Putin and His New Year’s Resolutions

Putin has embraced rabid nationalism, expansionism and corruption.

He has a list of scapegoats for Russia's problems as Putin is apparently powerless to do anything constructive for the country or the Russian people.

He is going back to Russia's history of being led by paranoid, violent despots that see plots and schemes in every face when no plot or scheme is as Machiavellian as that which emanates from his own KGB-fouled mind.

Even within the country, the richest and most powerful people can find their fortunes stolen, their freedom taken and their lives forfeited in the blink of an eye as their is no true rule of law or due process.

Unlike China, that has embraced economic reforms and anti-corruption measures to raise the standards of living for her people, Russia has done precisely the opposite.

The contrast in their economic performance and global stature is stunning.

I suspect there is very little hope for change in the country as long as Putin remains in power.

The corrupt fiefdom he is running will only benefit his coterie of loyalists for as long as they remain in favor.

Meanwhile, as Putin lives in luxury the Russian people are exhorted to suffer and content themselves with nationalism, faded dreams and excuses for their suffering shifted to everyone but the true cause.

I think some Russians are feeling very uncomfortable - guilty - with the truth that they have allowed this to happen. It's a downward spiral of Russian denial and anger at outsiders who they believe are judging them as being stupid. Playing right into Putin hands.

Check out recent articles in New Yorker about Russia and the Putin regime.

Putin is a tyrant consolidating his power. He has not finished yet, nor finished his empire's expansion.

Everything in your article is consistent with what I've been reading, ranging from BBC to KyivPost to Pravda (english) and points in-between. It's terrifying to grasp the huge difference between the stories the west tells itself (stories assuming the desirability of fair play and representation in an imperfect world, even though the West has it's failings) and the imperial stories that Putin seems to be embracing. When the real world pokes in (oil prices, the Ukrainians foolishly rejecting Putin's wise guidance, , etc.) it's all conspiracy and denial. It's an old joke: if you meet me halfway I'll meet you more than halfway, which means there is no dialogue, no shared assumptions, no communication. If your story is a story from older times, Putin dreaming of power and glory, then no communication probably works well. Especially if the other side thinks they are actually communicating, when they are really only telling themselves what they want to hear.

We are not such stupid as you think about us (Russians). We read your press too. And we laugh at stupid articles about us

The NGO's in Russia and other countries have been organized, funded and operated by the USA and designed as Termite Colonies to eat away at the established order in the respective sovereign states.

As Ambassador Samantha Power has stated: Under a imaginative fabricated doctrine known as the Responsibility to Protect, which is predicated on the proposition that sovereignty is a privilege, not a right, and that if any regime in any nation violates the prevailing precepts of acceptable (read subjective) governance, then the international community is morally obligated to revoke that nation’s sovereignty and assume command and control of the offending country.

The NGO vehicle is designed to create the False Flag events to effect the Doctrine.

Putin enjoys a 86% approval rating because he is a Nationalist. The Russian People, who are educated, intelligent and constantly aware of these outside directed provocateurs within their borders - who care nothing for the host country - recognize the NGO's require periodic fumigation services to destroy their nests - nothing more nothing less.

This game is not a way to build long term relationships and trust. Ms. Gessen knows that. She should think about how to more productive in international relations.

Putin asserts that everything is going to be allright

He is right.

But he meant, 'all right' for himself. With all the money he managed to 'acquire', why should he worry?

It's doubtful whether Putin will be successful in turning Russia into a post-Soviet Stalinist state. In recent years millions of Russians have been able to travel and have a taste of life outside Russia. Tens of thousands now live in the West. They do not want their country to turn its clock back!
Despite his efforts to control media and the flow of information, there will be some who will find a way to circumvent it. Putin is trying to pre-empt the Tahrir Square style of demonstrations, when popular support for him slips away.

How truly sad and threatening for Russia. The country's future looks very, very grim. Another major crisis is looming and there is nothing the Russian people do about it, as they are trapped in a terrible historical paradox of their own making.

I simply do not believe what you have written in this article.

I cannot fathom the mind of a person who lived through the second half of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, as Putin did - even in his KGB capacity, and upon attaining the pinnacle of power in Russia himself, finds no better lesson in the experience than to repeat all the same mistakes of the past. Absolute power does indeed corrupt absolutely. So very sad for Russia.

Hang in there , Masha Gessen. Don't give up the fight.

During the cold war readers in the the Western world had no news about Russia whatsoever. Except, of course, government propaganda from both the Soviet Union and the United States. We are making progress, believe or not.

I taught at the Higher School of Economics as a visiting scholar from America years ago. Students were cheerful and looked at opportunities in Russia. Now, the academic infrastructure is crumbling. Throughout Russia, academic institutions are pressured (including by mass firings) to affiliate with top universities abroad, bring in the top-most scholars, and require faculty to public in foreign journals. Scholarship has been replaced by 'write anything that can be published in another language.' Top students look to study (and stay) abroad. The hopeful vision of post-Soviet Russia is increasingly moving back to the 'they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work' attitudes. Russia, sadly enough, seems to be going the way of many dictatorships in returning to reliance on force rather than public support.

It's so cute ... But let me give you just a story for example. Last January, my friends and I were walking in the city center of Kharkov, Ukraine. Everything was quiet, Christmas tree, smiling people... And our relatives called us in a panic, because at this time the independent TV channel Дождь (Rain) transmitted false information about what is happening in Kharkov, they transmitted that in that time there was atrocities and unrest.

That's exactly what you call unjustly oppressed independent press! Funny...

Those things that is described here is a little untrue.