Where Putin is coming from:

This is written in response to Chris Snow’s excellent article on present day Russia, which we have corresponded on.

Chris — there’s no doubt that your and Peter Zeihan’s estimate of young men leaving Russia is accurate. I know quite a few of them personally. They are people I worked with and unfortunately from Russia’s viewpoint, they are among the best and the brightest.

Where I do disagree is in relation to your assertion that Putin is evil or that his regime is evil. He has certainly perpetrated evil deeds but so have numerous other countries. What I think many western people need to understand is where Putin is coming from. Let’s look at his background — he was born in St Petersburg, to a father who was wounded defending that city during WW2. It is estimated that the population of St Pete before the war was around four million. After three years of a siege, the population stood at 600,000. Now, imagine the effect of that on Putin’s father and imagine what he told his son and how he was influenced as a young boy.

Russia lost thirty million people in WW2, twice more than all other nations combined, and they weren’t the aggressors. Having lived in Russia for many years, every single person I know there has some family connection to someone who was killed; everyone also has a connection to someone who fought in that war. Imagine the effect and influence of that statistic on a country’s racial memory? Imagine if every single person in the USA knew someone personally who was killed in 9/11? Think about it — the entire nation would be paranoid. This horrendous and catastrophic event was visited on Russia by whom? By a western nation that is situated not far from their border and is now supplying tanks to Ukraine. Germany is the west — Russians don’t distinguish one nation from the other. You could say in some respects they’ve forgiven Germany but it’s a paper thin forgiveness and they will never forget.

Now, let’s take this a stage further: Part of the problem is that many westerners either don’t know or don’t want to know where Russia is coming from. Of course Putin controls the media and perpetrates a false rhetoric but it gains traction with ordinary Russian people because they think that what Russia does is merely try to protect itself. But Russia is a superpower you say or at least it was even if it has slipped back somewhat from the days of the Soviet Union. But remember, throughout its history, Russia has been invaded time and time again. Most people will be familiar with the two main attempts at conquest, those by Hitler’s Third Reich between 1941 and 1945 and Napoleon’s ill fated attempt in the early 1800’s. But it is much worse than that — the Tatars from the east were here, the Turks from the south; Sweden invaded in the seventeenth century & the Austro Hungarian empire also tried to take a slice. Even Poland invaded when it was strong in the 1700’s and conquered large tracts of Russia and Ukraine. So, you can see how easy it is to convince Russians that the west is just waiting to conquer once again.

Even during Yeltsin’s time as President, large multi-nationals attempted to gain control of much of Russia’s mineral wealth. NATO’s eastward expansion also causes huge tension. I have said numerous times that Russia should look westward and even try to join the EU, but it is difficult to convince people to ally with those who most recently tried to conquer them and whom they defeated at great personal cost while they also still harbour longings of a return to super power status.

My other reason for asserting that Putin is neither mad nor evil is because I know people who know him and they claim he is highly intelligent and sophisticated. I have never met him but I have met people who are close to him. They claim that he did an enormous amount of good during his first two terms in developing the economy, recovering much of the state’s wealth and restoring Russia’s place on the world stage. They furthermore claim that his overtures to the west in terms of cooperation and proposed nuclear disarmament have been rejected time and again by the hawks in NATO. I don’t know is this is true but it does sound plausible.

It is probably a moot point at this stage because Putin has taken the ultimate gamble and gone for broke and it doesn’t look like ending well. Who knows though? None of my friends who have left the country believe a single word that Putin or any of his regime says any more; they are embarrassed and horrified at what has been done in their name. But unfortunately some of my older colleagues who still live in Russia are sticking with the regime. You see 1945 is not that long ago. Mao Tse Tung would say that 1812 isn’t either and both are still very much ingrained into Russian’s racial memory.