Vladimir Putin has recently talked with a new media elite, the so-called “war correspondents.
It wasn’t the first time they’ve met, but it was indeed their first public meeting.
Moreover, it was the first time in quite a while we heard Putin actually offer at-length
comments on the war he’d started.
That’s an interesting time we’re living in.
Everyone and their grandma are suddenly vlogging, making statements
and dishing out comments on the current developments.
Everyone seems to be pursuing their own policy: the Defense Ministry, Wagner, governors
with different agendas.
MPs, Ramzan Kadyrov, and the federal government — all of them have suddenly gone public.
It’s against this backdrop that the nation’s biggest politician tries to dabble in everything,
including tooth fairies, as if his country wasn’t waging Europe’s largest and bloodiest war in 80 years.
Predictably, this public chinwag featured several formal phrases.
Like, Putin reminded everyone that, first, they didn’t start the conflict, and, second, this move was provoked.
Asked about the goals of the “special military operation,” he said those are changing,
but they don’t want to change them since they have a fundamental nature.
Besides, he shared with the war crowd stories of his glorious combat past.
According to him, his chopper was once hit by tracer ammunition.
Long story short, it was a standard load of chicken droppings,
like a 1:10 ratio of Russian and Ukrainian casualties.
But he also said something of value.
Before we discuss it, let’s dwell upon one detail that wasn’t revealed until after the meeting.
In a federal propagandist talk show, a war reporter named Alexander Sladkov said
he’d had to self-isolate for a week before meeting with Putin.
The same Putin who said he totally feels for the difficulties the war reporters are facing
and the same Putin who allegedly was once fired at.
But, guess what, you still have to self-isolate before meeting with Putin more than a month after
the pandemic was officially over. An armchair Superman ready to put his life on the line, no less.
Jokes aside, it’s an important piece of information. It’s cleat that 16 months into the war, nothing has changed.
Putin is only talking with those whose idle schedule allows them to spend a week self-isolating,
doing nothing.
Whenever you ask, “What kind of information is Putin getting? What’s his worldview?
What does he know and what does he have to guess about?”,
bear in mind he’s still hanging out with the same bunch of people he was mingling with when he decided
to invade Ukraine and he still lives in an information void.
We don’t know for a fact who draws up the attendee lists, who’s blacklisting or whitelisting people,
and who compiles the news bulletins he reads.
But one thing is clear. Putin is still isolated and totally depends on those who are just as isolated.
This is an important thing for you to get the bigger picture.
Now let’s get back to the analysis of Putin’s long-winded and bumbling comments.
ADMISSIONS & STATEMENTS
One, Putin admits that he grants presidential pardon to the convicts that are sent to war.
That proves that starting last year, the country has found itself in a parallel legal universe with
no prosecution, trials, or punishment.
You can just say you wish to go to war, and your criminal record will be expunged.
That’s what presidential pardon basically means. It expunges your criminal record.
If the ex-con reoffends, he’ll be tried as someone without prior criminal offenses.
That’s how the transparency of the Russian prison system or rather its abolition are now legitimized.
They, um, they receive — they sign pardon decrees. But the ex-cons sometimes reoffend.
In this case, the culprit must be prosecuted according to the law. No matter what. It was the same in WW2.
When they fought, it was great. But if they committed offenses, they were tried in courts.
De facto, Putin admitted something that we’d known about all along, but he just proved it to be true.
Those mad gigs where a private individual named Prigozhin showed up at correctional facilities,
leapfrogged prison administration, and culled the ones he deemed fit were all approved by Putin
and backed by presidential pardon papers.
Those convicts who were deactivated and sent back home and went on to kill elderly women
and rape little girls had been exonerated and released by Putin himself.
There are reoffenses committed by the ex-convicts that have fought in the special military operation.
0.4% of them.
Reporter: A tiny percentage. Putin: Exactly. Reporter: But it still sucks.
Putin: That’s the way the ball bounces. You can’t do anything about it. The reality is harsh.
