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Is Putin preparing a governmental purge?

This article was written for the Unz Review:http://www.unz.com/tsaker/is-putin-preparing-a-governmental-purge/

As he does once a year, last week President Putin spend over three and a half hours answering 80 questions out of the 3+ million questions which were received. The show, which was aired live on Channel One, Rossiya-1 and Rossiya-24 TV channels, and the Mayak, Vesti FM and Radio Rossii was an unprecedented success which was watched and commented upon by millions of Russians. You can read the full transcript of the show by clicking here, and the transcript of a conversation between Putin and the journalist corps following the show here.

The main Russian TV channel, Rossia-1, also aired not one, but two special talk-shows (see here andhere) solely dedicated to a discussion of Putin’s performance. These talk-shows are the famous “Evening with Vladimir Soloviev” – by far the highest visibility talk-show on Russian TV. Just for the record, Rossia-1 is the crown-jewel of the powerful and state-controlled All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) media holding. Between the call-in show with Putin (3 hours and 40 minutes), the first talk show (2 hours and 12 minutes) and the second talk show (1 hour 44 minutes) the Russian public was exposed to a stunning seven and a half hours of discussion. Some will call it “propaganda”, which can be viewed as negative or as positive, but which changes little. The main issue here is that this was a major, huge, public-communications effort. So what was the overall message which was conveyed by all this? Let me summarize it for you:

First, Putin is the unchallenged and beloved leader of all the Russian people, he is an extremely effective manager, a defender of the simple Russian people everywhere and he is the last recourse for those who have been wronged by the authorities. Let me add here that all the opposition party heads fully agreed with this. Right now, nobody in Russia dares to criticize Putin personally, not because some KGB goons are going to come in the night and drag you away to a concentration camp, not at all, but simply because bad mouthing Putin is now tantamout to political suicide. Even some members of the non-system political opposition (aka 5th columnists) are realizing this now.

Second, a lot of Russian people are hurting, badly. Not because of sanctions or the drop in the prices of gas and oil, but because of the corruption, incompetence and ideological blindness of the “economic block of the Russian government”. The economy is a mess due to corrupt governors, lazy government bureaucrats and outright sabotage by a quasi-universally hated “economic block of the government”. Sanctions (especially the denial of credits) and the fall in the price of oil do make things worse, but they are not the real problem or even a major part of the problem.

Third, the individuals responsible for this mess are regularly mentioned by name. This hatred for the “economic block of the government” is never openly encouraged by Putin himself who, when directly asked, praises the work of the government’s ministers. Everybody else, however, including all the opposition figures and even the host Vladimir Soloviev, is now openly calling not only for resignations but even for jail terms for the guilty governors and even ministers. While Medvedev himself is rarely the personal target of such denunciations, Arkadii Dvorkovich (Deputy Prime Minister), Igor Shuvalov (First Deputy Prime Minister), Alexei Uliukaev (Minister of Economic Development) and Anton Siluanov (Minister of Finance) are now “openly hated” on Russian TV.

For example, when a woman calls in to denounce the horrible condition on the main road of her city and Putin promises to take action, all the commentators agree that it is a crying shame and a disgrace that only the President is willing to listen to such concerns, while all those who are directly responsible for such matters are indifferent, are doing nothing or, even worse, corrupt to the bone. Another example: workers treated like slaves by a gang of thugs on an island of the Russian Far East have complained to the local police and prosecutors and were completely ignored. One call to the President, and the Russian Investigative Committee (roughly the equivalent of the US FBI) will now investigate not only the mobsters involved, but also the local police forces and regional prosecutor himself. As for Putin, he personally apologized to these workers in the name of the entire Russian government. By the way, it is well known in Russia that the local bureaucrats are absolutely terrified by these call-in shows with the President, as they never know who might call. What they do know is that the investigation and sanctions “from above” will be swift and merciless. As for the Russian general public – he absolutely love it.

