THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2024
Prideful and ornery, and speaking directly to history, Vladimir Putin made an extraordinary global address earlier this week. At the Sept 30 Kremlin ceremony formally annexing four regions of Ukraine that the Russian military occupied after its invasion in February, the 69-year-old president – who has ruled unimpeded since 1999 – angrily indicted the prevailing international order: “All we hear from all sides is that the West stands for order based on rules. Where did they come from? Who even saw these rules? Who agreed? Listen, this is just some kind of nonsense, sheer deception, double or already triple standards. It’s just designed for fools.”
If you go by what we are being bombarded within the information wars, Russia is on the retreat in Ukraine, and this annexation is an acknowledgement of it. The Guardian editorialised: “Arguably, this was set in motion as soon as it became clear – days after the February invasion – that his plans to swiftly topple the Ukrainian government had failed. It became more likely once it was evident that Russia was faring badly on both military and diplomatic fronts, and that domestic discontent was stirring.”
Whatever the case, we are witnessing dramatic escalation in an already alarming conflict, alongside further Russian mobilisation, and the mysterious sabotage of Nord Stream gas pipelines to Germany. This is literally an existential crisis Putin keeps threatening the use of nuclear arms, and did so again on Friday. “The United States is the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons twice, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the way, they set a precedent.”
There’s an unmistakable pathos about Putin’s freewheeling diatribes, reminiscent of Saddam Hussain’s open letters to the world after 9/11, where he tried to argue against what was already inevitable his country’s defeat and his own humiliation. Just like those missives, there’s an unusual truth-telling about the way the world actually works, from someone who intimately understands it: “It is the so-called West that has trampled on the principle of the inviolability of borders, and now, at its own discretion, decides who has the right to self-determination and who does not, who is not worthy of it. Why they decide so, who gave them such a right is not clear. To themselves.”
Putin said “Western countries have been repeating for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other peoples. Everything is exactly the opposite: instead of democracy – suppression and exploitation; instead of freedom – enslavement and violence. The entire unipolar world order is inherently anti-democratic and not free, it is deceitful and hypocritical through and through.” Even now, “they actually occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, and at the same time cynically call them equal allies. Listen, I wonder what kind of alliance is this? This is a real shame. A shame both for those who do this and for those who, like a slave, silently and meekly swallow this rudeness.”
What’s happening now, suggested Putin, is the beginning of the end of all of that. “The world has entered a period of revolutionary transformations of a fundamental nature. New development centres are being formed to represent the majority – the majority – of the world community and are ready not only to declare their interests, but also to protect them, and see multi-polarity as an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means to gain true freedom, a historical perspective, their right to independent, creative, original development, to a harmonious process. A liberating, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is already developing within the most diverse countries and societies. It is this force that will determine the future geopolitical reality.”
To get some expert perspective on this fast-changing situation, I turned to Ajay Kamalakaran, the passionately Russophile writer who has strong ties with both Russia and Ukraine, and is general-secretary of the decades-old - but newly revived - India-Russia Friendship Society, a voluntary non-political initiative to build cultural, economic and spiritual ties between Indians and Russians (meaning all Russian speakers) which also has Ukrainian and American members. His excellent online newsletter on life, culture, languages and history” is at ajaykamalakaran.substack.com.
My friend – who made an impressive debut at the inaugural Liberty & Light Festival of Goa in Panjim earlier this year – remains constantly up-to-the-minute with Russia. He told me, “I read Rossiyskaya Gazeta, RIA Novosti, Kommersant, Vedomosti, and also websites that represent dissenting and opposition voices. The Echo of Moscow radio station is streamed daily on my laptop, wherever I am (this station tends to be highly sceptical of the government). The conflict, which felt distant in March and April, has come a lot closer to home with the recent mobilisation of around 300,000 people. On the one hand some families are concerned about their sons being drafted, while military commissariats are flooded with phone calls from those who actually want to enlist but are being turned away.”
Putin warned that “in order to extricate themselves from yet another tangle of contradictions, (the West) needs to break Russia and other states that choose the sovereign path of development, in order to plunder other people’s wealth even more, and at this expense close and plug their own holes.” This is, of course, an unspoken – but nonetheless pretty universal – global consensus, and Kamalakaran says it holds true in Russia, where “a growing number of people see this as a proxy war where the United States is using Ukraine and Ukrainians to pursue their agenda of global domination, for which the destruction of the Russian state, as it is right now, is a key goal.”
Joseph Heller’s all-time-classic novel Catch-22 contains the memorable line that “just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” This is precisely the plight of Vladimir Putin in what will surely be the final sunset of his lavishly weird reign. Right, but on the wrong side. Loser, even after winning. Kamalakaran points out that “few people know exactly what the end game is for the Kremlin, but taking the Kherson region and having a land bridge to Crimea (and hence stopping the water and electricity blockade of the peninsula) is a major achievement. Russia also now controls the Sea of Azov coastline entirely, and the Zaporozhie Nuclear Power Plant, besides almost all of the Lugansk region and more than half of the Donetsk region. We’re talking about areas that contribute about 25 per cent to Ukraine’s GDP.”
What’s the bottom line, I asked Kamalakaran. He responded thoughtfully: “I was raised in New York and have lived in Italy. There is a lot to like about the West, and the independent institutional framework, and free (although quickly corporatising) press. Having said that, I would like to add that the actions of many Western governments speak for themselves. It’s hard to find many global geopolitical, economic or environmental problems that were not caused by the actions of Western governments and corporations. Everything from refugee crises to wars and climate change come back to what the political and economic elites in the West have done. As for Putin, he is still widely popular in Russia and is seen by many as a source of stability after the wild years of a West-friendly Yeltsin regime that sent Russia back by decades. It’s for the Russian people to decide through democratic means if they want another leader.”
(Vivek Menezes is a writer and co-founder of the Goa Arts and Literature Festival)
