Probably every adult knows that there is no such thing as a completely healthy person.
There is some deviation from the norm in all of us, even if it’s a small one.
That’s just how life works.
This is what quacks and “folk healers” live off.
Trusting such a quack may quickly prove to be the best way to waste a lot of time and money,
often leading to insignificant health issues turning into serious and potentially life-altering conditions as a result of such “treatment”.
And that’s exactly what happened to our country.
Having put trust in an incompetent, unprofessional, but overconfident man,
Russia wasted 23 years and super profits from oil trade not to solve its real problems,
but to make its minor issues into critical ones. Today we will talk about the two of them.
NATO
A textbook example of Putin’s way of “problem solving” is his fight against NATO expansion to the East.
Russia is the biggest nuclear power on Earth, and until recently, the NATO expansion was rather low on its list of priorities,
if it was ever a problem at all.
There were much more serious matters to attend to.
The real incomes of Russians are falling, and across the country, clinics, hospitals,
and schools that should be providing essential services look like decorations for horror films.
Emergency housing, where our fellow citizens barely survive, and important architectural landmarks that represent the history
of Russia, are deteriorating and falling apart.
Some cities are suffocating from piles of waste, while others are regularly flooded with filth due to
accidents on worn-out sewage systems. By the way, look at Astrakhan drowning in shit.
Children playing on an ice rink made of frozen excrement, noxious rivers flow through the streets and flood bus stops,
and all the money is being spent on missiles that were intended to end the world, but for now are destroying Ukraine.
Millions of citizens have learned by heart that "Gazprom is national property", as their slogan says,
but still cannot benefit from this supposedly national property - the gasification of the country is proceeding at a snail's pace.
Meanwhile, public transport in Russia is taking on roles that are more akin to extreme attractions.
Firefighters are going hungry, and the police are predatory. HIV, on the other hand, is thriving, much like it does in sunny Africa.
Russia is a country with endless opportunities for a politician who wants to be solving key state’s problems,
who, like a surgeon, has a surge of adrenaline from every problem that he manages to solve.
There are an infinite amount of areas that could benefit from your skill and energy.
But with an enthusiasm that deserves a better use, Putin decided to address the issue of NATO expansion.
And the treatment has proven to be worse than the illness. What did Putin do?
Through his own actions, he brought NATO closer to Russia's border.
He transformed NATO from an organization that was uncertain about its purpose into a close-knit alliance
whose members are now rapidly increasing their defense budgets.
And starting this year, that alliance has officially become anti-Russian, as reflected in its official doctrine.
There is one alliance, however, that has truly realized its uselessness in 2022 - the CSTO.
The very alliance that was intended to counteract NATO.
THE COLLAPSE OF RUSSIA
Since the 2000s, Putin's regime has been diligently preventing the collapse of our dear country.
By scaring those who survived the trauma of the USSR's collapse with the looming demise of Russia,
the regime has justified its own assaults on the rights and freedoms of citizens, purged the political field,
and constructed the much-vaunted "vertical of power”.
By constantly telling bogeyman stories about how the Evil West is always trying to bring down our state,
Putin could regularly take credit not for things that he did, but for things that didn’t happen.
Well the Russian Federation didn’t collapse, did it? Therefore, Vladimir Putin is a hero, a politician, a leader, and a fighter.
It’s like in a children’s joke:
Who are you?
I am protecting the city from dinosaurs!
I don’t see any dinosaurs.
You’re welcome!
In the 2000s, armed islamic fundamentalists from North Caucasus were the only power in our country
who had any real separatist ambition.
And by the way, they were sponsored and armed not by the evil NATO, but our dear partners from the Middle East:
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Taliban. The latter have actually officially recognized the independence of Chechnya.
It’s funny how Lenta.ru has recently deleted that news from their archives, but the Internet remembers.
After the end of the Second Chechen war, there wasn’t a single movement for independence in Russia of any significance.
In the golden age of Russian internet, you could even make jokes about the assumed collapse of the Russian Federation
without the fear of attracting unwanted attention from FSB or the Directorate for Combating Extremism.
Free Ingria with a capital in Saint Petersburg, the US flag of Siberia with snowflakes instead of stars -
it all seemed like nothing more than just innocent fun, because it was. Everyone knew how absurd it would be.
