The Kremlin is relying not on “storm and attack”, but on “gradual squeezing out”
Turn Vladimir Putin in the third year of the Northern Military District into a defender and conductor of a moderate line in relations between Russia and the West — this is, to put it mildly, not a completely trivial task. But the main organizer of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum — the same Kremlin — succeeded brilliantly. To the sound of imaginary fanfare, Sergei Karaganov, the patriarch of Russian political science thought in the field of foreign policy and a man who in recent years, at every convenient and inconvenient occasion, repeats that Russia needs to make an urgent run upward, was brought onto the stage as the moderator of the main session of the forum with the participation of GDP along the “nuclear escalation ladder.”
Vladimir Putin has always been an amateur and master of jokes on the verge of a foul. But the current St. Petersburg forum has broken all records in this regard. And no wonder: this time VVP was not the soloist; he had a surprisingly organic junior partner in the person of Sergei Karaganov — the owner of a professorial appearance and professorial manners, and at the same time such talents in the field of political show business that even the now deceased himself could envy Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky. Jokes, jokes and jokes began to pour in as if from a cornucopia long before the time had come to discuss the main question — how Russia was going to respond to the West, which had just officially allowed Ukraine to use its weapons to attack the “old” territory of the Russian Federation.
Putin to Karaganov: “Did you take a nap a little? As people say, they grunted.” Again Putin to Karaganov (in response to the latter’s remark about the rooster that the government pecked and only after that it began to work): “Send the rooster to court. He doesn’t do anything, he doesn’t trample chickens.” Karaganov to Putin: “The ideal economic model for Russia is authoritarian social capitalism.” And when it came to “our response to Chamberlain” (oh, sorry, Chamberlain was about a hundred years ago, now collective Biden, collective Zelensky and others like them are playing this role of the villain threatening our country) zoological allusions acquired a dizzying scope . Trying to justify the need to preventively disable a couple of Western states, dear Sergei Alexandrovich told the respectable public that he was a hunter and knew exactly the best way to communicate with a pack of aggressive hyenas: they should not be “scared off with a stick,” but immediately eliminated.
Here Karaganov apparently remembered (apparently because it could have been a “homemade preparation”) that on the stage with him, Putin and the President of Bolivia was also the head of a foreign state, in whose possessions hyenas abound — the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa. But an attempt to enlist his support on the issue of “the correct method of dealing with hyenas” (that is, Western countries) ended in failure. The President of Zimbabwe either did not understand the question very well, or, on the contrary, understood it too well. Fellow presidents, Karaganov and other participants in the St. Petersburg forum were informed that hyenas in his country live mainly in national parks and actively breed there — so actively that he, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is even ready to give a couple to everyone (okay, not everyone).
I won’t even dare to retell what happened next during the extravaganza. I will only mention that the forum presenter referred to the experience of Sodom and Gomorrah (very timely, one Deputy Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation introduced the wording “gay nationalism” into our political circulation) and even mentioned that even he himself supposedly expects Russia to move up the ladder of nuclear escalation God. They had a blast, in short, they had a blast at the St. Petersburg forum. But all this annealing was nothing more than a political-stylistic device, an external entourage that allowed Putin to “package” and send extremely important political signals.
Here is the main content of these signals. Karaganov’s throw-in (no longer at all humorous): “This war will not be able to be stopped without moving up the ladder of nuclear escalation.” Putin's answer: «We don't rattle nuclear weapons.» According to VVP, Russia can only use nuclear weapons “in exceptional cases.” And here are the most, most important words of the President of the Russian Federation: “I do not believe that such an exceptional case has occurred.” Another challenge from Karaganov: “Is it possible to increase the speed of solving problems” of the SVO? Putin’s answer: “It’s possible. But such an increase in speed will cause a directly proportional increase in the number of losses.” The owner of the Kremlin believes that Russia under no circumstances needs this. Moscow is completely satisfied with the fact that “we are gradually squeezing the enemy out of Donbass.”
Casting Karaganov (“a terrible man,” as VVP characterized him in a few minutes): isn’t it time for Russia to announce a new mobilization? Putin's answer: it's not time. During the mobilization of the fall of 2022, about 300 thousand people were called up for military service. And over the past year, without any mobilization, over 300 thousand people came to Russian military registration and enlistment offices. Karaganov's cast: isn't it time to introduce a mandatory state ideology in Russia? Putin's answer: it's not time. Karaganov's abandonment: isn't it time for Russia to radically reconsider its migration policy? Putin's answer: it's about time. Hooray! At least they agreed on something! And how nice it is that this “point of solidarity” does not entail a movement towards the use of nuclear weapons!
“When we see what the Russian character is, what the character of a Russian citizen is, we understand this and rely on this, we do not need any nuclear weapons for final victory” — these words of Vladimir are not with any other forum host Putin would not have sounded so organically. Bravo, bravo to Sergei Karaganov! He played his role 100%!
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