Who is Vladimir Putin?

Akim

Professional
Joined
Jun 14, 2012
Messages
9,998
Likes
8,500
Country flag
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/...gjgbEmWSoQmc-mksqESn9pt37Wxyhfcgx9uaGM3lb0B12

Above is a photo of the Bengal famine under Churchill...pls take a look and stop comparing it with Putin's work
3 million Bengalis died in Bengal famine..for comparison 6 million Jews died in Holocaust
Churchill is recently voted the greatest Britons..poor Hitler
Shall I show you how Stalin destroyed his people with famine? Putin is not Stalin, not Hitler and not Churchill, he is a lite variant.. His views are closer to the imperial than to the dictatorial
 

Tactical Frog

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 31, 2016
Messages
1,542
Likes
2,279
Country flag
We need to plan for Russia after Putin


Vladimir Putin has announced he will be running for re-election next March. He has no serious challengers. Another six-year term lies ahead. None of this is a surprise, but it raises the question of where Russia is heading, and how to deal with it.

Before 1991, hardly anyone would have predicted the demise of the Soviet Union; today almost no one ventures to predict the end of Putinism. The widespread assumption among western officials and experts – and in Russia itself – is that Putin can hang on for a long time yet. He has fanned the flames of militarist nationalism, both to consolidate his domestic power and to enhance Russia’s clout in the world. It has worked well so far. Can it last?

Binary, contradictory narratives about Russia are nothing new. A Russian journalist once asked Boris Yeltsin how well he thought Russia was doing. “Good!” he shouted. When the journalist suggested he give a longer answer, Yeltsin thundered: “Not good!” The anecdote was shared at a Chatham House conference this week in Berlin shortly after Putin’s announcement. In the discussions, two diverging narratives emerged.

American, European and Russian experts are increasingly asking whether Russia can go on for much longer as a confrontational and revisionist power seeking revenge for its humiliation when the cold war ended. Most said it would.

Putin has left himself no other choice, goes that logic. After massive street protests in 2011-12, he needed to find new political legitimacy. The 2014 overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine as the result of a popular uprising handed Putin just that opportunity: western hesitation in Syria had convinced him that the US would stomach the annexation of Crimea, rather than respond to it.

Russia is today at war, in Syria and in Ukraine, and that’s the new normal – not a passing phase. Russian society has embraced aggressive nationalism and anti-western sentiment. Russia has no interest in resolving conflict situations and sees the use of force as a key instrument to achieve foreign policy goals. Russia’s GDP may be the size of Italy’s, and it has failed to diversify its economy, but Putin compensates by raising Russia’s international prestige. He diverts attention from Russia’s domestic weaknesses by capitalising on western weaknesses – now made worse by the Trump presidency. Putin is in good shape. He’ll be around for a long time.

The opposite, minority, view holds that none of this sustainable. Putin has been in power (as president or prime minister) for as long as Leonid Brezhnev, who ran the Soviet Union into its strategic dead end. By the end of his next term, Putin will be 71. Even without changing the constitution, it is conceivable he might still be running for president in 2030, when he’ll be 77 (after an interim period similar to the handpicked Medvedev presidency of 2008-12).

Russians have experienced gerontocracy before. It didn’t end well at all. Putin is faced with a succession problem in a petro-state where the economy is stagnating, just as it was in the Brezhnev era. As in the late 1980s, global oil prices are low and likely to remain so. The pie will get smaller for Russia’s oligarchic class. Infighting among the ruling elite is on display, with the trial of a former minister for bribery.

A brain drain deprives Russia of many young talents, who are emigrating in droves. Russia is set to decline. A resurgent China breathes heavily down its neck. Putin’s plans for a “Eurasian Union” are an empty shell. Bombastic nationalism will exhaust itself. Putinism is set to run its course.

How to deal with Russia? Answers hinge on which of the two narratives one chooses to prefer. If Putinism is set to last in its current form, containing Russia is essential. Western alliances must ensure all options for a successful Russian war in Europe are entirely closed off – it would be folly to hope Russian aggressiveness dissipates soon. Indeed, Moscow believes it stands to benefit from the weakening of the UN-based international order. That has been at the heart of its policies in Europe and in the Middle East.

