Putin

An interesting story in today’s papers: ‘Russia’s last politically independent TV station will be forced to close at the end of this month after the state-owned company that transmits its signal said it would be taken off the air.’ This comes at the same time, as our cover story last week showed, as Putin’s propaganda station in London – Russia Today – has increased its operations and profile within the UK. Unlike the Kremlin, I am generally in favour of as diverse a media as possible.

Since the Russian invasion of Crimea last February, many different phrases have been used to describe the tactics of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Some have spoken of a ‘new Cold War’. Others have described him as ‘anti-western’ or ‘anti-American’. But there is another adjective one could also use to describe his behaviour: ‘experimental’. For apart from everything else he has said and done, Putin has, in effect, launched a vast experiment into whether it is possible to extract a large and relatively well-integrated country from the global mainstream, and to reject the rules by which that mainstream runs. In truth, the experiment began long before Crimea.

Has the West found a secret new weapon in its battle with Putin’s expansionist ambitions: reversible gas pipelines? Putin has never made a secret of his willingness to use energy as bludgeon against his neighbours. In 1999, the year before he became Russian leader, he wrote a pamphlet making the case that energy exports provided the means by which his country’s greatness could be restored. Putin’s behaviour over Ukraine has been typical. Over the past 15 years Russia has constructed a network of pipelines which can be used to bypass Ukraine. Starve Ukraine of energy, goes Putin’s thinking, and it might be forced back into Russia’s fold.

An official end to the Cold War was declared at a summit between President George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev on a Soviet cruise ship moored at Malta on 2 December 1989. It is only a matter of time before western governments will have to admit that it has recommenced. While the rhetoric against Islamic State has been at full volume for the past few months, a soft and diminishing response has greeted Vladimir Putin’s escalating aggression. It is as if, Crimea having been ceded, western governments want their citizens to think that the rest of Ukraine is settling down into a mere domestic disagreement. The truth is very different: Putin’s ambitions have not retreated an inch since March.

The most sobering column you’ll read today is the FT’s Gideon Rachman, no doom monger, warning about the risk of a nuclear war. Rachman is concerned about how quick Vladimir Putin’s Russia now is to rattle the nuclear sabre. Now, as Rachman points out, part of the reason that Russia does this is to make the West think that it might just use these weapons. But the worry is that Putin might miscalculate. For instance, if the Russians did in one of the Nato member Baltic states what it has done in Ukraine, the situation could get out of hand very quickly. What makes this more alarming is the possibility of another global economic crisis.

In simple entertainment terms Citizenfour isn’t as interesting as watching paint dry. It is more like watching someone else watching paint dry. People with opinions on Edward Snowden tend to divide into those who think he’s one of the biggest heroes of all time and those who think he’s at least one of the worst patsies or traitors of all time. Either way it’s hard to imagine why either party would want to watch two hours of footage of him typing on a keyboard. And then typing some more. While the camera focuses on him from the other side of the keyboard. For a very long time. Neither is it obvious why we should wish to watch footage of him staring out of a window. Or gelling his hair.

Anchorage, Alaska You don’t mean a thing if your state’s not a swing, goes the saying in American elections. But if it is a swing, then a whirlwind of money, consultants and campaigners will be sent your way. Alaska has been invaded these last few weeks; armies of activists sent to knock on doors in what looks to be a failed attempt to keep control of the senate. Across the nation, victory went to the Republicans, but with a hitch: their victory depended on Barack Obama. The president’s approval ratings are now down to those last seen by George W Bush. The Republicans won by denouncing Obama, and turning the mid-term elections into a referendum on his presidency.

Putin, at least 12-foot-high, glowers from the wall of a gym where men are training to wrestle. He is at the centre of an unnerving triptych. On his left is the image of Akhmad Kadyrov, the former President of the Chechen Republic who was assassinated by Islamists in 2004. To his right is Akhmad’s son, Ramzan Kadyrov, now Chechnya’s president, and instigator of a personality cult that manifests itself in everything from Instagram posts of chasing ostriches to dancing with Gérard Depardieu. [caption id="attachment_8902652" align="aligncenter" width="520"] Republic of Chechnya, 2013. Wrestling training in the central gym.

In the latest Spectator, Liam Halligan takes a sobering look at European markets bearing the brunt of sanctions against Russia. 'The western economy that’s suffered most, by far, is the largest one in the eurozone. Germany’s manufacturing thoroughbreds have sunk tens of billions of euros into Russian production facilities in recent years. . . . 'This helps explain why, having grown 0.8 per cent during the first three months of 2014, German GDP shrank 0.2 per cent in the second quarter. The eurozone’s powerhouse is now on the brink of recession. Industrial production dropped 4 per cent in August, the biggest monthly fall since early 2009. Exports were down 5.8 per cent — again, the steepest drop since the Lehman collapse in 2008.

Alex Salmond was criticised in the spring for endorsing certain admirable qualities in Vladimir Putin. Salmond told GQ magazine that Mr. Putin had ‘restored a substantial part of Russian pride and that must be a good thing.’ He was quick afterwards to lament that Russia's record on human rights needed improvement and to express solidarity with Ukraine, but as time goes on the parallels between Salmond and Putin seem to go deeper. Both bank on presiding over economies that are currently cash-rich from oil and gas – resources whose future may be shaky in the long term. And they both argue that Western military action in Syria or Iraq is wrong without the sanction of the UN Security Council.