It cannot have escaped anyone’s notice reading this that the western political and media elite mindset regarding Vladimir Putin is wholly negative. This commentary will not attempt a rebuttal of the views held by such people but merely try to enumerate what they are and why they may be so pervasive within this very large group of leaders and commentators.
It may be that the anti-Putin mindset began before 2007 when the vast majority of statements, articles, videos and books appeared that took a negative view of the man. However, from the year 2000 when he became president to early 2007 when he gave a certain speech at the Munich Security Conference there was no sign at all of anything negative, in fact Putin appeared to be widely accepted during these years with a statement of approval by George W. Bush and a state visit to Britain including a visit by him and his wife to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.
From 2007 onward Putin was subjected to virtually every accusation under the sun, depicted as a despot, a dictator and even as a thief and murderer.
So, what was special about his 2007 speech that appears to have changed the perceptions of so many elite figures from that time to this?
In his 2007 speech Putin was at pains to point out that the Russian state would work hand in hand with western states on the problems that affected them both such as nuclear proliferation and international terrorism. So far so good. However, he also used his address to most of the West’s most important figures who were delegates to the conference, to express his dismay at how one region of the world, i.e. the West was initiating wars that had led to destabilization in those areas it had chosen to target. In addition he said that Russia would maintain its own position on areas of concern rather than automatically fall into line with whatever happened to be the current western agenda.
It would be best at this point if you listened to Putin’s speech in full if you have not already done so in an attempt to understand why it angered so many delegates to the conference and, it seems, to have totally and radically changed the way Putin was to be viewed from that point on. As I have said, it was from this speech in Munich that the avalanche of negativity was to pour down on Putin’s head and attitudes to Russia and its government were to radically alter also.
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Putin's iconic 2007 Munich speech FULL VIDEO. (With English translation.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFlcWpBtQco
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In respect of the period between 2000 and 2007 Vladimir Pozner speaks of this in the video below:
VLADIMIR POZNER
How the United States Created Vladimir Putin.
https://youtu.be/8X7Ng75e5gQ?si=lZLODazORIFjI4bT&t=365
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As I say, perhaps anti-Putin feeling was also strong in certain quarters even before his 2007 speech but it appears to have been extremely muted. The floodgates of criticism, warning and accusation only opened after 2007.
Now I’d like to examine what Putin’s critics say of him.
It would be difficult to find a limit to the criticisms expressed, though they fall into certain categories which I will try to enumerate below:
- Putin is a murderer.
This claim is based upon the demise of certain prominent critics of Putin and the apparent attempts, some successful, to poison them and others perceived as a threat to Putin or the Russian state.
- Putin is a dictator.
Putin’s critics point to the overwhelming advantage he has during election periods when Russian media is very much weighted in his favor.
- Putin is ruthless.
This relates to the two points above and to his continuance of the war in Chechnya and his instigation of the invasion of Ukraine. It relates also to assertions that if Putin is allowed to win in Ukraine he will then turn his attention to other ‘democratic’ nations and invade them also.
- Putin is corrupt and a thief.
Claims have been made that Putin has enriched himself at the expense of the Russian people and has enabled others close to him to similarly enrich themselves.
- Putin is a war criminal.
This is based upon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and personally upon what they assert was Putin’s instruction to remove to Russia children in the Ukrainian war zone. In this respect Putin has been indicted to face charges by the International Criminal Court.
Putin then, is seen by his western critics as no better than a ruthless criminal who has no democratic right to lead the Russian state, a state they regard as having a complete absence of anything approaching an acceptable electoral system. What is more, they assert that Russia is a threat to western democracy and western democracies, that its system of governance merits the label regime, rather than government. In short, that both Putin and those who hold the positions of state power in Russia, are illegitimate and require removal and replacement.
Due to the views held by critics of Putin they see him as a great danger to the western world. They visualize Russia under Putin threatening all democratic nations, at least in Europe. They even consider that this is Putin’s direct intention as well as, or better said perhaps, through the creation of a restored Soviet Union. He is seen as despotic, willing to crush all opposition to his power in order to retain his ability to suppress and murder others while aggrandizing himself, a dictator who stifles freedom and denies human rights to his citizens. All in all he is regarded as the most pernicious of all world leaders of the present day who must be opposed and fought at all costs.
