Russian President Vladimir Putin finally dived into the dark of his own fantasies about the external world
Immediately after Vladimir Putin’s speech in Crimea, the leader of LDPT Vladimir Zhirinovsky proposed to start the process of restoring the empire and give the current President of currently republican and federative Russia the status of supreme ruler. Zhirinovsky’s extravagant statement evoked gracious smiles from Putin himself and his co-ruler, Dmitry Medvedev. Putin understands better than anyone that he does not need any kind of addition title, because after the coup he stage when he was re-elected for his third term, he has become supreme ruler and can disregard the opinion of the Russian political and business elite.
This is why Putin can allow himself to no longer bother with the contents of his speeches to the members of the Parliament. His speech in occupied Crimea was announced earlier as sensational, promising new program proposals and sharp political turns. Practically nothing of import happened. Yes, Putin’s speech can be analyzed from the point of view of political cynicism. This time, the peak of presidential honesty came when he said that Russian in Crimea “used their armed forces, but only to hold the referendum.” However, this phrase is more of an issue of the President’s mood than the reflection of real possible reactions to the challenges Russia is facing.
The thing is not that Putin has no idea how to react to these challenges. The thing is that he simply doesn’t see them. The Russian President has finally dived into the darkness of his own fantasies about reality. But in this darkness, he is still omnipotent and able to solve any problem. If we are to retell Putin’s speech in short, it consists of two words: isolation and militarization. Putin wants further isolation of the country which was given to him by Boris Yeltsin, because he understood that any transparency is a threat to his rule. And Putin wants to provide this isolation with the help of further militarizing Russia and occupied Crimea. Meanwhile Putin, it seems, simply doesn’t suspect that Russia has no money for either of them. Russia can allow itself to be isolated to a lesser extent than the Soviet Union, because it will simply die as a state. And Russia has much fewer militarization resources than the Soviet Union.
If Putin understood this, he would be a really dangerous enemy both for Ukraine and the entire civilized world. But the world where the supreme ruler relocated himself and his subjects excludes any sort of competent understanding of reality. Yes, Putin’s actions are criminal, they already caused occupation of part of Ukrainian territory, a real war in Donbas, the death of many innocents, the ruin of people’s futures and infrastructure of an entire region. But Putin is unable to make global changes in the world. An example of political blindness, he is leading his own country into the void. And the issue is now not the future of Ukraine, which the enemy continues to talk cynically about. The issue is whether Russia itself is able to balance on the edge, or the neighboring country will fall together with Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Translated by Mariya Shcherbinina
