Putin’s aims and problems
What really happens in Russia with Putin after Navalny's death and Carlson's interview. The analysis of Francesco D'Arrigo, director of the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies “Niccolò Machiavelli”.
The death of Aleksei Navalny, the main political opponent of President Vladimir Putin, and the messages launched in the interview granted to Trumpian journalist Tucker Carlson are further demonstration that the regime is weak, its economy in extreme difficulty due to sanctions and Putin fears and represses any form of dissent with extreme brutality. The killing of Navalny is a clear message for any political opponent, for civil society and for anyone who dares to challenge Putin's authoritarian and anti-democratic regime.
The electoral campaign for the presidential elections of the Russian Federation in 2024 has begun and the elections are only so to speak: the vote will also take place in the illegally occupied Ukrainian territories, because although these are not free elections and political opponents will also be eliminated physically, Putin will win them this time too and will consider them an approval of his "special military operation" in Ukraine, because dictatorial regimes demand legitimacy from the people.
The show organized in favor of the Russian president by journalist Tucker Carlson, recently fired from Fox News because he contributed to spreading supremacist conspiracy theories and fake news about fraud that favored President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential elections in the United States of America, it certainly represented an unmissable opportunity for President Putin. Speaking in English for over 2 hours, directly and without any contradiction, to hundreds of millions of listeners around the world, allowed him to spread his historical revisionism and a long list of distortions, manipulations and falsification of events, which make part of the Kremlin's information warfare and political interference strategy in the upcoming US and European elections.
What were the top 10 messages delivered by President Putin during Carlson's pseudo-interview?
1. He again reiterated that Ukraine is an “artificial state” created by Lenin and Stalin and made territorial claims on its lands, proposing to divide it by transferring what he calls the “historical lands” of neighboring states to Russia and Poland respectively , Hungary, Romania
“… According to the Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols, part of these territories passed to Russia, including Western Ukraine. Russia, under the name of the Soviet Union, thus returned to its historical territories…
… Soviet Ukraine received a huge number of territories that never had anything to do with it, primarily the Black Sea region…
…After World War II, Ukraine received another part not only of the pre-war Polish territories – today Western Ukraine – but also part of the Hungarian and part of the Romanian territories. Part of the territories was also taken from Romania and Hungary and these territories became part of Soviet Ukraine and are still there. Therefore, we have every reason to say that, of course, Ukraine, in a certain sense, is an artificial state created by Stalin's will. In this sense, of course, they must return these lands of theirs…"
2. Demands that the West, led by the United States, stop supplying weapons and military assistance to Ukraine
“…if you really want to stop the fighting, you have to stop the supply of weapons – it will all be over in a matter of weeks, that's all.”
To the statements of the US Senate Majority Leader – Chuck Schumer, who said that the United States must continue to finance Ukraine, or American soldiers will eventually have to fight in Ukraine, President Putin responded with his usual threat of escalation and cajoling the Biden Administration: “… it is a provocation, and a cheap one at that. I don't understand why American soldiers would fight in Ukraine. If anyone has a desire to send regular troops, this will certainly bring humanity to the brink of a very serious global conflict. It's obvious.
Does the United States need it? For what? Thousands of kilometers from the national territory! Don't you have anything to do? You have a lot of problems at the border, problems with immigration, problems with the national debt – more than $33 trillion. There is nothing better to do – do you need to fight in Ukraine?” .
3. Putin is worried about the effect of the sanctions and above all about the reduction of Russian gas exports to Europe and calls for them to be reinstated
“… Nord Stream 1 was damaged, but the other pipeline is alive and well and can supply gas to Europe, but Germany does not open it. There is another gas route passing through Poland, Yamal – Europa, which can be flowed by a large flow. Poland has closed it and is taking advantage of the Germans, receiving money from European Funds, and the main donor of these pan-European funds is Germany. Germany finances Poland which however has closed the gas routes to Germany. For what reason? I do not understand. Ask him. The people there are very incompetent…".
4. He is sensitive to Western sanctions against Russian currency reserves, calling them “a blow to American power, a huge alarm signal for the whole world”
” … The dollar is the main weapon for maintaining the power of the United States in the world.