Two, Putin admitted that conscripts are engaged in combat action.
He spun it the way it’s depicted in war fiction waxing poetic about the selfless heroics of young men.
He mentioned his call to the commander of the conscript-only battalion that repelled
the Belgorod attack. Not a single conscript, he said, flinched in the face of danger.
I spoke with the commander of the battalion that was fighting in Belgorod.
So, I asked him, “How many mobilized recruits and how many, um, conscripts do you have?”
He goes, “They’re all conscripts. You don’t have a single mobilized recruit.”
That’s the battalion commander. I asked, “How were the guys faring?” He said, “Outstanding.”
Reporter: True. Putin: Nobody flinched. Not a single one of them.
We hadn’t heard a word of some fierce fighting in the Belgorod Region.
We knew about the armed saboteur groups invading the province and some single-digit casualties.
But it was nothing like all-out hostilities.
The odds are, Putin just made it up altogether, but the key takeaway here is that conscripts are engaged
in the war effort. And this is supposed to be the new normal.
But there was an episode where Col. Gen. Lapin, armed with a handgun, marched together with the troopers.
Reporter: We were anxiously spectating.
That’s nothing to be taken lightly.
Especially given the recently extended conscription age and the new legislation canceling the draft notices.
The government spearheaded by Putin no longer considers conscripts a sacred cow.
Suddenly, they can die a death of a hero.
This is something that all potential conscripts and their parents must be aware of.
Legally, the government wasn’t barred from sending conscripts to die in combat action,
but now the public constraints are lifted, too.
Three, Putin admitted that there are PMCs.
Without calling a spade a spade, he admitted that, besides the regular army,
the war is fought by armed individuals that aren’t bound by any agreements or obligations with the state.
Legal status-wise, these volunteer formations are similar to private security companies.
But much needs to be revised and legally fixed, nonetheless.
And that’s where it really gets interesting.
The Prigozhin vs. MoD feud has been a truly breathtaking nail-biter for both sides of the conflict
over the past six months.
And this goes beyond some personal bad blood.
Rather, this is the state trying to reclaim its monopoly on violence, a major hallmark of any government.
The longer this squabble goes on, the more limelight it grabs.
The more those bulldogs have to crawl from under the proverbial rug, get their moves videotaped,
and air the process of biting off their opponent’s head to the widest viewership conceivable.
A couple of months ago, Prigozhin’s rants could be met with stoical silence from the regular army.
Now, generals have no other option but to post online rebuttals to Prigozhin.
The final — and, arguably, the most significant — statement was one by the Deputy Defense Minister
who said that “volunteer formations” (a handy euphemism for uncontrollable mercenaries)
must sign contracts with the MoD.
However, whether they have to do it or are obligated to as well as the format and dates are all open
to interpretation.
The agency’s official website has no mention of a relevant press release or even a transcript
of the discussion.
Despite this, media outlets have swooped down on it and are twisting it the way they please.
But the message is clear. All armed individuals must be within the MoD’s jurisdiction.
It’s an ultimatum issued in a bid to wrestle back control.
Not just that, the Defense Ministry also bring Kadyrovites into the frame.
The Akhmat battalion are videotaped as they sign the contract, effectively rendering
the unit an official part of the regular army.
But Prigozhin is having none of it.
He made it clear that both Wagner as an organization and each member thereof aren’t
eyeing the official merger with the MoD.
When Putin says all volunteer formations must sign a contract with the MoD,
we know whom he’s driving at and whose side he’s picked.
And the comments from both sides are anything but ad- libs. It’s a deliberate appeal to the person we all know.
And this is a brand new plot twist. Putin has been hard at work trying to keep any discussions out
of the public domain and limit them to behind-the-scenes talks.
We’ve even grown used to armed people publicly addressing Putin.
But we had yet to see the same done in reverse.
Notably, it was a soft-spoken, if not unctuous, statement.