If, on the other hand, Putinism is slowly entering its final throes, then preparing for important changes in Russia makes sense. If anyone had prepared for the collapse of the Soviet system, mistakes might have been avoided: offering post-Soviet Russia the equivalent of a Marshall plan would have prevented its slide towards authoritarianism.

For its modernisation and stability, Russia will have no other choice but to turn to Europe, says that theory. When that time comes, Russia should be offered a package of rapprochement with the west, with stringent conditions attached, including complete troop withdrawal from Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.

In the first scenario, Putin is just the face of a Russian power system, not its full embodiment. That system could one day replace him without fundamentally reforming itself. To obsess about Putin is a trap. It misses the the deeper, durable course Russia has embarked on. Russians may dream of western living standards, but they have no real interest in democracy nor in cooperation with Europe.

The second scenario – the end of Putinism – would produce political ruptures in Russia that western democracies would do well to anticipate. Russians feel much closer to Europeans than they do to the Chinese. They want to live in a “normal” society, not one caught up in Orwellian paranoia, with widespread corruption.

The first view seems by far the most realistic. The second is where a degree of hope can be found. Putin made his announcement this week in an interesting place: the city of Nizhny Novgorod, formerly known as Gorki, where Andrei Sakharov, the great Soviet dissident and Nobel peace prize winner, lived in internal exile after Brezhnev had him arrested in 1980 for protesting about the Soviet war in Afghanistan. A decade later, transformations that no one could ever have thought possible suddenly erupted in Russia.

• Natalie Nougayrède is a Guardian columnist

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/09/russia-after-vladimir-putin-soviet-union
 

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
Trump destabilises Middle East - Russia on Jerusalem

 

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
Putin diplomatically destroys opposition live on air

 

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
Putin directs FSB to fight foreign agents ahead of next year’s election
The Russian leader in a speech to security personnel called for a ‘safe barrier’ to be established to protect Russian political processes




(ZeroHedge) – Perhaps because he fears retaliation for his government’s deliberate – and unsubstantiated – interference in last year’s US presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin is apparently worried that foreign powers might interfere in Russia’s upcoming federal election. So, nearly a year after US intelligence agencies first blamed Russia for conspiring against their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, and throwing the vote to Trump, Putin is ordering Russia’s security services to “erect a safe barrier” to prevent foreign powers from meddling in federal elections set for March.

In a speech to security and intelligence personnel on Wednesday, Putin urged everybody in attendance to work tirelessly to try and prevent foreign influence from creeping into Russian society and politics, according to Russia Today.


Putin’s request, which is an obvious, if indirect, sleight against the US despite the recent “collusion” between US and Russian intelligence that helped prevent a terror attack in St. Petersburg.

“There is a great responsibility on the intelligence services to erect a safe barrier against external meddling in our social and political life, and to counteract the work of foreign security agencies, which are doing all they can to ramp up their level of activity in Russia,” Putin said.

Russia’s security services should also remain alert as terrorists from Muslim-majority areas of the former Soviet Union return home, and try to carry out attacks in densely populated urban centers.

“Agents must work to destroy the financial and recruitment networks, and to prevent radicals from influencing youths, and spreading the ideology of hate, intolerance, and also aggressive nationalism,” he said.

Earlier this year, Putin said that up to 7,000 Muslims from the former Soviet Union, primarily from predominantly Muslim regions in the Caucuses and Central Asia, had flown to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State. Since Syrian Army forces – aided by Russian troops and aircraft – drove ISIS out of Syria, many of its former foreign fighters have tried to sneak back into their home countries.


http://russiafeed.com/putin-directs-fsb-to-fight-foreign-agents-ahead-of-next-years-election/
 

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
So, 2017 is pretty much a wrap!

But we wanted to go through the top viral videos we shared with you this year!

Can YOU remember what flavor ice cream Putin got?

 

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
.................................................................
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kay

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
......................................................
 

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
‘Witches’ convene in Moscow to support PUTIN!

.............................................................
 

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top