Look what is happening in the world. Even among US allies, dollar reserves are dwindling. Everyone looks at what is happening and starts looking for ways to protect themselves. But if the United States applies restrictive measures against some countries such as limiting payments, freezing assets and so on, this is a huge alarm and a threatening signal for the whole world…
The United States has decided to limit our dollar payments. I think it is absolute nonsense, from the point of view of the interests of the United States itself, of the taxpayers of the United States. Because it is a blow to the US economy and undermines the power of the United States in the world…".
5. Putin says the West is historically condemned to decline
“… in 1992, in my opinion, the share of the G7 countries in the world economy was 47%, and in 2022 it has dropped, I think, to something like 30%. The share of BRICS countries in 1992 was only 16%, but now it exceeds the level of the “seven”. And this is not related to any event in Ukraine. The trends in the development of the world and the global economy are those I have just mentioned, and this is inevitable.
This will continue to happen: like the sun rising, it is impossible to stop…".
6. Putin has announced his intention to get rid of people he considers “Nazis” – denazification – including Vladimir Zelensky (who he has already attempted to have physically eliminated)
“… The President, the current President of Ukraine today, is applauded by the Canadian Parliament, gives him a standing ovation! How can we say we have completely eradicated this ideology if what we see is happening today? This is the meaning of denazification in our conception. We must get rid of those people who abandon this theory and practice in life and try to retain it – that is what denazification is. This is what we mean…".
7. Putin announced the immutability of the main goals of his war against Ukraine: the elimination of its statehood and the complete assimilation of Ukrainians
“… In this sense, what is happening is, to some extent, an element of civil war. And everyone in the West thinks that the fighting has separated one part of the Russian people from the other forever. No, the meeting will happen. It didn't go anywhere. Why are the Ukrainian authorities disowning the Russian Orthodox Church? Because it does not unite the territory, but the soul, and no one will be able to divide it…".
8. He highlighted his willingness to negotiate with the West and Ukraine, on his terms, and to share what was negotiated in the Istanbul agreement, blocked by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
“… We negotiated with Ukraine in Istanbul, we agreed, he knew it. Furthermore, the head of the negotiating team, Mr. Arakhamia, I believe that is his surname, even put his preliminary signature on the document that I am telling you about. But then he publicly declared to the whole world: “We were ready to sign this document, but Mr. Johnson, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, came, dissuaded us and said that it was better to fight against Russia .
… we negotiated an excellent document in Istanbul, which was signed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. His signature is on an extract of this agreement – not on everything, but on an extract. He affixed his signature and then said: “We were ready to sign and the war would have ended a long time ago, a year and a half ago. But Mr Johnson came to dissuade us and we missed this opportunity…".
“… A year and a half ago we could have stopped these hostilities, stopped this war, but the British convinced you to refuse. Where is Mr Johnson now? And the war continues…".
“… Isn't it better to find an agreement with Russia? Coming to an agreement, already understanding the situation that is developing today, understanding that Russia will fight for its interests to the end and, understanding this, in fact, returning to common sense, starting to respect our country, its interests and look for solutions? I think he is much more intelligent and rational …”.
“… If the Zelensky administration in Ukraine refused to negotiate, I assume that it did so on instructions from Washington. Now, if in Washington they realize that this is a wrong decision, let them abandon it…".
9. Putin announced one of the objectives of his negotiation proposal: to keep all occupied Ukrainian territories
“… You know, this is the topic of negotiations that no one wants to conduct with us, or, more precisely, they want to do it, but they don't know how. I know what they want – not only do I see it, but I know what they want, but can't figure out how to do it. We thought about it and brought it to the situation we find ourselves in. It wasn't us who brought it to this point, but our "partners" and adversaries. Well, now let them think about how to turn the situation around. We don't refuse."
10. Announced his willingness to negotiate (negotiate) on the exchange of the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, taken hostage, with the professional killer Russian special services officer Vadim Krasikov, who killed the Chechen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019
“… in principle we are ready to say that we do not exclude the possibility of doing so with a counter-move from our partners. And when I say “partners”, I especially mean representatives of the special services. They are in contact with each other and discussing this topic. We have no taboo on not solving this problem. We are ready to resolve it, but there are some conditions that are discussed through partner channels between intelligence services. It seems to me that we can agree on this. The contacts are there, let's let them work. We can come to an agreement now, but we just have to negotiate…".
