It wasn’t easy to get this video ready today.
On the one hand, it’s a newsworthy event you should pay attention to when the head of the aggressor country speaks,
because he turned the safest region in the world into a bloody apocalypse.
It's a newsworthy event which demands a reaction.
On the other hand, yesterday, when Vladimir Putin made a speech at the International Economic Forum,
he said so little that it’s awkward.
It’s quite clear why all Putin’s public ritual appearances in the last 3 months are so predictable and hollow
that you can’t really say anything about it.
It looks like his speeches are written by a very average student in some far-away institution.
It's just a text for the sake of the text.
That’s because initially nobody really planned to give such speeches.
Nobody thought that 16 weeks after the intrusion, in the middle of June, the war would be still there
with no visible end and that they would have to create more and more excuses.
Nobody made any excuses for the Crimea.
Yes, during the annexation there were some absurd lies about “the forces of self-defense” without any identification signs
but nobody really wanted to stick to this version even as a joke.
And quite soon they recognized it officially. Because when you win, you don’t make excuses.
A victory is a victory, and it makes everything else go into the shadow –
nobody would remember how exactly you lied if you achieved the result.
Today nobody cares about Putin’s speculations on American inflation and the support of country cultural centers.
Both the supporters and the opponents of the war want one simple answer – when and how is it going to end?
And what’s the plan?
First, we are building a multi-polar world, second, we had to do it, third, sanctions are harmful for those who initiated them –
all that we heard three or four times already. Now what?
Even “the doctor of economic science” Ramzan Kadyrov probably understands
that talking about economic development during a frontal war sounds
like planning a vacation sitting in an apartment while it’s on fire.
Or perhaps that again he listens to the creation of some nameless speechwriter
who made a mess from the economic terms he knows nothing about
and mixed it with some senseless conspiracy theories from the darkest corners of the Internet.
But they planned it differently.
2022 should have become the year of new victories opening the path to the presidential election (it’s in 20 months, by the way).
Everybody should have already forgotten how exactly the war started because it’s won triumphantly,
there was a referendum in Ukraine about entering Russia with a 90%-support, at the very least.
The 4th month of a bloody Bacchanalia. Hide it or not, but the losses are immense.
And no results worth the effort. You may imprison people for any critique but prices in the shops discredit it better than anything.
What can we say? Set specific goals? You won’t achieve them this way.
Announce holy war and nation-wide mobilization? Everybody knows it’s impossible.
Call the occupied territories ours? But the battles are going on. What will you do if you lose Kherson you’ve announced yours?
Everything we’ll hear from Putin in the near future will sound exactly the same as today
because in his mind the spring and the summer of 2022 should have looked differently. And there is no plan B.
The brightest spot in this absurdity was the President of Kazakhstan Kasym Zhomart Tokaev.
First, he is the only head of the real state who made this forum “International”.
Second, just before his visit to Russia he said clearly that Kazakhstan would support sanctions against Russia.
Third, sitting at one stage with Putin he called DNR and LNR “quasi-countries” which Kazakhstan is not going to recognize.
This is the reason why we don't recognize Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia and Abkhasia.
It looks like the same principle will apply to such quasi-countries, in our opininon, like Luhansk and Donetsk.
It's a sincere answer for your direct question.
It's an interesting moment indeed.
On the one hand, Tokaev said an obvious truth – since 2014 all the former Soviet countries support the sanctions
and not one of them, even Belarus, recognized the Crimea, DNR or LNR.
Because if you don’t support them, it’s the direct way to secondary sanctions.
And if you accept the borders' change in the region, it’s an invitation for the Russian army into your own country,
especially if you have territories like Northern Kazakhstan where ethnic Russians live.
On the other hand, this position has always been silent.
Nobody among the leaders of the former Soviet states has ever told Putin in his face
that his new borders mean nothing to anybody except for himself, that it’s his own reality nobody wants to participate in voluntarily.
To bring an international leader as your main ally and hear from him in public that he is not your ally at all,
that your map remodeling is absurd and that you’ll deal with sanctions and isolation on your own –
is the main event of this useless forum.
Of course, it’s not the time when you chose whom to invite and sit at the stage with.
You can only guess what Tokaev got for not leaving Putin alone with Pushilin,
but they’ve got the picture worthy of history textbooks.
During the St. Petersburg forum, Putin’s favorite pet project, his celebration,
his ally is busy telling everyone that he is not an ally at all.
Because the ally is deeply integrated in the world’s economy, he is a new leader, he wants economic growth and investments.
Surely, he doesn’t want those fantasies where sanctions and isolation are the drivers of development and import substitution.
Therefore, Tokaev also justifies the word “economic” in the name of the event.
He was the only agent of economic norms there, surrounded by genius inventors
who are going to kill Apple with their smartphones tomorrow or start sending planes to fly without crucial parts.
I’m not going to quarrel with you on purpose, but each time there will be a choice –
your crazy regime playing with the mistakes of the past and shooting in your own feet,
your 1,5% of the world’s GDP or the huge global potential – I won’t think twice.
That’s what Tokaev said before the event and hinted at yesterday. We’ll be in contact with you while it’s OK with the West.
Just look at that!
Putin has reached the point when Kazakstan's President publicly slapped him in the face at his own event.
And now we’ve reached the most obvious question – what is all that for?
Why should they arrange the international economic forum in June of 2022 to tell us things they’ve already said before?
Of course, in 2022 the International Economic Forum sounds like a joke.
An inexperienced observer can ask why on earth do you do it at all?
There is a war, the Western companies leave Russia one by one,
plants stop working without necessary components, people lose their jobs.
And here we are – on the International Economic Forum!
The International Forum with Pushilin and the Taliban – doesn’t it feel weird?
There are a lot of reasons why this event is not appropriate at the moment but there are two important reasons not to cancel it.
The first one is ideological, and the second is practical.
And those reasons are important for understanding of what's going on in Russia.
The ideological reason is that you need to keep up appearances.
Any cancellations, postponements, closings and reductions will make people feel concerned.
It means something goes wrong.
It means that now you can’t arrange this obscenely expensive and senseless event and last year you could.
Yes, this is a waste of money, but we can waste our money, why not?
And the practical reason is that events like this are a lifestyle of the highest level of the Russian government and their servants.
It’s their social benefits, if you like.
Thousands of people flew to St. Petersburg (by private jets or in business class paid for by budgetary money)
to live in the most expensive hotels and attend the most luxurious dinners and parties ending it all up by an exuberant booze.
Don’t underestimate the bureaucrats’ desire to party hard at the government’s expense.
Especially, of the serving staff – assistants, deputies, associates, press secretaries,
paid journalists, provincial deputy ministers and vice-governors on culture.
Don’t underestimate the government’s need to pay for its office’s loyalty in this way too
when in 4 days they spend a 6-months budget for 5-star hotels.
This forum is, first of all, a party the bureaucrats arrange for themselves, and they don’t want to cancel it.
Their life has already become worse. They can’t go to Davos, or to pay for an Oscar-winner to entertain them,
foreign apartments, mansions and yachts are not available anymore.
You mustn’t make your people angry by taking their usual activities away from them.
Those bureaucrats who work every day are literally your power. And they should live as well as possible in the current situation.
Four days of the international economic forum with a couple of minutes
when the main international guest calls DNR and LNR “quasi-countries”.
And Putin, who formally started this war to protect them and invited their leaders in the Kremlin,
has to sit and listen to it.
There is nothing else you should know about this event.
And there's nothing else to discuss.
Till tomorrow!