Thoughts on the four day war of 2016 - Spring, 2016

Thoughts on the four day war of 2016 - Spring, 2016

It is said that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time-to-time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Armenia's tree of liberty was watered amply this spring. I salute those who gave their lives in the defense of our homeland with the words of Garegin Njdeh - Մահ չիմացեալ մահ է, Մահ իմացեալ՝ անմահություն: Our martyrs are now immortal and our tree of liberty has just grown a bit stronger.


Now, with that said, I would like to express additional thoughts on the four day war that took place between April o2 and April o6, 2016. I will most probably state things that will not be appreciated (or comprehended) by a vast majority of my Armenian readers. Knowing that talking to Armenians about geopolitics is like talking to a five year old child about the meaning of life (i.e. pointless), I would like to askthose of you who think that the war was a great victory for Armenia; or that this war proved that Armeniacan go it alone in the south Caucasus; or that this war proved Russians are anti-Armenian backstabbers; or that Armenia now needs to seek security guarantees from the West, to please refrain from reading the rest of this commentary and just go back to your silly little fantasy world where everything is black and white; where evil doers are punished and good people are awarded; where Armenians are an invinciblesuperpower when united; where Armenia's allies enthusiastically go out of their way to make Armenia happy all the time; and the where politics is like a street fight or a bar brawl.


What happened in Nagorno Karabakh (Arm: Artsakh) was a short but violent war that shocked the world. The global community realized that there was yet another hot spot in the world that could ignite a world war. Although confined to border areas of the yet unrecognized Armenian enclave, the clash between Armenian and Azeris troops saw the utilization of newly developed attack drones, special forces, combathelicopters, main battle tanks, heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers. About one hundred Armenianlives were lost. Armenia is a small nation. Life is therefore precious for Armenians. I hope to see theirdeaths serve a greater purpose for the motherland. Ultimately, that purpose would be the recognition ofArtskah's independence or its unification with Armenia. Not officially recognizing Artsakh's independence (or its reunification with Armenia) made political sense as long as the ceasefire was maintained between the two sides and the region avoided a war. Despite periodic ceasefire violations, Yerevan's grand plan worked for a long time. But it's not working anymore. Baku is desperate. Turkey is desperate. Western powers may be seeking to create a new hot spot on Russia's southern border. For its part, Moscow may now be ready to finally settle the festering dispute and in doing so increase its footprint in the strategic region. Yerevan needs to recognize that the status quo which worked so well for Armenia during the past twenty years is gradually coming to an end. The south Caucasus stands on the verge of a new chapter. There will be a new calculus at play. It's time for official Yerevan to formulate a new approach.

Times like this is when the quality and depth of Armenia's alliance with the Russian Bear comes to the forefront. This is why I have been calling for closer, deeper Russian-Armenian relations for over a decade.

What happened on April 02 was not or should not have been a surprise to anyone who has been observing developments in the region during the past few years. In fact, many observers were predicting this kind of an escalation by Baku. We knew Baku was violating the ceasefire all along Armenia's and Artsakh's border with Azerbaijan on a regular basis; we knew Azerbaijan was spending billions of dollars on weaponsacquisitions from around the world; we knew Baku was growing increasingly desperate as a result of falling oil prices; we knew Baku's spiritual partners in Ankara were growing increasingly belligerent; wespeculated that due to their defeat in Syria, anti-Russian interests in the region may attempt to bring problems closer to Russia's borders in the south Caucasus; there was increasing chatter that 2016 was to be the year when the dispute over Artsakh got resolved. In hindsight, Aliyev may have also been seeking to divert public attention from the so-called "Panama Papers". We therefore had been waiting for something like this to happen for some time now.

There are also subtle indicators that Baku's most recent aggression against Armenia was agreed to or even planned by not only Ankara but also by Western powers. The intent may have been to punish Yerevan for its close military ties with Russia and, as noted above, to divert Moscow's attention from Syria. After all, there had been a flurry of anti-Armenian and anti-Russian rhetoric coming out of Western capitols in recent months, and the tiny country called Armenia was being described as a threat to NATO. I personally think that the seeds of this most recent bloodletting in the south Caucasus can be found in thecontents of the following articles -