Yesterday, Vladimir Putin addressed the Interior Ministry.
That was a scheduled speaking arrangement ahead of his new term in office.
A couple weeks ago he addressed the FSB, too.
Back then, he decried the U.S. warnings of an imminent terror attack
as a way to intimidate and destabilize Russian society.
Sadly, we all know what followed.
According to the latest updates, the Americans may
have even narrowed their warning down to Crocus City Hall.
Now let’s dig deeper into yesterday’s speech and try
to fathom out what that humbuggery was all about.
Let’s first explain why it’s important to listen to Putin’s statements and break them down.
Putin’s words are important, as his decisions are shaping the reality we live in.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine couldn’t have happened in a sane reality.
Every mentally fit public figure was explaining why it would never be the case.
They thought it was out of the question. Period.
This war, they thought, would only result in 100s of thousands of deaths,
a suite of sanctions, and Russia’s international isolation.
We all knew the annexation of Crimea redux wasn’t on the cards.
The invading army would face fierce resistance and there’d be no mercy.
The insane idea of capturing Kyiv in however many days would be doomed at the very outset.
Anyone with a grip on reality viewed the invasion of Ukraine
as a bunch of baloney and a recipe for disaster.
Not Putin, though.
In his worldview, that invasion made perfect sense.
Starting in 2014, an FSB department was setting up a spy network in Ukraine.
At least dozens of millions of bucks were earmarked for that mission.
But their work transcended the realm of clandestine dealings.
In 2019, a political party led by Viktor Medvedchuk, a Putin stooge,
finished runner-up in Ukraine’s general election.
True, the winning Servant of the People party garnered three times as many votes
and scored six times as many seats, but Medvedchuk’s party came second nonetheless.
Aside from the party, Medvedchuk was running a media holding company
spanning the leading national TV channels.
Although the exact figures are anyone’s guess, the investment in the political
leverage over Ukraine amounted to eye-watering fortunes.
From Putin’s perspective, that money was supposed to achieve a practical result.
Once the invading army crossed the national borders, the then-dormant saboteur cells
were to take control of the governing bodies to the approval of the propagandized citizens.
The Ukrainians knew it wasn’t going to happen.
We and everyone ranging from the Washington Beltway to Warsaw knew it, too.
But it had no bearing on Putin’s decision-making,
as he was certain that eight years into the espionage and political activities,
Ukraine’s political system would collapse once his battle tanks rolled in.
That’s why, however unsavory or incoherent it may be,
we should look at the world through Putin’s eyes every once in a while
because that’s Russia’s sole decision-making outlook.
The Interior Ministry’s executive meeting would be a great way of doing it.
At this event, Putin addresses the law enforcement, and not the general public.
The topics he raises and the tone he adopts sets the framework
for their further policy and the priorities.
Typically, these events tend to be uninformative,
as they summarize the previous period and set vague goals for the new one,
calling for better focus and closer supervision.
The format of these meetings isn’t typically politicized.
But this time, there was a slew of political statements,
as for whatever reason, Putin went into detail about his worldview.
The world as he sees it is packed with “geopolitical ill-wishers.”
They destroyed the Soviet Union and are trying to erode Russia.
Everything they’ve ever done is meant to hurt Russia,
dating back to the Napoleonic Wars and Hitler’s invasion.
But we, Putin assures them, stood tall. We haven’t crumbled, and we won’t.
That’s largely a recap of his bizarre address to the Interior Ministry executive meeting.
IN PUTIN’S OWN WORDS
Russians tend to say that old people often act like immature children.
In recent years, Putin’s strikingly infantile worldview
has served as the best illustration of that adage.
It’s as if we were looking at an aged and wrinkly four-year-old
who can only think in categorical terms.
Odd as that may sound, someone is seeking to avenge the defeat Russia dealt them
back in the day, dating back to Hitler’s and Napoleon’s botched campaigns.
There were a great deal of such episodes, and many of those
have been etched into the ill-wishers’ memory.
Oddly enough, I’ve witnessed just that. Weird, isn’t it?
One of such categories is the “us vs. them” dichotomy
he believes to be the only way of looking at things.
Like, we were always minding our shop in our own country,
while they were always seeking to destroy us.
First, they sent in Napoleon. Try as he might, he failed to raze us.
Then came Hitler.
He inflicted more damage, but had to bail as well.
They almost succeeded when the Soviet Union collapsed.
But our “geopolitical ill-wishers” didn’t stop at that.
They’re looking for new ways of eviscerating Russia.
Notably, this worldview features a centralized force of “geopolitical ill-wishers.”
This force is apparently running the show worldwide.
Hitler, Napoleon, and Zelenskyy were only doing its bidding.
This force is omnipotent and invincible, but for whatever
abstruse reason, it only exists to destroy Russia.
We’ll pick it up from there after this non-profit message.
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So, on Putin’s worldview, there are almighty “ill-wishers”
seeking to destroy Russia day and night.
