Putin, of course, is no Peter. The KGB lieutenant colonel who was abruptly bumped into the presidential throne of a nation in total disarray comes nowhere near “the Great” in ambition, potential, drive or physical height.
Serge Schmemann, “THE WORLD: Czar Peter, Meet Putin; Eastern or Western? Both. And Neither.”, New York Times, March 12, 2000 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/12/weekinreview/the-world-czar-peter-meet-putin-eastern-or-western-both-and-neither.html
Today there is a new president, Vladimir Putin. It is not at all clear if democracy is his ultimate goal. What is clear is that his authoritarian methods are focused on restoring a centralized Russian state whose power relies on fear, not persuasion or education. He presides over a group of criminal oligarchs, former KGB and military men, and old communist apparatchiks, most of whom would have been right at home in the higher echelons of the Soviet government. Intelligence agents are now part of the presidential directorate; special military counterintelligence departments have been restored. ‘You can’t get anywhere without secret agents,’ Putin has said. Putin expresses pride in his own KGB background, without seeming to understand how the KGB made the Soviet Union a place of fear, even terror, for most of the past century.
Mortimer B. Zuckerman, editor-in-chief, “A Great Step Backward”, U.S. News & World Report, October 9, 2000 http://www.russialist.org/archives/4556.html##5
Ikea has arrived in Moscow. So has a tight-lipped 47-year-old KGB staffer, with clear blue eyes and authoritarian tendencies strong enough to bomb one of Russia’s republics back into the middle ages…Now a man like Vladimir Putin has arrived to remind the IMF just how far the dark continent has slipped back into the Tsarist 19th century.
David Hearst, How Russia was lost, The Guardian, 27 March 2000, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/mar/27/russia.comment1
Psychiatry recognizes a condition known as “moral idiocy.” Every time he opens his mouth in public, Putin confirms this diagnosis for himself. Do you want to know what life will be like in Russia over the next 8 or maybe 14 years? Go to the B. Pokrovsky theater to see Alfred Schnitke’s opera “Life with an idiot.” Geniuses are able to tell the future without even realizing it.
Andrei Piontkovsky, The Russia Journal, 2000 http://russiajournal.com/node/2857
From the Presidential website
Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the United States of America Barack Obama on the American side’s initiative. January 13, 2016 22:15 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/51165
http://russia-insider.com/en/brief-compendium-nonsense-about-putin/ri11969
JRL 2015/248/26
http://www.therussophile.org/a-brief-compendium-of-nonsense-about-putin-patrick-armstrong.html/
Brief? I had to force myself to stop at vampire rumours.
I mean, what’s next? Darth Vader (AARGHH! He is).
If there is an upper limit to Putin Derangement Syndrome, no one has found it yet.
He was in the KGB and, of course “Once a KGB man, always a KGB man.” His thumb, your eye.
His slouching posture shows that he is envious and resentful of Obama.
Maybe he’s “just a jerk“.
The view that he is actually dead is a minority one but the rumours that he is immortal may be a preparation for revealing that he is the reincarnation of Dracula.
Practising with a personal weapon, selection of everyday carry weapon and training his flunkies on how to do a “gunslinger walk“.
Choosing today’s watch from his extensive watch collection.
Given the assumption that he controls everything in “Putin’s Russia”, I am looking forward to seeing RT’s clever and witty satire quoted as evidence that he is consulted on the most trivial matters: even telling the RT cleaning staff to mop up a mess. (I mean to say: it’s out there on social media, so it must be true.)
Weekly meeting with religious leaders to give sermon guidelines.
Drawing up lists of journalists to be threatened or, if they don’t take the hint, assassinated.
Carefully monitoring and controlling what Russians see on the Internet.
Analysing Western media coverage and plots how to counter it with his weaponised information matrix funded with “huge amounts of money“.
Preparing daily instructions and themes for his network of troll factories which dominate social media.
Planning and directing disinformation operations like fooling a US Senator with faked photos. A similar operation was carried out on the New York Times. (Otherwise you would have to think they were nincompoops and swallowed anything they were fed. No! No! Putindunnit!)
Direction and fabrication of the elaborate numerical “statistical” backup required to sustain the “myth of 89%“.
Meeting with military chiefs to plan today’s invasion of Ukraine and latest plans for the conquest of Lithuania; precise details of stationing of “little green men” there and other warlike expansionist plans.
Personally choosing bombing targets in Syria, especially hospitals and schools.
Planning new aggressive weapons.
Stealing weapons technology from Ukraine.
As the centre of the enmity to the World Community and International Law, he spends many hours plotting with an informal alliance of lawless regimes.
Dreaming of re-creating USSR, or is it the Russian Empire? Or same-same, whatever.
He is so omnipresent that anytime a Western reporter doesn’t see him, there must be some enormous crisis that deserves excitable headlines.