Western mainstream media is essentially composed of institutions that now closely identify themselves as an integral part of the western elite superstructure. The days when investigative journalists identified themselves as non-establishment rebels willing to criticize western elite institutions, especially those concerned with foreign policy, are over, at least in terms of having their work published within the mainstream. Therefore, these days mainstream news outlets such as CNN and the UK’s Guardian newspaper are essentially stenographers for those who disseminate and promulgate state narratives.
Those who criticize Putin and the Russian state are very welcome then within the elite mainstream “news” outlets. Critics of Putin such as the prominent commentator Anne Applebaum cleave strongly to the same views as expressed by the West’s political leadership. And also to the views of any and all opposition forces to Putin within Russia. In her view and in the view of critics like her, Vladimir Putin is a product of the KGB, is therefore absolutely ruthless, a man seeking to recreate the Soviet Union who is essentially evil with no redeemable qualities whatsoever.
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You can sample Anne Applebaum's views during a recent interview conducted with her below.
ANNE APPLEBAUM
How The Ukraine War Is Going To End.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4dKBHtCQZ8&t
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I won’t, as I said at the outset, attempt a rebuttal of the assertions the anti-Putin people make above but I will allow myself a few comments that express some of my views on this general topic:
The world as it stands now has an immense problem. The political and mainstream media elites of the western world, have totally fixed and utterly negative views on Vladimir Putin. They constantly talk to each other and to anyone willing to listen (and there are very many within western media willing to do this) in a completely impervious bubble within the realms of which Putin is an absolute monster, a dictator leading a murderous regime with not a single redeeming quality. They have convinced themselves of this and have no chink in their convictions that could let anything in that might potentially counter this view. They believe only the politicians of the West have what it takes to run things well, to discipline nations and governments they regard as dubious or downright evil that in their view require elimination and replacement.
While their quest to mold the world in their image has been going on, nations such as China and Russia have risen with much power behind them. This only drives these neocons even wilder and even more entrenched in their view that ALL opposition to western rule MUST be eliminated.
These factors mean that unless by hook or by crook these western elites are removed from their positions of power we are looking at war, war and ever more war. Only the arrival of a full-blooded multipolar world that results in the quarantining of such people through a gradual process of their power diminishing, can we avoid the disaster that is likely to befall the vast majority of the world's population one way or another.
The pivotal point on which the critics of what they call autocratic regimes stand is that in the West we have full democracy. This is the justification they use for involving themselves in nations far from their borders with very different histories and cultures from their own. This is the justification, along with the use of factors such as “freedom” and “human rights” that they use to mount wars and instigate subversive movements with the nations they target as being illegitimate.
Democracy in the western world however, tends to be a ritualistic event to provide sanction to one of two (these days) quite similar political parties to rule in semi-dictatorial fashion for four or so years, does it any more reflect anything approaching the wishes of the people participating in it? And, havn’t we found that these parties have similar foreign policies and that the strong tendency is for them to seek even greater interference abroad if not outright war?
Elections across Europe are reflecting the popularity of what has been categorized by establishment political and media entities as ‘far right’ parties. This trend continues with the so-called far right ‘Freedom Party’ gaining the highest percentage of votes in Austria. As in France however it will be other parties of the center and center left who will maintain power there.
Anti-establishment feeling is clearly growing across Europe. Centralized control by the European Union from Brussels is increasingly resented. That the established EU powers in Brussels clearly bow to instructions from Washington is adding to the discontent.
The economic prospects of Europe in general have been put on a downward trajectory by the decisions made in Brussels, prompted by those made in Washington in regard to Russia. While prices rise, wages stagnate. Industry declines and jobs are lost.
So, how beneficial will the crusading activities of those such as Anne Applebaum be if they continue to be given full reign across the western world? Will they eventuate in what for them would be the ideal world where all nations reflect the democratic process as found in the West? Or, will we instead merely have ever more war as the western elites continue to force other nations with other ways of living their lives, to accept what we find best for us?
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