PUTIN SPEAKS OUT: A COMMENT

“Our bear should just relax and sit quietly and eat berries and honey. What they’re trying to do is chain the bear. What they are trying to do is take out his fangs and claws. This is the nuclear deterrent. “ “If they take out the bear’s fangs and claws the bear will not be able to do anything. It will just be a stuffed animal. What we’re trying to do is maintain our sovereignty.” “25 – 30 per cent of our problems are due to the sanctions.” “Do we want our bear to become a stuffed animal and just sit there?” “That is the choice and it has nothing to do with Crimea.”

Russian Federation President Valdimir Putin. "Live blog: Vladimir Putin’s annual press conference". The Financial Times. 18 December 2014, in www.ft.com.

As predicted, Russian President Vladimir Putin held to his 'hard line' as per the economic crisis which has engulfed Russia in the past few weeks. Rather than following the advise, nay the hopes of the more cosmopolitan of his advisors and the general Russian elite, Putin staked out a confrontational approach which all but ensures that Moskva will not relent as per his policies towards Ukraine and the West in general. A stance which I for one predicted in this online journal the other day. By stating that the crisis will be over in a mere two-years time, Putin is endeavoring to bolster his position with his domestic audience by giving them the (false) hope that by being caged into something approaching a siege-economy, that conditions will eventually improve and get better 1. In fact, in the absence of a marked upswing in oil prices, there is absolutely no hope that conditions will improve anytime soon in Matushka Russia. Anno domini 2015 looks to be a year of full-blown economic crisis, with the Russian GDP set to decline by close to six-percent and with massive unemployment in the offing. And all of this is due to the hubris of one man and his clique: Vladimir Putin. As one liberal, ex-deputy minister, noted yesterday:

“There is no time. We need to act, and act radically,” said Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister turned opposition politician, warning that Russia is stuck in a liquidity and debt crisis, a budget crisis and a crisis of investor confidence. “From a political point of view, a change in government and central bank leadership doesn’t help because all three crises are the work of one man — the current president, Putin,” he wrote in a blog post. “His resignation is indispensable to overcome these crises because, after 15 years in office, trust in him is gone 2.”

The real question is who will go first: Putin, his clique and 'Putinism' or the entire Russian state apparatus. Involving massive suffering by the poor Russian narod. For their sake, one hopes that Putin and Putinism will soon disappear forever more.

1. "Putin: Russian economy will rebound". Deutsche Welle. 18 December 2014, in www.dw.de

2. Kathrin Hille, Courtney Weaver and Jack Farchy, "Through the looking glass: the Kremlin struggles to restore calm". The Financial Times. 19 December 2014, in www.ft.com