In preparation for one of his long interviews or TV Q&A sessions, he chooses the questions, nominates and rehearses the actors who will ask them and memorises the answers. Obviously these sessions are stage-managed because no Western leader would even attempt to answer unscripted questions for several hours on live TV. Therefore, Putin has to be faking it.
So-called elections are carefully managed down to the last detail with numerous dirty tricks, managed media campaigns and pressures applied where necessary. Putin directs and supervises these factors.
Recreation period – wrestling with tigers, diving for antiquities, catching record-breaking fish, flying fighter jets or some other over-compensatory bare-chested he-man stunt.
Plays with his dogs – see why he prefers animals to people above.
Dalliance with latest girlfriend and secret family.
Designs his palaces.
And, as the richest man in the world, counts his loot.
Where does he find the time to do all this?
http://russia-insider.com/en/we-know-what-putin-wants-we-havent-clue-what-he-wants/ri10279
Something I have noticed with some amusement is the conjunction in utterances by Western talking heads of the conviction that they know exactly what Putin wants with the admission that they haven’t a clue what he wants.
Reading what he says and watching what he does is apparently out of the question.
Here’s NATO commander Breedlove in April as an example. Just for fun I invite you all to read through thickets of impenetrable prose to find more examples of we know but we don’t know.
He knows what Putin wants
We also know that Putin only responds to strength and seeks opportunities in weakness.
You know, I believe that Mr. Putin very much wants in a very simple way, he wants the West out of Ukraine, and he wants Ukraine out of the West.
Mr. Putin wants Ukraine as a part of his sphere of influence.
He doesn’t know what Putin wants
We cannot fully be certain what Russia will do next, and we cannot fully grasp Putin’s intent.
So we can’t know what Mr. Putin has in mind.
We don’t know what Mr. Putin’s objectives are.
Poor old Breedlove, wakes up to find Russia’s locked down Syria while he was busy keeping it out of Estonia.
PS if he can’t bear to read what Putin actually says, here’s a piece in Newsweek (of all places) from last December that might have helped him be less surprised “The rise of ISIS confirms what Moscow has long said to the West: Backing Assad’s opponents will lead to state collapse and jihadism.”
http://russia-insider.com/en/whos-bigger-threat-america-putin-or-obama/5146
According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 20% of Americans regard Putin as a threat and 18% regard Obama as a threat.
So, it’s Putin, by a nose.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, about a quarter regard the USA as the greatest threat to peace, far more than any other country.
http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/16/4566
http://geopolitics.co/2015/03/17/the-great-putin-disappearance/
As consumers of media outlets in the West know, Putin’s “disappearance” is a sign of something very, very important. Probably.
He’s dead. There was even a Twitter thingee #ПутинУмер.
It’s a coup. “Vladimir Putin is ‘alive’ but ‘neutralised’ as shadowy security chiefs stage a stealthy coup in Moscow, it was claimed last night.” says the Daily Mail. “Social media was thrown into a frenzy after pictures emerged late Friday night of multiple unmarked white trucks pulled up beside the Kremlin.” said Ukraine Today. There to cart away his loot suggested the Daily Mail. A coup: “Former presidential adviser, Andrey Illarionov reports that in a few days it will be announced about the resignation of Vladimir Putin and the power will be taken by a group of officers and security forces led by the head of the presidential administration.” Anders Äslund speculates on who is who in the coup.
Maybe everything or anything suggests the ever-amusing New York Times. Flu perhaps but also: “There have been periodic glimpses of the tension behind the high red walls of the Kremlin, infighting over the wisdom of waging war in Ukraine that has only deepened as the value of the ruble crumbled…” Nemtsov murder, distraction, “dusty playbook of the Soviet Union”, mistress, blah, blah, blah. (And, Dear Readers, because it is the NYT, after all, I can’t resist this at the end of the piece “Correction: March 13, 2015. An earlier version of this article misstated the surname of the Italian prime minister. He is Matteo Renzi, not Renzo. It also misstated the year the submarine Kursk sank. It was 2000, not 2002.” What corrections will be discovered by the NYT’s layers of fact-checkers in a week?).
The Independent shoves them all in (except the possibility that nothing has happened. But hey! It’s Russia, something must have happened) and tosses plastic surgery into the mix.
In Switzerland to witness the birth of the heir shouts the New York Post quoting a Swiss paper. Of course we can’t expect the mainstream media to have the resources of Anatoly Karlin who found a photo of the obviously un-pregnant so-called girlfriend.
Julia Ioffe uses up some trees in the Washington Post darkly speculating – Stalin in June 1941, Gorbachev in August 1991 – a sign of something, that’s for sure.
