FROM THE ANALYST

RUSSIA HAS TRANSFORMED

As Vladimir Putin was sworn in this morning for fifth term as president - this one will last until 2030, he has transformed Russia.
In the early days Putin was amenable to the west, going out of his way to support American actions against the Taliban after 9-11. He became agitated by NATO expansion, by the 2005 revolution in Ukraine and what Russia generally saw as American disregard for its power and influence in the Middle East. By 2007 the attitude changed and with it the way Russia dealt with the west. And along with the change in attitude came a marked shift in the way domestic policy was dealt with. Being anti-western (when so much of Russia’s
population was in love with its travel freedoms and western consumer goods, from Audi and Gucci to McDonalds), meant turning the people against the source of their new found happiness and freedoms, limited as they were.
The deal in Putin’s Russia was basically, ‘leave the politics and the foreign affairs to me, I’ll make sure you’re safe and Russia is taken seriously again.’
It was a deal many Russians were happy to live with. A benign authoritarianism, much the sort of thing fascism in its milder form is based on.
But it was never going to stop there. Putin didn’t like being out of the top job during Medvedev’s presidency, though he publicly respected the differences in their roles, he pulled the strings from behind the scenes. When Medvedev tried to outflank him Putin was having none of it. It wasn’t a situation he let happen again. And Putin blamed the protests in Moscow in 2012 on Hilary Clinton personally.
By 2014 the situation in Ukraine had dramatically worsened - it was heading westward and to the EU out of Russian influence. Putin was unamused by the drift. When his puppet was thrown out, the Crimea and Donbas-Luhansk quickly became his answer. Ukraine had gone too far.
From this point on it was all about what could manage to undermine the vacillating and weak minded west, while securing an ever tighter control over Ukraine. The smack of the loss of Crimea and unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance to the Donbas situation caused that situation to polarise well beyond any reasonable way of dealing with it.
Domestically, nationalism, religion and the mythical beast of ‘fundamental Christian values’ were coupled tightly together. Minorities - especially the LGBTQ population and non-Russian Orthodox religions were increasingly harassed and ridiculed, if not just outlawed and condemned.
Increasingly, free speech was eroded and now is non-existent. Anything you want to say to or about anything the government does? Keep it to yourself. Punishments are harsh and everything is treated as severe- there are no light sentences any more.
The militarisation of society from the cradle to the frontline grave is well underway. Like Nazi Germany, Putin is creating a school age cadre of future warriors.
The population is being taught to regard all things western as evil, as the enemy, not just during war, but for ever. Putin is placing Russia at the head of a new authoritarianism that basically says, ‘what you going to do about it?’ Anything they do is justified because Russia is Russia and it can do exactly what it likes.
Using the violence of nuclear weapons as a shield, it feels there is nothing it cannot and should not do if it chooses to. Who is going to stop it?
Before the war, newly elected Zelensky tried hard (he had been elected largely on a platform of resolving the Donbas issue), to solve it. He was prepared to go a very long way - even autonomous status for the provinces. But he quickly realised, long before the western leaders like Merkl and Macron, Putin was playing them all. He rapidly became disillusioned. As Russian troops prepared to invade, he didn’t want to believe Putin would go so far. Like everyone else he hadn’t realised that Putin’s elevation to supreme power for as long as he lived, had given him the opportunity to restore Russia to its military and political might. CONTINUED…