Two Faces of Putin

Window on Eurasia:

Two Faces of Vladimir Putin

Paul Goble


Tartu, June 1 -President Vladimir Putin's colorful suggestion
last week that if Riga continues to press its territorial demands against
the Russian Federation, Moscow won't give Latvia land but rather only "a
dead donkey's ears" attracted widespread attention not only in Moscow but
internationally as well.

And the Russian president added in equally emotional language
that such demands now were especially inappropriate and wrong because
"Russia at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Europe had given away tens
of thousands of square kilometers of its historical territories."

But during the very same media appearance, a May 23rd visit to
"Komsomol'skaya pravda" on the occasion of that paper's 80th anniversary,
Putin made an acknowledgement that is likely to prove far more important in
the long run -- but one that so far has attracted little attention even from
those who might be expected to care the most about it. .

Responding to a question from one of that paper's editors about
the withdrawal of Russian bases from Georgia and other former Soviet
republics, Putin again began with a colorful Russian saying about not crying
over the loss of your hair if you have lost your head but immediately became
serious:

"All the countries which you have named are former republics of
the Soviet Union. But I want to stress that these are former republics.
Today they are independent countries. This means that we recognize their
right to define independently their foreign, domestic and defense policies."

And the Russian leader continued: "All foreign bases, if they
are not occupation forces, are maintained there with the agreement and at
the request of partner countries. And if there is no such desire on the
part of our partners, then we have no choice" but to withdraw them, although
he added that he hoped no one would bring "pressure" to bear on Russia to do
so.

For Putin, as for most Russians, any territorial claim against
their country is naturally a far more sensitive issue than the withdrawal of
Russian forces from the former Soviet republics, however disturbing that is
for many of them. Consequently, Putin's paired responses may be nothing more
than an accurate reflection of his feelings and theirs.

But there is another and more intriguing possibility, one that
was suggested by Moscow analyst Tat'yana Stanovaya a few days after Putin's
remarks. In an essay posted online, she suggested that Putin may have made
a self-sconscious choice to adopt these two different approaches in so
public a way (http://www.politcom.ru, May 25).

By using colorful language to condemn the Latvian demands, Putin guaranteed
the kind of media attention that will show himself to the Russian people as
a leader who shares their concerns and fears, even as his more measured but
less widely reported comments indicated that he is prepared to deal more
calmly with Russia's declining power.

If that analysis is correct, then Putin would appear to have accepted the
advice of Fedor Luk'yanov, the editor of the journal "Russia in Global
Politics." In an April 28 essay in "Izvestiya," Luk'yanov urged the Kremlin
to recognize that Russia's declining power in the former Soviet space is "to
a large extent not a political but a psychological" problem.

Pointing out that Moscow is not in a position to stop or reverse this
decline anytime soon and that suggestions to the contrary are dangerous and
counterproductive, Lukyanov urged that the Russian leadership study the ways
that other countries have dealt with a withdrawal from empire.

"It is no accident," he wrote, that the British carefully organized
ceremonies on the occasion of their departure from their colonies "lest the
impression be created that they had been forced to leave. [And because they
did so,] the British left with their head held high and a feeling of their
own worth."

"The psychological importance of such behavior is enormous," Luk'yanov
continued, and this is a lesson that the current leadership of the Russian
Federation must learn and use to help the Russian people get through this
particular and largely unprecedented phase of their national life
(http://main.izvestia.ru/print/?id=1695478).

Putin's comments at "Komsomolskaya pravda" suggest that he may be edging
toward just such an understanding, but of course, in the nature of things,
he can do so effectively only by not directly acknowledging publicly or
perhaps even to himself that that is precisely what he is doing.