Russia only seeks to protect itself from foreign meddling – Putin on ‘sovereign internet’ & ‘foreign agents’ laws
…by Bryan MacDonald, an Irish journalist based in Russia, …with Russia Today
[ Editor’s Note: Mr. Putin once again does what few other world leaders would care to do, field over four hours of questions from journalists from around the world. It is as “un-Trumpish” a presentation as one could imagine as Donald stopped even having press conferences at one point due to his unpreparedness to give competent answers was so obvious.
Can you imagine how many times Trump would repeat himself over fours hours, with Las Vegas bookmakers giving betting odds on the number of repeated phrases? He would be in the Guinness book of world records.
I am saving the link to listen to it in sections as I know there will be a lot of gems quotes to use. If any of you find some please put in the comments for sharing.
He always weaves in policy gems like his mention below that if Zelensky wants to continue reviewing the Minsk Accords that were agreed to, “a la Trump” in that “I did not make them so I am not bound to them”, there is no point in talking about anything else with a country what does not honor its past agreements.
That is an issue that needs to be more public attention. Is not the best punishment for deal breakers to have no one want to make a deal with them until they have made amends on past ones? That is the ticket they must buy to even have a negotiation…Jim W. Dean ]
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– First published … December 20, 2019 –
Thursday’s Moscow event was the 15th in as many years of Putin’s presidency, and finished up as one of the longest. The Russian president sat for four hours and 18 minutes, taking around 80 questions from 57 journalists, of which he answered about 77. Some 1,895 reporters representing Russian and foreign media received accreditation for the conference, with many more watching online.
The climate crisis was the first topic. Putin appeared to cast doubt upon the Western mainstream scientific consensus that humans are responsible for the transformation, but he acknowledged the problem exists.
“No one knows the reasons for global climate change,” he remarked. “It’s hard, if it’s even possible, to estimate human impact but it doesn’t mean that we should sit around & do nothing.”
Ukraine
Only last week, the president held his first meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris. At the press conference, Putin said he was “alarmed” by Zelensky’s post-meeting statements about reviewing the Minsk accords, but says he is open to another summit (which Russian media speculates will happen in April).
We have nothing except the Minsk agreement. If we revisit this we are at a dead end.
The deal, crafted in the Belarusian capital in 2015, requires Kiev to alter its Constitution and grant “special status” to the mainly Russian-speaking Donbass region.
Although his predecessor Petro Poroshenko (now Ukraine’s de facto opposition leader) signed up to the plan, it’s implementation is considered impossible for Zelensky. Even if he somehow got it through Parliament, he lacks the strength to face down extreme nationalists who would surely take to the streets in protest.
If this happened a “third Maidan” is possible, potentially leaving Ukraine in complete anarchy and threatening the business interests of Ukrainian oligarchs, including Zelensky’s own sponsor, the billionaire Igor Kolomoysky.
Also on the subject of Ukraine, Putin stated that Russia wants to negotiate a new gas transit arrangement with its neighbor (despite the NordStream 2 direct pipeline to Germany soon coming online). Putin said he would like to ensure Ukrainian consumers get reasonably priced gas & that supplies to Europe are guaranteed.
2024 end of term: Speculations swirl
Next year, the president will approach the midway point of his final term in the Kremlin. As a result, speculation about the 2024 transition of power is growing. Putin says he wants to remove the word “consecutive” from the Russian Constitution’s rules on presidential term limits.
So, basically, any president can serve two periods (like the US) before being blocked from standing again.
The US introduced these restrictions after experiencing its own four-time president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Interestingly, Putin has repeatedly invited comparisons between himself and the erstwhile US leader, going all the way back to the mid-2000s.
Indeed, many in Russia argue that the president rescued his country from the chaotic, anarchic, and destitute 1990s in a similar fashion to how Roosevelt dragged America out of the Great Depression.
[ Editor’s Note: Roosevelt did not “drag the US out of the Great Depression”. His getting WWII rolling before his failed New Deal, which did not create a single permanent job. That is not to say that it did nothing that lasted. My mother’s family in Mississppi and many others got electricity in farmland country.
“While 90% of urban dwellers had electricity by the 1930s, only 10% of rural dwellers did and roughly 9 out of 10 farms had none. Private companies hadn’t been interested in building costly electricity lines into the countryside and assumed the farmers would be too poor to buy the electricity once it was there. But by 1939, the REA had helped establish 417 coops, which served 288,000 households. By 1939, 25% of rural households had electricity. By the time FDR died in 1945, an estimated 9 out of 10 farms were electrified.”
