During the direct line with citizens and the press conference with journalists, the head of the Kremlin showed that he feels untouchable. Questions and answers from his end-of-year theater
Vladimir Putin spoke at length from inside the Gostiny dvor in Moscow. No effort, he combined two rituals together: the direct line with citizens and the end-of-year press conference with the Russian and international press. The December shows are a thermometer to evaluate how the head of the Kremlin feels, his obsessions, the perception of his power. Putin feels good. The hotline and the press conference are a theater of smiles and thanks, but there is always a calculated risk, such as the decision to invite international journalists. The questions of the BBC and NBC correspondents, the only ones who did not thank or praise Putin, were deflected with false cordiality.
NBC’s question was direct and frank: how do you plan to negotiate with Trump in this position of weakness? His special military operation objectives are reduced, he had to abandon Syria, his generals are killed in Moscow, he is weak, what will he offer Trump? Putin smiled, telling the journalist that the West really likes to imagine that Russia is in a state of weakness, but it is not weak at all and he, Putin, is ready to talk to Trump and remains faithful to what were the proposals of peace of 2022: Ukraine demilitarized, annexation of occupied territories. “When everything is quiet we get bored,” the Kremlin chief said, laughing at the aggression his country shows to the whole world. In the soft ring that his spokesman Peskov had built around him, there was also space to show another question from a journalist from a Western media and Steve Rosenberg of the BBC asked Putin, in Russian, if he believes he having lived up to the invitation that Boris Yeltsin had addressed to him to take care of Russia. The head of the Kremlin said yes, he presented himself as the guarantor of Russian stability, he built his career, his consensus and his wars on the idea of the only president capable of understanding what is best for the Russians. The presence of the two journalists gave Moscow the opportunity to show itself open to Westerners, Putin also asked them to think of other questions, if they had any. The game for the self-confident president continued, touching on topics ranging from the opening of cinemas in the Arctic to the Russian economy which was described as continuously growing, without any mention of the Central Bank’s decision to further raise interest rates interest.
The question that opened the end-of-year theater was about the Kursk region, invaded by the Ukrainians in August, without there being a response from Moscow. Only in the autumn did Russian soldiers aided by the North Koreans try to counter the Ukrainian advance and Putin said that the operation was proceeding quickly, the region is full of destroyed Kyiv armored vehicles and no one needs to worry about reconstruction. He also brought with him and showed it the flag given to him by the soldiers of the 155th Marine Brigade. He asked two journalists to unfurl the banner and holding it behind him said that at the front everything is going as planned, the losses for the Ukrainians are irreparable and the Moscow army is close to completing its primary objectives. Putin spoke as if he sensed the Trumpian air, as if he was confident in the great change in the White House: he sees everything to his advantage and even Trump’s unpredictability does not seem to disturb the Russian president. The Trumpian air seems to make him feel calm, he also says with confidence that in Syria everything ultimately went as expected: Moscow did not intervene in Assad’s defense because its assets are busy elsewhere, but it will manage to maintain the Syrian bases with an agreement with the rebels. The images arriving from Syria in recent days told of a retreat of Moscow’s men greeted by the rebels, Putin instead is confident of being able to find something in common, some bargaining chips. He admitted that he had not spoken to Assad since his escape, but in fact during his show he made it clear that he is now ready to change alliances, the defeated regime is a thing of the past.
Putin said that if he had the opportunity to have tea with a past leader, he would call Berlusconi, Chirac and Kohl. They went, they retained power for a limited time, as happens in democracies. His certainty is that he will keep power as long as he wants and not even a disastrous war will take it away from him.
