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| 'Putin may ultimately win.' Western media about the President's message |
| 2024-03-01 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Mark Luzhkovy [REGNUM] Vladimir Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly can be called truly global in the sense that it was of interest not only to Russian citizens. This is not surprising given the recent changes on the Ukrainian front, as well as the lack of Western political unity. The maps of Kyiv have turned out to be confused, and the outcome of the conflict is still not visible, but some intermediate results indicate fundamental changes in the conditions of the game in the near future. The conceptual speech of the Russian leader, touching on the present and future of the largest and most strategically important armed confrontation in the world, logically attracted the attention of the Western audience. Moreover, in both the US and the EU, on the eve of the election cycle, a kind of crisis of trust has matured between the top and bottom, and therefore, in search of answers, people are increasingly interested in the opinion of the other side. True, one cannot expect an adequate transmission of this opinion. The mainstream Western press has taken up what it loves: distorting and demonizing the Russian president. The American newspaper The New York Times, which has a reputation as an unofficial mouthpiece of the Biden administration, interpreted Putin’s warning about the risk of nuclear war if NATO troops were sent to Ukraine as a “threat.” “Putin has repeatedly made veiled nuclear threats against the West since he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, seeking to use Russia's huge nuclear arsenal to keep Europe and the United States from supporting the country. Last year he appeared to tone down that rhetoric. But this Thursday he returned to it, combining his threats with a statement that he is ready to resume arms control negotiations with the United States,” analyzes the head of the Moscow bureau of the publication Anton Troyanovsky. The Kremlin’s call to prevent a slide into open war between NATO and Russia is thus presented not as a response to the recent aggressive rhetoric of French President Emmanuel Macron, but only as an aggressive bargaining tool with Washington. There was also the traditional accusation of human rights violations against the backdrop of the death of Alexei Navalny. According to the NYT, a “campaign of repression against the opposition” continues in Russia and, accordingly, Putin’s quite routine reminder about the inadmissibility of truly real attempts by the United States to interfere in the internal affairs of the country is nothing more than a translucent hint of “continued suppression of dissent.” As can be seen, they are trying to sell Navalny’s case to an audience that is not very well versed in the vicissitudes of Russian politics at the price of an important factor in international politics. The respectable British conservative newspaper The Telegraph saw in the message a declarative statement of Russia's expansionist appetites. Political scientist Jade McGlynn, who often visits Ukraine, interprets its military-political part as a manifestation of militarism and an open challenge to the West. “Putin’s Address to the Federal Assembly is more than just a speech. It is a further manifestation of an era of Russian assertiveness based on the belief that Western indecisiveness is an opportunity for Russia. This is a strong argument that seems incredibly convincing the more I interact with soldiers here in Ukraine and the more time I spend near the front lines,” McGlynn writes with concern. The conclusions of her column, when viewed from the prevailing UK-optimist point of view, are disappointingly pessimistic. The delay with the military aid package for Kiev due to Republican obstruction in the US Congress, growing disagreements regarding the further plan of action between EU members, the decline in the combat capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the proactive pressure of the Russian Armed Forces - all this leads to an inconvenient outcome, which all these two years have been trying to prevent. “ Putin may ultimately win.” Apparently, in order to somehow smooth out the very sad picture for the West and Ukraine, numerous national projects announced by the president were assessed as a bribe, if not a handout for the Russians. “The announcement of the national project “Family” is a hint at the need for internal stability, an attempt to balance the scale of military power and social security. This is a recognition that the support and tacit consent of the Russian people to this war entails a certain price. With the “Family” project, Putin is writing a check to bribe the poorest part of the population,” the author of the article tries to explain the ability of the Russian leadership to ensure demographic growth. For obvious reasons, Putin seriously angered the French - for example, the newspaper Libération, which gravitates towards left-wing political forces, attacked him with emotional criticism: “And here comes the nuclear threat again. When Vladimir Putin wants to scare Westerners, he always uses the same refrain. But over time, he tends to lose authority. The master of the Kremlin always plays the same role of a fireman-arsonist, which in recent weeks he has assumed with more and more impudence,” says Benjamin Delisle, deputy head of Libé’s international department, indignantly. The journalist believes that Putin’s show of confidence is nothing more than a primitive bluff, which he turned to in the hope of winning back Macron’s resonant bravado. Nevertheless, the recent successes of Russian weapons alarm the author, who still tries to somehow downplay them, characterizing the position of the Russian group in Ukraine as “less bad shape than last year.” By completely omitting the economic aspect of the message, Libération concentrates on alarmist intimidation of the reader with the notorious threat that Russia allegedly poses to Europe. "We saw this this Wednesday in Moldova, in the pro-Russian region of Transnistria, where a large congress, remotely controlled by the Kremlin, met to enlist Russian support. We have been seeing this for several weeks now in an increasing series of cyber attacks and operations to destabilize the West. Russia is fanning all the embers, all the crises shaking the West, from the war in Gaza to the farmers’ demonstrations in Europe,” the no less frightened Delisle himself seems to frighten the French. And then he contradicts himself, again trying to belittle the same Putin, whose influence he was just indignant at: “Almighty within his borders, Vladimir Putin seeks to export his authoritarian model to anyone who will listen. And with the fake elections approaching, he will remain at the head of the country until 2030, while it is increasingly shaped in his image,” the French expert sums up. It is noteworthy that Libération seems to have forgotten that in Ukraine, which the newspaper has great sympathy for, there will be no presidential elections at all. What can be said about the reaction of the Western media to the message? Yes, there remains an absolute misunderstanding of Russia and why it pursues such a policy. Yes, any successes are portrayed as either insignificant or immoral. But one thing is very noticeable - the change in the balance of power in favor of Moscow cannot be denied even with all the desire. |
| Posted by:badanov |