The largest country in the world didn’t have its own Catalonia or Scotland, it didn’t even have anything that could compare in scale
to the Texas secession movement.
In the end of 2000’s you’d need a microscope to see even a hint of separatism in Russia.
There were fundamental reasons for this.
The rapid growth of the economy and people's focus on improving their private lives likely contributed to a desire
to avoid revisiting the painful process of redrawing borders that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Separatism didn’t really exist anywhere. But Putin was still fighting against it.
Once again, Putin's supposed cure turned out to be a toxic brew. In 2008, all Putin had to do was kick back and enjoy
the luxurious life of a fifty-six-year-old former president.
And state institutions needed to grow up, undergo multiple changes in the highest echelon of power,
so that the transfer of authority from one president to the next would become a mundane,
standardized procedure for the government.
Putin, however, decided to not leave the country at peace and keep treating Russia from collapse, while hoarding power for himself.
It was even claimed that Russia — supposedly a great country — could only still exist because of one man.
If, being the president of the largest country, you are consistently pushing the notion that the state will certainly crumble
without your personal intervention, while your propaganda explicitly declares "Russia is not viable without you",
then you are paving the way for the division of territory yourself.
Many people and regional elites may genuinely believe that Russia's territorial integrity can be destroyed
by a single cherry pit that ends up in the wrong place at breakfast.
If you intentionally undermine young constitutional norms, state institutions, and procedures while in office as President,
you are preparing the legal foundation for the collapse of the state.
You haven't built a sustainable system, you've just replaced it with yourself.
What will happen when citizens lose patience with you? Or when you run out of steam yourself? No one knows.
If, as a president, you suck out all resources and incomes from the regions and force them to beg you for scraps,
you are cultivating a sense of resentment towards the federal center in these regions.
Residents of regions with oil, gas, diamonds, and gold right under their feet start wondering:
what's the benefit of this territorial integrity for me? Within this state, I live as a resident of some colony.
The metropole has imposed its governor on me, who only serves the metropole and couldn't care less about our problems.
The riches of my land goes to the center - and only a few cents come back as change.
You struggle like a cursed man in Khabarovsk Krai just to make ends meet.
You don't even remember the last time that you tasted a salmon or a crab.
Only once in your life did you choose a governor for yourself - and both you and the governor were punished as an example.
If, being a president, you won’t allow citizens to engage in politics, if you ridicule
and punish those who are trying to live one life with their country, if, through propaganda,
you turn groups of people against each other, then the cement that holds the country together can never harden.
A civic nation can never form, can never become a political entity — the Russians.
Why don’t the USA, with all its problems and considering how much autonomy each state has, shatter into 50 separate states?
Why won’t Texas secede after so long?
Because there is a giant melting pot boiling there, turning different races and nationalities into the American nation.
In American schools, besides various symbolic acts like raising of the flag that our country is trying to mimic so blindly,
there is a whole system whose purpose is to make a citizen involved in public life since childhood.
American teenagers participate in elections of school’s president – as a candidate, as a member of election staff, or as a voter.
This is how you get used to being an active citizen and not simply a passive observer who can only obey the will of their majesties.
Territorial integrity in the country is maintained by transparent and understandable government procedures,
such as civilized power transitions, fair distribution of taxes and income from natural resources.
Local princes will not be able to tear the state apart as soon as the hand of the god-anointed king weakens -
the only guarantee of this is the people who will take to the streets and say it out loud:
Stop squandering country's land, you fool, we only have so much of it!
Why would citizens take it to the street to save the Motherland after that Motherland has been beating them
whenever they tried to hold a protest?
How many people will defend the country from being torn apart if they have been told for years to stay out
of government affairs and simply accept everything and grind away?
If such a homeland is in danger, its citizens will remember not the lines from the song
"Wide Is Homeland," but all the grudges they have accumulated over the years.
SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS
Even before the war, Vladimir Putin has planted numerous time bombs in our country,
which we would have to carefully defuse after he leaves.
But even that wasn’t enough for him, and, like a malicious doctor, in the name of Russia’s security,
he has directly put the Russian state in danger.