Per Putin, “we” aren’t fighting for the win.
It’s out of the question because the enemy is all-powerful.
We’re only fighting to avoid the ultimate annihilation.
Following the collapse of the USSR, our political ill-wishers sought to finish off
whatever remained of historically Russian lands, that is, what made up the core of Russia.
Right out of the gate, Putin casts the abstract “us” as victims.
We are incapable of stopping the bad guys’ attempts altogether.
There’s so much we can do trying to foil them.
He, too, fails to define “them” who we’re locked in a fight with.
It’s just “them.”
They’ve always been around, switching fronts and headquarters.
His musings don’t just primitivize the way the world operates and claim
the entire international politics boils down to a conspiracy being plotted “against us.”
These also feature a trademark combination of aggression and helplessness.
We could’ve kicked everyone’s a__es, for sure.
But instead, we’re just whining about everyone else kicking ours.
There’s one major takeaway from Putin’s linguistic chicanery.
Addressing the Interior Ministry’s meeting, he suggests getting ready for
a ceaseless war that started way back, continues today, and will outlast us all.
In Putin's worldview, the Russia–Ukraine war isn’t a standalone event.
It’s just a minor episode of this never-ending war.
Our ill-wishers sought to re-align whatever remained of it with their geopolitical interests.
I'm saying this as the former FSB director and Security Council secretary
and as president and the Commander-in-Chief.
A shortage of personnel, hectic wartime schedules, discharged ex-cons,
a surge in crime rates—these aren’t part of a temporary emergency.
These are part of a daily routine. Like, it’s always been and will be this way.
We just forgot about this reality for a short while,
and the “geopolitical ill-wishers” caught us off-guard and almost destroyed us.
If taken out of the context, Putin’s ramblings may even sound funny.
There’s even a certain swagger to this brand of dumbness.
But his words verbalize the idea he’s been
reiterating for months now: the war is the norm.
It’s not even the “new normal.” It’s the only conceivable state of reality.
According to Putin, the world as we knew it before Feb. 24, 2022,
with Russia involved in international relations and
putting on an air of legality was an excess and an outlier.
For several decades, “we” were oblivious
to the ongoing war, whereas our enemies weren’t.
They’ve taken advantage of our gullibility and sprung into action.
But never again will we make the mistake of forgetting about it.
And we’ll show no mercy.
Our war effort can’t stop. Otherwise, we’ll be bled dry in no time.
MAKING A DEAL
Those who think it’s possible to strike a peace deal with Putin and are trying
to predict his endgame should adopt Putin’s perspective he’s shared ever so generously with us.
He couldn’t care less about Mariupol, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kyiv, or Odesa.
He couldn’t care less about the war's progress as long as it keeps going.
Ending it would mean losing. That loss wouldn’t come at the hands of Ukraine.
It’ll mean getting defeated by the “geopolitical ill-wishers.”
A fairly popular opinion on the European political scene involves offering Putin
the kind of status quo he’ll be quite happy with that’ll let him save face.
Except there’s nothing Putin can be happy with.
He explicitly says his only status quo is an unending war, no matter the enemy.
Like, can the Baltic states, Finland, or Poland be called well-wishers on this worldview?
Of course, they can’t.
Truth be told, the peacemaking process is a two-way street.
A conflict is an abnormal state that takes a toll on everyone involved.
Parties to the conflict normally aspire to put an end to it.
But they may have trouble clearing the obstacles,
like allayed ambitions, forgiveness, concessions, etc.
But it can be the case that one party feels at home
fighting a war and can’t do without it.
That’s exactly what’s going on with Putin.
He asserts that there can be no Russia without the war.
That’s the truth the rest of the world should finally admit.
That’s not our analysis or guesswork.
That’s what the guy says verbatim.
So, what’s in it for us?
We’ve found ourselves in a spot where any talk of further conscription drives,
the duration of the war, and the ending to the government-mandated
frenzy is meaningless.
In this framework, mobilization isn’t a standalone event.
It’s just a matter of the system’s capabilities and how long it takes
for the system to round up the personnel it needs to keep fighting.
The political aspect of it is brainwashing the public to a point
where it doesn’t fight back the way it did in 2022.
At the end of the day, a conscription drive is a matter of time.
It’ll commence once they’re all ready.
You can’t wage an endless war without the public’s involvement.
It’s likely that hundreds of thousands of fresh personnel
will be needed on a monthly basis.
One can analyze all they want when it’s going to stop
based on economic stats and predictors.
They can say Russia’s National Wealth Fund will run out of cash in a year,
meaning the war will be over once the bankrolling stops.
But it sometimes pays to view the war through the lens of someone who started it,
defying all rhyme and reason, and is poised to keep going along the same lines.
And you don’t need any psychic skills. The guy’s telling it like it is.
That’s why, should we venture a guess,
the war will only end when Putin gets out of office.
See you tomorrow!