Politics

Putin Makes the Russians Live in the Past and Futureless-ness at the Same Time.

Putin is a hostage of past ideas that have outlived their validity in most parts of the world. However, Russians are still buying them. Unless they stop buying what Putin promotes and move on to a new discourse, he won’t go out of business.

Photo: Reuters/Kacper Pempel

Putin has been over and underestimated simultaneously by the world as well as Russians during the entire course of his political career. Though from time to time, he has managed to genuinely baffle world leaders by dint of deliberately-created jumbled diplomatic moves, he was and still remains largely predictable as his moves have always been repetitive. They are carefully calculated maneuvers with awareness of the cost of actions. He repeats them because they have worked for him, and the worst part is the world still often miscalculates his repetitious acts.

This affliction of his, through misinformation and deceit, on the world has been operative ever since he entered the political scene in Russia. He never moved into the new century with the rest of the world and still manages to control Russians through the same old virtual reality lens. I do not…