the millions in their dilapidated houses and tattered porches.
How can he not seek mutual understanding and love from the people whom he has seen for fourteen years as personnel serving his geopolitical phobias? But the trouble and tragedy for Putin is that his millions of comrades no longer understand human relations. For fourteen years, Putin has been rearing a community of thoughtless people who understand only the cudgel, profanity, and scabrous humor. And if you dare to speak to them like human beings, they will call you a sissy, gay, and will use against you their clubs and their profanity, forgetting their inherent humor. Because all the crap that only exists inside people, Putin has released in a separate and subject country.
Putin will have to retreat on all fronts. It is obvious. What will be his end? Don’t let it turn into a horror movie.
Source: Echo of Moscow
Translated by Shara Anatoliy, edited by Robin Rohrback
