Putin in Astana

On the secrets of successful international cooperation, Ukraine, and Donald Trump

In this essay, I am going to offer a (selective, best-of) summary and discussion of three key points (see title) during a press conference given by Russia’s President Vladmir Putin on 4 July in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on the occasion of the Shanghai Cooperation Summit or SCO (which I will discuss further in a separate text). Held for the representatives of Russian media – and, unsurprisingly, bringing together journalists from key outlets, such as the important newspapers Izvestiia or Kommersant or the major television channel Rossiia 1 – the meeting lasted for about half an hour but was packed with noteworthy statements. There was nothing secretive about it, of course. In fact, video recordings and transcripts can easily be found on the official website of the Russian presidency (http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74469 or, in English, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74469; I am using the Russian original), and some of them featured prominently on Russia’s main evening news show Vesti. But, as so often, despite the importance of what the Russian president had to say, Western mainstream media have mostly ignored the event. That will not happen here, however.

In general, I hope that this text will be the first of a new kind of format I plan to continue (feedback on whether this is a good – or bad – idea most welcome): I feel that there is a need to systematically compensate for the failure of Western media to let us know what, apparently, we are not even supposed to be interested in or ask about anymore, namely, what “the other side” (that expression only holds from a somewhat parochial Western perspective, of course) has to say. And yet, we should know, more than ever. It’s, as it were, the least we can do.