The “volunteer formations” must sign the contracts with the MoD not because creating mercenary
groups is a felony under the Russian law but because that way the mercenaries will enjoy welfare benefits.
An inverted universe has been our new reality for over a year now. There’s nothing new to these antics.
The thing is, Putin has spent decades referring to petty legalism.
The law is hard, but it’s the law, as the Romans used to say.
But now, the same Putin is offering welfare benefits to the armed formations whose very existence is outlawed
by a dozen penal code articles.
Like, it’s not the armed goons, but tutors or locksmiths who are encouraged to set up
a legal entity for a cozier retirement plan.
Prigozhin didn’t mince his words, though. Furthermore, he opted to sabotage the presidential initiative.
His response to Putin was quick and straightforward: “None of the Wagnerites will accept a path of disgrace.
They aren’t signing the contracts.”
WHY?
So, what are the takeaways, after all? Putin admitted to the existence of PMCs,
got involved in the Shoigu vs. Prigozhin feud, offered perks to the mercenaries,
and was literally told to go f*** himself.
The offer or rather the request voiced by the president was labeled as a “disgrace.”
Being part of the regular army is a disgrace.
Reporting to Putin as the Commander-in-Chief is a disgrace to some saucy average Joe,
a self-appointed general of his own army.
It’s glaringly clear that both the army and the government are striving to push the genie
who was once, in an ill-conceived move, let out of the bottle back into it.
In a centralized state, a phenom like Prigozhin is simply unthinkable.
It defies the fundamentals of the state organization.
The major job right now is to co-opt the mercenaries and make them part of the government-controlled
machine, while wiping out free-running commandos.
However, oddly enough, this isn’t done the way it was when someone would take on Putin’s regime.
The troublemaker doesn’t suddenly die of a Novichok-induced heart attack.
In fact, he’s engaged in public debate. The state is now longer ordering obedience. It’s talking people into it.
But the biggest question is why. Why is Putin even getting into a military spokesperson’s shoes?
He doesn’t feel at home. He’s being awkward.
He’s mumbling inane stuff, mixing up the facts, and telling tall tales.
Moreover, following a week of nonsensical self-isolation, the war reporters weren’t exactly bleeding enthusiasm.
As the situation unfolds, the chasm between the Putin that threatened to eviscerate Ukraine
and its unfortunate allies on Feb. 24, 2022,
and the Putin that offers his takes on the war effort as a mere observe is unbridgeable.
But the answer may be simple.
Today, Putin finds himself in a real pickle.
On the one hand, as the election draws closer, the war should be driven out of the public eye.
The more he’s compelled to talk some real problems that are pestering the Russian people.
These aren’t Bakhmut, Kyiv, NATO, or even LGBTQ+.
These include education, healthcare, people’s income, retirement money, and prices.
The longer the war drags on, the more exhausted people get and the more
annoying the military rhetoric sounds.
On the other hand, the war continues to be a huge elephant in the room.
Despite the gargantuan resources wasted on the military,
they failed to reach the goals that could rhyme with victory. Worse still, they can’t even stabilize things.
At any point, the regime may face a choice of either announcing a new mobilization drive, that is,
committing political suicide, or conceding defeat that can’t be airbrushed.
A mounting death toll, strikes on the Russian territories, mercenaries gone rogue, and pardoned murderers
and rapists — this kettle of fish is spilling over.
It’s become the talk of the town, and people are waiting for answers.
Putin and his spin doctors are facing a really mammoth choice.
Either they bring up the war, thus stoking anxieties and stirring the ruckus.
Or they altogether overlook it, thus coming across as a feeble leader that jumped into a bunker
and turned a blind eye to reality, while his citizens are dying in droves in the bloody mess that he unleashed.
He has to comment on the war, if sparsely and sporadically.
These comments don’t make things better. He still comes across as a weak, inane, and deluded guy.
But that’s not about picking the right thing.
It’s about picking your poison: keep your trap shut or keep mumbling in public.
See you tomorrow!