July 11, 2019, 00:48 / Opinions

What you won’t do out of respect for the people

Out of respect for the Georgians, Vladimir Putin would not impose sanctions - but this does not apply to the Russians

Kirill Kharatyan As for various kinds of sanctions against Georgia, I would not do this out of respect for the Georgian people.

Vladimir Putin President of Russia

A minor quibble, but still: President Putin says that he would not have imposed sanctions against Georgia, but he did! Direct flights to and from there are prohibited, and what are these if not sanctions? It became inconvenient, as always happens with sanctions, but a way around it was found - as it always is.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about, but about respect. To the Georgian people - for an unknown reason, President Putin did not explain in any way - it exists. And to the peoples of America, Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Australia, etc., it turns out, no? The presidential rhetoric is this: out of respect, Georgians will not be prohibited (as was discussed in the State Duma) from selling their main agricultural product, wine, to Russia, while European main agricultural products have been banned for almost five years. Not wine (apparently, the prohibitors themselves doubted that they would last long without European wine), but cheese, but apples, but meat, etc.

Perhaps Vladimir Putin’s respect was also mixed with generous pity: Georgians are still significantly poorer than citizens of EU countries?

Counter-sanctions that deprived Europeans of the opportunity to sell food to Russia... well, that is, they deprived them - if anyone wants Parmesan with Polish apples or French beef, all this can be bought, and not even very expensive, without going to Italy or Poland and not to France. Yes, so, counter-sanctions, it seems to me, are a manifestation of disrespect not only for European or overseas partners, but also for one’s own people. Official joy from progress in Russian agriculture - hurray, import substitution has happened! – does not cancel the official statement that counter-sanctions have caused food prices to rise. In other words: food would not become so expensive if it could continue to be bought abroad.

The same, of course, applies to the already existing ban (sanctions) on flights to Georgia. It is clear that Georgians will suffer from it - but where is the respect for the Russian people? Only he got into the habit of going on vacation to a relatively cheap and hospitable country!

It is a banal idea that, first of all, Russian citizens will certainly suffer in one way or another from President Putin’s foreign policy or foreign economic actions. Somehow, moans about the poor state of the people no longer touch us. Noble words about undeveloped institutions, public passivity and a corrupt bureaucracy fly by unnoticed. Everything is so, everything is so, everything is without respect for the common man.

And in reverse, apparently, ordinary Russian people have less and less respect for the authorities. They don't feed him much; getting water is something Russians have been able to do for a long time without the authorities; entertain? Foreign policy with the annexation of Crimea, the irritation of Ukraine, the calibration of Syria and the endless squabbles with America has somehow ceased to entertain, it seems, and the authorities are not telling new, equally incendiary stories, and thank God: it turns out to be expensive both literally and figuratively.

Including, probably, it seemed expensive to compete with Georgia; now Kommersant writes that air traffic has stopped for a short time, and its resumption is being discussed.

One cannot count on an epiphany from the authorities, much less personal changes within it. Maybe there will be at least minimal respect for our own citizens.

We could raise the tax, but out of respect for the Russians, the president will say, we won’t. Or: we could bury such and such an area under garbage, but out of respect for the people, we won’t bury it.