"We can finish this"

The tenth president’s press conference was shorter than usual, for about an hour-3 hours 10 minutes. The New Times chose the four most important topics in it and asked experts to transfer Putin to a public.

This time, Putin was late for the public for only a few minutes, he looked tired - it was especially clearly visible on two large screens placed on both sides of the stage. A short introductory speech, which had little clarifying the Kremlin’s plans for the exit from the crisis (the president generally mentioned this word only once), ended with the phrase “we can finish on this”. They laughed in the hall, although perhaps they did not understand, and Putin spoke about something else, his own.

Exit without exit

Sergey Shelin, The New Times Economic Observer:

Putin hopes to go through the crisis, retaining Putinomics. The program that consists of his statements consists of illusions, defaults, false hopes and micronsion.

The latest numbers that he have reproduced belong to October. The results of November just summed up with a 1.2 % industrial index, an increase in unemployment to 5.2 % and other signs of a decline, were not even mentioned. Not to mention the scale of the collapse of the ruble in December and an inflation lift up to 10 % in annual calculus.

Probably, this is the inevitable evil that Putin decided to close his eyes to and recommends the people and subjects of the economy to do the same, calmly waiting for the measures that we used, and successfully, in 2008. ” Namely: the expenditure of state reserve on the support of the state -owned business, and if possible, ordinary people. There are no plans to suspend even the rapid growth of military expenses: “The resources that we needed to fulfill not only social obligations, but also in the development of the defense sphere, we have everything, they are all provided with us.” You should just wait out, as the head of Russia predicts, two crisis years, after which the economy in some inexplicably “adapt to the conditions of low energy prices” (Putin said that he was ready to withstand $ 60, and even $ 40 per barrel), or oil prices will be formed and returned to the previous covert heights. Here you have the whole program. It is completely utopian, at least for three reasons.

Firstly, international reserves now amount to less than $ 415 billion against $ 598 billion on the eve of the 2008 crisis.

Secondly, external debts, and basically these are the debts of Putinomics that have fallen under the sanctions of pillars, reach almost $ 700 billion and should be paid according to their schedules without the hope that they can be reached. Last crisis, from October 2008 to October 2009, debts decreased by only $ 67 billion (from $ 541 billion to $ 474 billion). And now annually you will have to return $ 100-150 billion.

Thirdly, the words about two difficult years are clearly inspired by memories of 2009-2010, after which the oil price jumped to $ 110. But this time there are many more difficult years ahead, since the cost of the energy of energy is caused by fundamental factors that Putin mistakenly perceives as the machinations of enemies. The reduced reserves are obviously not enough to draw this long crisis.

The 40-dollar oil, the possibility of which Putin allows, would mean reducing the cost of Russian exports at least twice-somewhere up to $ 250 billion. From this revenue, it will be necessary to finance the payment of external debts, the evacuation of capital and the shortage of trading services. After that, only $ 50–70 billion will remain to cover imports. This is a return to the level of the 1990s-a reduction in the import of foreign goods once every five against today's.

As for the business, Putin addressed him three ideas, each of which prevents normal economic growth.

The first idea. An indicative action to withdraw property - Bashneft’s selecting from Vladimir Yevtushenkov is the right thing, and Yevtushenkov should be morally consoled by an invitation to Putin’s New Year’s conversation with businessmen.

The second. The head of Russia is satisfied with Rosneft, and especially personally by Igor Sechin, along with his ultra -high income, the size of which he fundamentally “does not know”. That is, super -monopolies that plunged the country into a crisis, not only are not subject to dismantling, but on the contrary, they are taken under protection.

And the third. The offshore amnesty is promised to extend to fracture firms in Russia itself. In practice, this will be the legalization of not so much shadow business in general as a business of corrupt bureaucracy, strengthening this layer in its confrontation of any change.

Traitors of the homeland

At the press conference, the theme of the Fifth Column was developed. It turned out that the president sees a difficult line between the opposition and the betrayal. The opposition should fully fight for the interests of the Motherland. But the “fifth column” are those people who perform what is dictated by the interests of another state, ”the president explained intelligibly.