The war in Ukraine has exacerbated all of the country's pre-existing illnesses. And it has also provoked new ones.
Instead of a military-political alliance, with which we have had a somewhat tumultuous relationship
and a significant amount of trade, we have now ended up with a truly hostile opponent that we are unable
to compete with politically, economically, or militarily.
Our largest European neighbor, who is striving to join NATO, now sees us as their mortal enemy -
and rightfully so. In just ten months of war, Russia has made a giant step towards the abyss.
Now, no one in our country, including Vladimir Putin himself, can answer the basic question:
"Where is the state border of the Russian Federation?" The attempt to annex new regions is a disaster.
It is a complete devaluation of the concept of "region of the Russian Federation."
As soon as the Russian army is driven out of any of the regions annexed by Putin,
everyone will see that the Russian Federation is like a Winnie the Pooh jar, in which regions come and go as they please.
As for the resentment towards Moscow within Russian regions, those have accumulated
in the last ten months more than they did in the past ten years.
It is one thing to give the center your taxes and income, receiving back only small amounts
in the form of targeted programs that cannot even be used as you see fit.
It's terribly insulting, but people are already used to it.
But it's a completely different matter to give Putin your youth, and receive back funerals.
Putin has pushed the limit. No one knows when it will break.
There are people who are preparing for it. How many armed groups are there in Russia these days,
from small groups with firearms to actual armies with heavy weaponry?
We’ve already lost count of them in our editorial.
Few people noticed how President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov has openly disregarded the will
of Moscow and refused to rename his post.
The state Duma decided that in the Russian Federation there can’t be two presidents.
To which the Council of Tatarstan responded: watch me. For as long as Minnikhanov is in the office,
he’ll be the second president of Russia. And he will remain in the office until 2025.
Who knows what will happen until then! The Presidential office may yet come in handy.
If we consider that a country is made up of its people, then the disintegration of Russia is no longer just a bleak forecast,
it's a tangible reality.
Large numbers of Russians are emigrating from our country, a phenomenon that has not been seen before
in the history of modern Russia. It's the educated, ambitious, entrepreneurial, young, and dynamic members
of society who are leaving, the country is literally coming apart before our eyes.
The video is rather pessimistic, but I want to end it with a bit of optimism.
Yes, our country is very ill. But it’s not a death sentence, it’s a challenge, one to which we will respond.
There are many issues facing our country, and each of them we will need to address.
However, within each problem lies the potential for opportunity that we can leverage in the future.
Our system of governance has eroded and undermined itself. It doesn’t only put the state in danger of disintegrating,
but also gives a chance to competent individuals who have been restricted and suppressed by the system.
In my ten years in Russian politics I have not only become convinced of their existence, I've seen them with my own eyes.
There are an incredible number of people in Russia who enjoy improving their own lives and the lives of those around them.
To them, solving the problems of their region, city, and country is an adrenaline rush.
If they manage to organize, improve, or fix something, they get a genuine sense of satisfaction from it.
Alright so Europe will be buying less gas from us — perfect, let’s focus on gasifying our own country,
while having an incentive to develop an economy that doesn’t revolve around selling resources.
Did we make enemies abroad? Then let’s focus on ourselves, not foreign countries.
Turn Russia into the center of science, education, health care, technology, and culture.
Not to prove anything to anyone, not to rub anyone’s nose in it, but to improve our own lives.
As soon as we can truly be, not just appear to be, as soon as we truly improve our lives instead of just pretending to,
that's when foreign states will come to us on their own.
True, many of our compatriots have left Russia. But there is opportunity there as well.
Those who come back will return as new people. With new knowledge, new skills.
With unique experiences that you can only obtain in a forced emigration.
So, to those who left, take care of yourself and try to make as much use of your time abroad as possible.
If you ever decide to come back, you’ll see how much the country needs you, how much you can do for it.
And if you did not leave, if you remain in Russia, do not despair and do not give up.
Thank you so much for continuing to work and study, for taking care of your loved ones.
It is very valuable and important.
Tomorrow we'll have a New Year's congratulatory video, as many of you asked, and the next day we will try
to publish a video — not sure if it will work out, but we will do our best.
See you tomorrow.