Putin Unfiltered

A short comment on economic warfare, the Russian state, and self-defeating Western prejudices

Recently, Russian president Vladimir Putin has given an important half-hour speech before the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists. His remarks were very interesting, especially with respect to the ongoing process of rapprochement between Moscow and Washington. In this short note, I am focusing on only one of them because it struck me personally: as an academic who teaches – among other subject matters – Russian history, I regularly find that even smart and diligent students are surprised to realize that Russia has a tradition of impressive government and sophisticated achievements by the state. For reasons that, I believe, are rooted in Western stereotypes and not Russian reality, this fairly obvious fact has often escaped them. Indeed, they sometimes believe the opposite.

As readers will see, Putin made a comment in his address that bears on this issue, indirectly but in currently very pertinent ways. I am permitting myself to elaborate on it. (For those who would like to read or watch the whole speech, it can be found on the website of the Russian presidency; on the video, the president’s remarks begin at about 10.00)

Specifically, Putin acknowledged that “recent years” – meaning, clearly, more than a decade of conflict over Ukraine that was caused most fundamentally by the West’s reckless policy of NATO expansion and triggered by its regime change operation in Kiev/Kyiv in 2014 – have come with “serious challenges” for Russian business. These have included “powerful sanction pressure, most of all limitations on international settlements and operations in foreign markets.”