Russian contradictions
Amid a welter of important international developments clamouring for attention (North Korea, Syria, Egypt), we still continue to focus on Russia in the aftermath of the disputed 4 December election. There are two aspects in particular that warrant attention. The first is the discernible, but still far from fatal, erosion of the regime’s image of invincibility. The second is Putin’s continuing emphasis on the external threats faced by Russia, particularly from the United States.
One of the manifestations of the apparent weakening of Vladimir Putin’s iron grip has been the way that the state-controlled media has reported the 10 December demonstrations in Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, calling for ‘fair elections’. Russia has three main television channels: NTV, which is owned by a subsidiary of the state-controlled gas giant Gazprom; Rossiya 1; and Channel One. Up until the 4 December elections, and immediately after, these channels invariably followed the government’s line. All three, for instance, ignored the large anti-government protests on 5th and 6th December.
The change came on 10 December with the Bolotnaya Square demonstrations, with all three channels reporting the protest and with NTV taking a surprisingly open line. On 11 December, NTV followed this up with a current affairs programme showing banners calling for Putin’s resignation and broadcasting several of the anti-regime speeches. It even showed a former NTV anchor, Leonid Parenov, ridiculing Putin’s claim that the demonstrations were being orchestrated by the United States.
Then, on 18 December, NTV aired a report about Putin’s 15 December televised phone-in which was far from flattering and included footage of Putin being barracked at a martial arts contest during the election campaign. Another NTV show, NTVshniki (NTV People), has not been shy in putting forward the view that there was widespread ballot-rigging in the election. And NTV’s talk show Poslenyee Slovo (Last Word) gave airtime to an outspoken and charismatic Kremlin critic, the rock star Yuriy Shevchuk, who told the audience that Russia now has “a new generation that is not afraid and wants to live in freedom”.
The other main TV channels, Rossiya 1 and Channel One, have not been as open as NTV, but Rossiya 1’s anchor for Putin’s 15 December telethon was noticeably less deferential than in previous years, and he clearly irritated Putin by returning again and again to the post-election protests. Needless to say, the anti-Putin activity on the internet has been flourishing.
In last week’s briefing, we noted that in the face of an emboldened opposition the regime was intensifying its appeal to nationalism, with a particular emphasis on the threat posed by the United States to Russian interests and on the threat from instability around the Russian periphery, which General Makarov, the chief of the general staff, has said on more than one occasion could lead to full-scale war, and even to nuclear war.
This was a major theme of Putin’s 15 December telethon, and while there was little new in what Putin said, he confirmed that his presidential campaign will be built around the idea of Russia needing to draw together against an external threat, the primary source of which is the United States. At one point, for instance, he said: “I sometimes think that America does not need allies. They need vassals.” At another point, Putin said: “The USA is suspicious about our nuclear missile potential...first this nuclear potential must be removed and then we can be viewed as a possible ally. This is Cold War thinking. It is a critical thing, and this prevents Europe from working with us as a potential ally.”
The point about Europe is an interesting one as Putin appears to think that Europe can be levered away from the United States. At one point in the telethon, for instance, when he was complaining about the US’s propensity to act at the world’s policeman, he said: “I, for one, know what its so-called European allies think about it.” He added: “Suspicions of [Russia’s Soviet] past are hindering us from developing relations [with Western Europe]. But still I think it is inevitable. European integration is called for by life itself. I would say more: integration in the framework of common Christian values is extremely called for...” As regards improving Russia’s relations with the former Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe, Putin said that the answer was for Russia to “frighten its neighbours less...[to] rid itself of the image of an empire”.
Unfortunately for Putin, there are multiple contradictions in this vision of Russia as a fully paid-up member of a united Christian Europe balancing against the United States. The first is that relations with Western Europe depend crucially on Russia developing a genuine democracy, which he is clearly unprepared to concede. The second is that while he is no doubt right in discerning some European ambivalence towards the US, he is overlooking the point that France and Britain were in the forefront of the Nato intervention in Libya that so upsets the Kremlin.
The third is that relations with Eastern Europe depend not just on Russia “ridding itself of the image of an empire” (which in any event Putin is doing little to further) but also on Russia ceasing to rail against Nato and all its doings. The former satellite states of Eastern Europe see Nato as the indispensible guarantee of their independence, yet the Kremlin continues to build Nato into a ever-larger threat – over, for instance, missile defence, military interventionism in Libya, and further expansionism to include Georgia.
The fourth contradiction is the idea of Russia being part of a union “based on common Christian values”. Russia, it is true, has an ambivalent relationship with the Muslim world because of the jihadist threat in the Caucasus, but the course the Kremlin has set Russia on is to build a new Eurasian Union that includes the Muslim states of former Soviet Central Asia and to counter US influence in the Middle East with support for the likes of Syria and Iran. And, indeed, Putin recognized this in his 15 December televised question-and-answer session, saying: “Russia has always consistently defended the interests of Muslim countries. They have always been our strategic allies, since Soviet times.”
Putin even seemed to imply that the difficulties that Russia was facing with extremists jihadists in the Caucasus were somehow linked to the pro-democracy opposition and protesters. He said that “those who are behaving in a more extremist manner” were “different wings” of an anti-Russia movement “which are in one way or another being controlled from a single centre”.
Putin didn’t elaborate what this “single centre” might be, but the implication appeared to be that it was all part of an American plot to destroy Russia. Only days before, after all, Putin had accused US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of fomenting protests in Russia in order to undermine Moscow’s authority because it is a “major nuclear power” and Washington doesn’t want Russia to “forget who is the boss on our planet”.
This is the authentic voice of Putin’s Kremlin, expressing a fear that Russia faces an existential threat from the United States, in which cause, apparently, even the jihadists of the Caucasus have been co-opted. It is this tendency towards paranoia in the Kremlin that we have been tracking so assiduously in recent months, and all the indications are that Putin will play up these fears more and more as he simultaneously seeks to neuter the pro-democracy movement while securing re-election to the presidency in March. However, it does seem that Putin’s actions are being mitigated to some extent by caution over how to deal with the forces unleashed by the rigged 4 December election and by a desire to differentiate between Russia’s relations with Europe and its relations with the United States. JdeC.