WASHINGTON — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech on Wednesday bore the marks of unabashed authoritarianism, Russian experts and observers said.
“We’ll be fine after 1934,” said Nina Khruscheva, a professor of international relations at the New School in New York City, referring to the year Soviet dictator Josef Stalin began his murderous purge. Putin is an unabashed admirer of Stalin and has worked – successfully, in Russia – to restore his image, which had suffered for years after a posthumous conviction in 1956 by Khruscheva’s grandfather Nikita Khruschev, then the Soviet leader.
In his disturbing remarks, Putin lashed out at “national traitors” whom he accused of undermining the war he launched against Ukraine.
Putin really wants to bring Russia back to the days of Stalin Olga Lautman, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, wrote on Twitter:† “He has always imitated Stalin, and this speech is definitely angrier and stronger than previous speeches.”
President Biden said on Wednesday that Putin was a “war criminal,” and the rhetoric the Russian leader used was strikingly similar to the language authoritarians have used to demonize, persecute and kill ethnic minorities and opposition political groups.
Even as Western diplomacy continues, the Kremlin remains in the throes of deep geopolitical grievances, which could make a peace settlement difficult. Putin said real Russians “would always be able to distinguish real patriots from scum and traitors,” presumably a reference to Russians who have protested his invasion of Ukraine in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Thousands with the means to do so have left Russia, which faces widespread cultural and economic isolation.
Russia “will just spit them out like a bug in their mouths, spit them on the sidewalk,” Putin said of Russians “fifth columnists” with Western sympathies.
“This is very, very scary,” said US investor Bill Browder, who has become a nemesis of Putin after denouncing corruption in the Kremlin. said on Twitter† “The language is incredible.”
“The whole speech was pure Dr. Strangelove — bodily fluids, purging and what not,” New School professor Khruscheva told Yahoo News, citing Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 satire about nuclear war. “Very much Hollywood, only it happens to us, not on screen,” she wrote in an email.
Putin clearly sees Russia as the victim and in his comments condemns the “economic blitzkrieg” of Western sanctions, a reference to Adolf Hitler’s favorite way of sudden, overwhelming attack. “I want to be as direct as possible: Behind the hypocritical talk and recent actions of the so-called collective West lie hostile geopolitical plans,” he said, according to an English-language transcript of his Kremlin speech. “They are of no use – simply no use – to a strong and sovereign Russia, and they will not forgive us for our independent policies or for defending our national interests.”
Putin has insisted he had to invade Ukraine to “de-nazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine, but he also fears the Western sphere of influence is getting closer to Russia’s borders.
Wednesday’s event was heralded by the Kremlin as a discussion between Putin and regional leaders over “socio-economic support.” However, it was a brief portion of Putin’s comments from his introduction that caught the attention of social media users, with millions who watched a short clip in which Putin pointed a biting finger at Russians who have become rich during his tenure but are now leaving the country as it becomes an international pariah.
“I condemn in the least those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera, who cannot live without foie gras, oysters or ‘gender freedom’ as they call it. That’s not the problem, not at all,” Putin said, referring to the high standard of living Russians have enjoyed since he stabilized the economy after a chaotic period of unfettered capitalism in the 1990s.
He also tapped into longstanding Russian feelings of inferiority to the West, reminding supposedly disloyal critics of his Ukrainian campaign that they would never be admitted to “the superior caste, the superior race” of Western society. The West, he suggested, sees Russians not as equals, but as “consumables” to be exploited.
The speech left Lautman, the Ukraine expert, stunned. “Everyone will soon be fifth columnist if Putin gets furious,” she told Yahoo News in a text message. “There will be a purge of its agencies, military and ordinary citizens. It really was such a dark speech.”