Way more than WWI, in where my Mississippi farmer grandfather did quite well during the boom time for food prices, WWII unleased the floodgates of war contracts that became an economic slingshot with 100% employment for everyone who wanted it, including my mother who worked in the plants until she was a widow in April of 1945… JD ]
Such a change would presumably mean Putin will have to retire in 2024. And Russian journalists, and analysts, have interpreted it this way. However, some US/UK media reporters, on the Russia beat, believe it may be a “cunning way” of resetting the rules so Putin can have another term, or terms, before the new limits apply. Although sources in Moscow ridiculed this theory on Thursday night.
Putin also floated the possibility of Russia switching to a more parliamentary style of government which would give the prime minister (currently Dmitry Medvedev) more control, ending the “hyper-presidential” system introduced by Boris Yeltsin in 1993 (with US support). A move like this would mean future leaders won’t have Putin’s sort of power, as the presidency would be downgraded.
He also referenced Russia’s demographic problems (the population fell this year after a decade of small rises), noting how the number of potential young mothers, aged 21-29, has fallen by four million. This is the effect of the 1990s economic carnage which crushed birth rates, as many people worried about basic survival.
Home front
Closer to home, responding to calls for Vladimir Lenin to be taken out of his Red Square mausoleum and buried, Putin (who has always made it clear he’s not a fan of the Bolshevik revolutionary) wasn’t very keen.
He insisted there’s “no need to touch him” whilst people are still alive who remember the USSR in a positive fashion and continue to celebrate Soviet achievements within their lifetimes.
Regarding journalist Ivan Golunov, whose June arrest on spurious drug charges caused outrage in Russia, Putin pointed out that five police have been fired, with criminal cases opened against them. He rejected the idea of “cleansing” police ranks, likening such a notion to the 1937 Stalinist purges.
A reporter from BBC Russia asked Putin to comment on his daughters, following media reports on their alleged business and work interests. Putin, who generally avoids discussing his family publicly, didn’t answer the question.
Looking abroad: US & China
Putin commented on the impeachment of US President Donald Trump. “I’m not so sure he’ll be leaving (office),” he quipped, blaming Democrat skulduggery and lingering resentment over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat. “They accused him of plotting with Russia, and when that turned out not to be true, they made up smears about Ukraine.”
Asked about China, the president made it clear that Russia doesn’t have a military alliance with Beijing and isn’t planning to start one. He says Moscow is helping the Chinese with defensive military upgrades in the spirit of partnership, not in the sense of NATO-style binding promises.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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He has a sharp and vivid mind and he always tries to look deep into details of any question. But this is the “merit” of surrounding politicians, who often show the lack of professionalism and laziness. And thus, my President has to solve every problem in the manual mode. People see how quickly and efficiently he helps the needs of simple people, ’cause the regional deputees lost the credit of trust, beurocracy, etc. So, this is why many call him a Tsar. But, frankly, 80% of these questions and needs are to be solved at regional and city administration level. For me, it is a heavy heavy burden, that Vladimir carries since the times when morons Gorby and Yeltsin destroyed huge country, made people starve and kill each other and when the West was a master in our country. I remember those times, that f$cking abyss. And trully, Putin said at Q&A: it is really a Great deed of our people, that they could go through that nightmare and survive (1990s). For me and many Russians – Putin is our good president, respect. And, of course, we realize, that his time will pass away. Nothing lasts forever. We want next president that could be not worser and who will lead our country to the new horizons. Because the new demandings and tasks are ripe and have to be achieved.
Sir, i’m not afraid of external enemies. They will loose from the very idea to intrude us. I’m afraid of inner enemy. The 5th column. Because this plague killed several countries, as we know.
I do have to give Putin credit; it’s quite a site each year, watching him field questions for hours from seemingly every reporter in the room. It’s way more “organic” than the US’s State of the Union address.
I would call it the most organic state leader interview of the year. I would love to have other contenders present their evidence to the contrary. Now I do think Peskov is the master of ceremonies as the first time I watched one of these all the way thru (I had not planned to but it was so captivating I did) somebody asked a stupid question and Putin said that “Dimitry let that one slip by”.
John, Putin loves taiga. But Disneyland would do firstly. After these extreme years of crazy job, like a doctor in the global mad house ))
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