Analyzing President Putin's entire monologue in detail requires considerable space and time, because there are many other topics he addressed, such as the reasons according to which Russia "dissolved" the USSR in the name of "cooperation and alliance with West". On the "deception" of Russia by the West, which "promised" not to expand NATO to the East. On its "disagreement" with the expansion of NATO, on the "military appropriation" of Ukrainian territory by the NATO and “NATO military bases” in Ukraine. He spoke out about the Ukrainian leadership, which under the complete control of the United States, suddenly announced that it would not implement the Minsk agreements and in parallel, developed NATO military facilities under the pretext of creating centers for training and retraining of personnel , creating American and British military bases on the territory of Ukraine, creating threats to the Russian Federation. And again, he blamed the United States and its satellites for supporting terrorism in the North Caucasus.
He focused at length on the CIA's role in fomenting opposition in Russia, in supporting the Maidan revolution, on the sabotage of Nord Stream, on the "coup d'état" in Ukraine in 2014 and of course on how the Ukrainians started the war in Donbass in 2014 and 2022, and that he decided to end it in 2022.
He also stated that the Russian Federation has a people-oriented culture “… in all the world religions that I just talked about and which are traditional religions of the Russian Federation, the main values are very similar, if not even the same. People professing different religions in Russia consider Russia their Motherland – they have no other Motherland. We are together, this is a big family. And our traditional values are very similar. the "attentive" attitude of the Russian authorities towards the culture and religions of the conquered peoples is known to everyone: when Russia expanded and absorbed other peoples who profess Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Russia has always been very loyal towards those peoples who profess other religions…
…the Russian authorities have always been very attentive to the culture and religion of the peoples entering the Russian Empire…”.
Obviously the interview ends by reiterating the "impossibility" of a military victory by the West over Russia: "… for some reason, everyone deludes themselves that Russia can be defeated on the battlefield – out of arrogance, but not by great mind".
From this long pseudo-interview, in addition to Putin's narrative of Russia's never declared war of aggression against Ukraine, we can certainly extrapolate the ideological implications of a reading of reality that is no longer just geopolitical but also religious. President Putin's aspiration is to build a new world order against the globalized West – the enemy of Russian civilization.
To complete this project, the Putin regime is using all the tools at its disposal, starting with the power of the (transnational) Orthodox Church, of which Vladimir Mikhailovic Gundjaev – Kirill (Cyril I) is Patriarch of Moscow and of all the Russias – who leads 165 million faithful around the world and “blessed” Putin's war on Ukraine. A great friend of the president since both were KGB agents, due to his close ties with the Church, Putin uses a new theological vision to attract Russian-speaking citizens of the lost territories of the former Soviet Union into Moscow's orbit. A form of soft power that transforms faith into nationalism and imperial legitimation, which together with the threat represented by the Russian Proxy War Strategy (entirely entrusted to private militia groups and successfully used in the invasion of Crimea and Donbass) arouses deep concern in the Baltic states.
The Kremlin is implementing an increasingly aggressive foreign policy to the point of having become an imperialist expansion that is catching the West unprepared, which beyond the Ukrainian invasion has taken on global and spatial dimensions, starting from the Middle East (today Russia is present also in Palestine) to Africa, Asia, South America, the Arctic and which is also strengthening in Space. An expansionism linked to the Wagner group but above all to the deployment of military forces in crisis areas. A political-military doctrine that uses without any limits the different forms of hybrid warfare, which allow less bloody attacks but with equally devastating effects with cyber warfare, which uses political destabilization, psychological warfare, without excluding traditional military force .
In this worrying scenario of radical rejection of the West by President Putin, the disconcerting statements on NATO by the former American president and Republican candidate in the next elections – Donald Trump – represent a serious degradation of the political leadership of the Republican party and a potential spur for the ideology of oppression of the former KGB colonel, who after having suffocated every form of freedom from the Russian people, who love it as much as we Westerners, has plunged Europe back into the darkness of war.
Without a diplomatic and military mobilization of the European Union, much stronger than what we have seen so far, capable of making it take an active role in the crises that are upending geopolitical structures, Ukraine will not be able to survive. Without an awareness of the danger that a surrender to Russian expansionism would entail for our collective security, Moscow's strategy of buying time and focusing on the tiredness of governments and public opinion risks bearing fruit. We cannot allow this to happen.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/mire-e-problemi-di-putin/ on Sun, 18 Feb 2024 08:05:42 +0000.