The Economist: “What is one to make of it all? In the absence of better information, one might ask what it has meant in the past when rulers of secretive governments vanished from public view.” So let’s go back to 1564, because it’s well known that nothing in Russia ever changes. (Just think how long and hard people would laugh at you if you used Henry VIII as evidence of something in today’s Britain).
No, it’s war. All the Russian Embassy staff had left London. That was apparently connected with the British nuclear first strike that didn’t happen.
Something vaguely Brobdingnagian is about to happen. Some huge announcement is coming on the weekend.
Abducted by aliens? Well, probably not but let’s put it out there anyway.
Flu, says a CIA source (ah something rational at last). But Ioffe authoritatively informs us they’d never admit he’s sick (“manly men don’t get sick”).
The BBC is magisterial as ever but still manages to make a big deal of it: “And all this because there’s been no verifiable sighting of the omnipotent and normally omnipresent Vladimir Putin since 5 March.”
Well, here’s his schedule on the Presidential website: there’s something nearly every day. But that doesn’t count because the Western media can’t find the website, can’t read Russian, don’t know anyone who does, wouldn’t believe it, has to get excited because everybody else has got excited. Anyway, he met with the President of the Kyrgyz Republic (a country not too far from the NYT’s Kyrzbekistan, but probably not in the Austrian-speaking world, one assumes) today so the panic is over.
What have we learned? Well that the BBC, NYT and so forth don’t think alien abduction or nuclear first strikes are credible enough to toss into the list. (Although trucks removing the temporary skating rink on Red Square make the cut in several outlets.) So we’ve discovered that they do have some standards, after all. So that’s something on the credit side.
The West has developed a hysterical obsession with Putin and this “absence” was a chance to display it and make fools of themselves. Certainly, the Western media, losing ground and credibility steadily, will not have gained any from this preposterous performance. I can’t help wondering whether Putin and his team (which has shown itself to be much smarter than anybody in the West) didn’t concoct the whole fake disappearance to allow the West and its tame sources to be-clown themselves and take their reputation down another couple of points. Now, that would be clever. And fun to watch; a tiny hint from Putin? “Life ‘would be boring without gossip’”.
Also notice the assumption in practically every one of these stories. Which is that Russia is a tremendously unstable place held together by one man. This despite the fact that the Constitutional successor, a long-time member of The Team, has actually been president before and that The Team has demonstrated a remarkable coherence – to say nothing of competence – for fifteen years now.
The second thing to notice is this crackbrained obsession with one man. Putin is the Qaddafi, the Saddam Hussein, the Milosevich, the bin Laden, the Aidid, of Russia. If only he would go, the bear would roll over and expose his tummy. Well, getting rid of those guys didn’t work, and getting rid of Putin won’t either. It’s not just one man, it’s a whole country. When are they going to learn this?
My theories: normal few days, maybe some flu. But Putin does take a three or four day retreat most years to a monastery and it is Lent.
(But I really like the idea of a sting operation to allow the Western MSM and its tame “experts” to make fools of themselves.)
http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/02/23/3794
Russians love him. The Levada polling organisation (not especially friendly to Putin) has been polling about him for 15 years. His lowest rating – lowest rating – (did I say lowest?) was 61% in June 2000, these days it’s in the 80s. (Question 1, Long Trend). Most Western politicians would sell their mothers into slavery to get up to 61%. But, asks the puzzled NYT reader, why would Russians like him? Results, that’s why; check out the illustration. You’d like it too, if you had a leadership team half as effective.
He’s popular outside too. Despite widespread belief in the servile Western media that Putin is “isolated”, a lot of countries are happy to invite him to visit. The photo that says it all is here.
He’s macho. When he takes his photographer along in his “private” moments, it’s to show him wrestling tigers, petting leopards, landing large fish, wearing tough guy headgear, hurling people around the judo mat. What do our leaders do in their photographed “private” moments? Golf.
Even the false rumours about him are macho. Affairs with beautiful young women, not pedophilia or secret homosexuality.
He’s got a real army. With air defences, fighter planes, modern tanks, tough special forces. So a fun little air campaign won’t be possible. Besides, Russia hasn’t lost many wars, has it? And they never give up; just ask the Mongols.
Nukes. Russia has them; they work: Bulava, Topol and Sineva. Meanwhile, in the USA not so much.
He’s Russian. And Russians are all horrible. Except for Pussy Riot.
He’s smarter than our team. Well… doesn’t he prove this every day?
You can’t bully him. Ditto.
He’s not going anywhere. He’s staying right there in Russia. And that, for the geographically challenged, is a great big country not very far from anywhere.
And one bonus reason. He knows gold is a better investment than US Treasuries.
And just one more. Russian babes say they like him. Imagine the campaign “Babes for (insert the name of your wearisome leader)”. Didn’t think you could imagine it without feeling a bit nauseous. Well, OK, there was Obamagirl. But that was fake.
Russia Observer 
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