Political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin is sure: Putin simply tried to cover up his awkwardness with the introduction into circulation of this term. “The most important thing follows from the words of the president - he himself will determine the line between the opposition and the“ fifth column ”, and people with a cold head and a hot heart will help him in this,” Oreshkin summarizes.

But Dmitry Orlov, the general director of the agency of political and economic communications close to the Kremlin, believes differently: "The president narrowed his own understanding that there is a" fifth column " - before espionage and betrayal to the Motherland." At the same time, Orlov is sure: articles for espionage and stateisms will not now be widely used against the opposition.

The decision on the Donbass

One of the most acute questions was asked by the journalist of the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN Roman Tsimbalyuk - he asked how Putin sent Russian military and techniques to the Donbass and how many Russian soldiers had already died in Ukrainian territory? "As the Supreme Commander -in -Chief, what would you tell the families of the dead Russian officers and soldiers?"

The president calmly listened to the Ukrainian journalist, but dodged the answer to the direct questions, preferring to talk about the actions of the Kyiv authorities and about the political options for leaving the crisis as the only possible. But before, the general political space should be “restored,” the president said, showing good awareness in the details of the candytte: “The militia allowed them (Ukrainian military) to rot at the airport of their military personnel, they brought them to the bathhouse, they send food to them.”

So does Putin have a decision on the Donbass? According to Pavel Baev, a professor at the Institute for Research of Peace Problems in Oslo (Norway), Putin realized that "it was extremely expensive and pointless to control this stump of Donbass, and he is not ready to expand this territory by military means." The President, emphasizes Baev, has never used the term “Novorossiya”, which “actually means a rejection of a big and pure dream”.

Military expert Alexander Golts is ready to argue with him, who believes that the words about the “general political space” that should be formed in Ukraine is simply hypocrisy. “The conflict in the Donbass will be frozen, the region is waiting for the fate of unrecognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” Golts is convinced. In his opinion, Russia now, due to the threat of new sanctions, does not have the opportunity to fight, as it was in August, when the “self-defense forces” reached Mariupol. And the weather also interferes.

The owner of the taiga

The president again, as in the October speech in Sochi in front of the members of the Valdai Club, compared Russia with the bear, and even developed this metaphor. The bear should not relax so as not to lose their teeth and claws. “As soon as the claws and teeth are pulled out, then the bear is not needed at all. They will make a scarecrow from him, ”Putin emphasized, explaining that his teeth and claws are the forces of nuclear deterrence.

The president admitted that he sometimes thinks about how to behave. “Sometimes the thought comes to my mind: maybe our bear needs to sit calmly, not to drive pigs and out -of -the -clinks in the taiga, but to eat berries, honey. Maybe they will leave him alone. They will not leave! " - Putin believes. According to him, "as soon as God forbid, this will happen, and the bear is not needed, so they will immediately take the taiga."

Another curious passage is about the distribution of natural wealth: “After all, we heard almost from officials (in the west) many times that it was unfair that Siberia with its immeasurable wealth all belongs to Russia. How is it unfair? Is it fair to patch up from Mexico Texas? "

According to political scientist Fedor Lukyanov, the editor -in -chief of the journal Russia in Global Policy, in the form of a bear there are no threatening signals to the world community: “This is a rhetorical technique. The president wanted to say: the bear is a specific animal, and it’s better not to touch it at all. ”

However, Pavel Baev is of a different opinion: “This is the current self -awareness of Putin, which implicitly broke out: it seems to be the master of the taiga, and you go from all sides, like a bear in the den.”

Answering the question that for “almost officials” in the West they repeatedly indicated the injustice of the fact that Siberia with all its wealth belongs to one Russia, Pavel Baev immediately recalled: “Madeline Olbraita is attributed to the quasi-to-civilian about Siberia. For the first time, the quote appeared during the direct line with Putin in 2007: a simple Russian worker-mechanical worker from Novosibirsk was then referred to it. ” True, no serious reference confirming that the former-State Secretary really pronounced such a phrase, no one could find anywhere: “Most likely, we are talking about elementary propaganda falsification. But she apparently sunk into Putin in the soul. ”