The Munich speech did not work out

Putin spoke at Valdai in the familiar yard logic: my yard controls the neighboring yard, and there is nothing to climb there

The Valdai Forum 2017 was marked by the strange name “Creative Destruction: Will a New World Order Arise from Conflicts?”, possibly referring to the post-war agenda of 1945, although the destruction was neither then nor now “creative”, old Schumpeter (Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, the author of the term "creative destruction" - NT) had something completely different in mind. Everyone was waiting for Vladimir Putin to announce the start of his presidential campaign, so attention to his participation in the forum was especially nervous this time. But this has long been known: if something is very, very expected from Putin, he will not do it under any weather. In addition, this kind of news against the background of the entry into the presidential campaign of Ksenia Sobchak, who is rumored to be almost the goddaughters of the current head of state, would have a completely grotesque carnival connotation. Putin has nowhere to hurry - you never know if he still has Valdai-like events ahead of him ...

The President was relaxed and mobilized at the same time, although he had a slight cold. He joked a lot and, to his credit, successfully joked, as usual he got angry, restraining his anger towards “our partners”. Fyodor Lukyanov heroically moderated the Direct Line format that was de facto blossoming before our eyes and also tried to joke on the verge of a foul: the boss is allowed to do this, but it is not always easy to find the right tone in the course of the play - such as not to offend the first person.

Foreign experts of a wide profile, magnetized by Putin's charisma and his own recruiting talents, went about their business as usual - they formulated questions as streamlined as possible and, to be honest, sycophantically. An attempt by former Bill Clinton adviser Toby Gati to reinvigorate this action failed: Putin was clearly offended by the question of whether he was too active in reinforcing ridiculous stereotypes about the West. And Ms. Gati’s simple idea that it is precisely the institutions of American democracy that are holding Trump back and that in America the president, by definition, cannot behave in the same way as the owner of the Russian land, was not understood at all by Putin, who at least twice defended the extremely respected head the American state from being disrespected.

In general, the Munich speech did not work out. The event - the announcement of the presidency - did not take place. The mysterious "creative destruction" has not been put to rest.

A continuous routine in the familiar yard logic: my yard controls the neighboring yard, and there is nothing to go there. That is, it was said almost openly: Ukraine is a zone of our influence, and not yours, they themselves asked for the annexation of Crimea. As for the Minsk process, the ball remains on your side, as it was.

And, I must say, the background for such statements was favorable: the tongues of the nascent flames of the new semi-Maidan, the monument to Petliura in Vinnitsa ... And now Putin comes out in the clothes of a defender, and the only one of the world's statesmen, insulted the memory of Jews: pogromist Petliura, immortalized after Bandera - the best food for mockery of the results of the permanent Ukrainian revolution and the truth is not found.

Well, of course, in the speech and in response to questions, the following sounded: “to please the elder brother from Washington”, “to impose someone else’s development model through coups controlled from the outside, or even simply directly by force of arms”, “the struggle for a place in the world hierarchy ”, “we know this for sure” and other clichés of Soviet international journalism with more modern accusations of “exporting democracy”. And some inconsistency: in protecting Margarita Simonyan from being recognized as a foreign agent in the United States, Putin is rigidly ready to take “mirror measures”, and he is less worried about the strengthening of NATO groups in the Baltics and Poland: “Let them train.” It’s easy to say that after the Zapad-2017 exercises – NATO also says that they are not afraid of the training of Putin’s soldiers, but they are still noticeably nervous.

Putin's speech at the Valdai Forum showed that almost digitized Russia has no foreign policy strategy, only a reactive policy and combing invented grievances

However, the most precious thing is Crimea, and the justification for its incorporation based on accusations by the West of double standards. One example of the manifestation of such standards is Catalonia, in which Putin directly tied the situation in his speech to the Kosovo precedent with an obvious allusion to Crimea. In the sense why Kosovo could be recognized as a self-determined state, and Catalonia suddenly cannot. There is no logical connection. The multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Yugoslavia, disintegrating in wars, does not resemble Spain in any way.

The comparison of Catalonia with Crimea remained unfinished: “Let me remind you that when Crimea, for example, also declared its independence, and then as a result of a referendum on joining Russia, for some reason it didn’t like it. And now, here you are, Catalonia. What can be answered here? There are Catalans in Catalonia who speak the Catalan language and are not at all going to ask Emmanuel Macron and his polite people to join France on the grounds that Catalan is closer to the Provençal language than to Spanish. They want independence. The inhabitants of Crimea did not want independence at all - they voted (in the same referendum of very dubious legitimacy as the Catalan one - and this is the only similarity) for joining Russia in accordance with the insistent proposal received from Moscow. But Paris does not invite Barcelona to join the "holiday that is always with you." These are completely different incidents - Kosovo, Crimea, Catalonia. With the Kurds, whom Putin also mentioned in this connection, in general, everything is much more complicated.

But not a single muscle twitched on the faces of the Valdai experts who listened to these comparisons, none of them nervously straightened the tie knot, none of them stirred the desire to ask a clarifying question. And only Afghan President Hamid Karzai, like Berlaga from the Golden Calf, explained something vaguely about his position on Crimea, although he was asked about his recipe for resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

In general, "they are trying to return us to the 1950s", as well as "squeeze us out of the energy markets." But we will probably not give anything by "creatively destroying" it beforehand. In addition, “digitization” will save us. Approximately the same as the Soviet Union saved scientific and technological progress (NTP). Saved until the USSR collapsed.

Putin's speech at the Valdai Forum showed that almost digitized Russia has no foreign policy strategy, only a reactive policy and combing out invented grievances. This impotence became all the more evident as the Direct Line on foreign policy this time received more coverage than ever, and expectations were higher than ever.

The bottom line is the paradoxical conclusion made by Putin in his report: if there were no competition with the USSR, the West would not see its achievements: “Many Western achievements of the 20th century were the answer to the challenge from the USSR. I mean raising the standard of living, forming a powerful middle class, reforming the labor market and the social sphere, developing education, guaranteeing human rights.” Where would they be without us?

So now. As Fyodor Lukyanov, who moderated the meeting, said: “The Valdai Club can hardly imagine how we will sit if you make a different decision (in the sense of not running for president. - A.K.) ... The one who will miss us more than us, - this is the world community... You are the pole, the pole of evil, probably, which consolidates, which mobilizes. How will they manage without you?

Indeed, how will the world community survive without Putin?

And how are we without him ...

We will miss you very much - like the wife from the anecdote told by Putin himself about the ruined oligarch.

* The author is a regular NT columnist and program director at the Carnegie Moscow Center.