Another Manifesto

March 16, 2022

Formally, Vladimir Putin was holding a meeting on economic support measures for the Russian regions. In practice, the first half of his opening speech turned into a manifesto, which defines the contours of the political regime its domestic foreign policy. I thought it appropriate to quote verbatim the main statements of Putin, accompanying them with my comments. I have little to add so that the reader can get the answer to the question: Who is Mr. Putin?

I will explain again

Putin devoted a large part of his manifesto to explaining the reasons for Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Whether his entourage explained to him that no one in the world understood the reasons for the war; or whether he decided to convince himself of the correctness of his decision - we do not know. But we have not heard anything fundamentally new about the reasons for the war or its aims.

We are meeting at a difficult time when our Armed Forces are conducting a special military operation in Ukraine and Donbas. I remind you that at its very beginning, in the early morning hours of February 24, I publicly and openly stated the reasons and the primary purpose of Russia's actions. It is to help our people in Donbas. They have been subjected to a real genocide for almost eight years by the most barbaric methods - blockade, large-scale punitive actions, terrorist attacks, and constant artillery shelling…

Putin continues to use the thesis of the genocide of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas, although the very posing of such a question looks silly: since the fall of 2014. Donbas is under the control of separatists, whose regime is supported by Russia with weapons and money.

At the same time, the Kyiv authorities have not only ignored and sabotaged the implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures to resolve the crisis over all these years peacefully, but at the end of last year, they publicly refused to implement it at all.

I do not know who put such information on Putin's desk, but the Ukrainian authorities have not made any statements about withdrawal from the Minsk agreements. Moreover, in mid-November of last year, when Russia said that adopting a transitional period law in Ukraine would be perceived as an exit from the Minsk agreements, President Zelensky stopped considering this law.

They [the Kyiv authorities] have also begun to put their plans to join NATO into practice.

Another myth in Putin's mind. Ukraine has never submitted an official application to join NATO, and before the Russian aggression, this topic was not on the agenda of the dialogue between Ukraine and the West.

Ukraine also had a network of dozens of laboratories where military and biological programs, including experiments with samples of coronavirus, anthrax, cholera, African swine fever, and other deadly diseases, were conducted under the direction and financial support of the Pentagon. Traces of these secret programs are now being strenuously covered up. But we have every reason to believe that components of biological weapons were created in Russia’s immediate vicinity, on the territory of Ukraine.

The Kremlin has actively promoted information about biological laboratories in Ukraine for the past two weeks. However, following claims that Russian troops seized some of them, the Kremlin failed to provide any evidence for its allegations.

However, it should be noted that U.S. authorities, while acknowledging cooperation with Ukraine in this area, have not presented any documents that could refute the accusations coming from Moscow.

...all diplomatic options have been completely exhausted. We were left with no options for resolving problems that arose through no fault of our own. And so, we were forced to launch an extraordinary military operation.

It sounds more than cynical: even a day before the Russian aggression began, everyone was talking about the upcoming meeting between Blinken and Lavrov and the meeting between Putin and Biden.

...I want to say this for the first time: at the beginning of the operation in Donbas, the Kyiv authorities were asked through various channels to avoid senseless bloodshed, not to engage in hostilities, but to withdraw their troops from Donbas. They did not want to. Well, that is their decision. The realization of what is happening in the actual situation, on the ground, will come inevitably.

I have never heard of such a proposal from the Russian authorities, and my contacts in Kyiv do not confirm it either. In any case, isn’t it too late to disclose this information? Moreover,  Russia started attacking Ukraine from several directions at once, including the territory of Belarus and Crimea, which would have been unnecessary if it were to reach the administrative borders of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions LNR/DNR authorities call their state borders.

...Ukraine, encouraged by the United States and several Western countries, was purposefully preparing for a violent scenario, carnage, and ethnic cleansing in Donbas. A massive offensive on the Donbas and then on Crimea was only a matter of time. And our Armed Forces thwarted these plans.

The available capabilities of the Ukrainian army did not give it any hope of success in the event of an attack on the LNR/DNR or, even more so, Crimea, where Russian troops were stationed. Therefore, the phrase that Russia "thwarted plans" sounds ridiculous. If only its consequences had not been so sad.

Kyiv was not only preparing for war, for aggression against Russia, against Donbas - they were waging it. Attempts to organize sabotage and a terrorist underground in Crimea did not stop. In recent years, fighting continued in Donbas, shelling of peaceful settlements. During this time, almost 14 thousand civilians have been killed, including children.

Indeed, during the conflict in eastern Ukraine, about 14,000 people were killed, but over the past three years, since January 2019, the number of deaths did not exceed 600 people. Thus, there has been no recent sharp aggravation of the armed conflict, which could be a reason to talk about Ukrainian aggression.

.... if our troops acted only on the territory of the People's Republics, helped them liberate their land, it would not be the final solution, would not lead to peace, and would not eliminate the threat fundamentally - to our country, already to Russia. On the contrary, there would have been a new front line around Donbas and along its borders, and shelling and provocations would have continued. In other words, the armed conflict would drag on endlessly, fueled by the revanchist hysteria of the Kyiv regime, and NATO's military infrastructure in Ukraine would deploy even faster and more aggressively: we would be faced with the fact that the Alliance's offensive weapons are already at our borders.

We would have had no other self-defense option except an extraordinary military operation for Russia's security.

Once again, the point is that if Russia had not attacked Ukraine, Ukraine would have attacked Russia at some point in the future. Or Ukraine would have joined NATO, and NATO would have deployed offensive weapons along the Russian border.

I will not repeat the ridiculous nature of the hypothesis about the possibility of Ukraine attacking Russia. As for the case of Ukraine joining NATO and stationing weapons of the alliance near Russia's borders, it is evident that this could not happen in a week, a month, or a year. In a word, there was more than enough time for negotiations.

On Western sanctions

We need to clearly understand that a new package of sanctions and restrictions against us would have followed in any scenario. I want to stress this. Our military operation in Ukraine is just a pretext for the West to impose new sanctions...

Once again, Putin is at odds with the facts. Since 2016. The West has refrained from imposing new economic sanctions against Russia, not wanting to stir up trouble while it is quiet. Even when the law called for harsh sanctions against Russia (the use of chemical weapons, Navalny, and the Skripals), the Trump and Biden administrations have found ways to avoid it. That the war against Ukraine triggered a powerful wave of sanctions is true, but it would be strange if the West did not react to it in any way.

The policy of containing and weakening Russia, including through economic isolation and blockade, is a conscious, long-term strategy. Western leaders themselves no longer hide that sanctions are not aimed at individuals or companies; their goal is to hit our entire domestic economy, our social and humanitarian sphere, every family, every citizen of Russia.

Putin does not even realize that he launched a "long-term strategy to contain and weaken Russia" with his decision to go to war. I cannot say that economic cooperation between Russia and developed countries was very high. Still, I am willing to argue that this was Putin's desire to build an isolated economy relying on his strength. This line began to emerge back in 2008 when Prime Minister Putin signed a decree restricting foreign investment in 62 sectors of the Russian economy.

I want to say very frankly: there are aggressive geopolitical goals behind the hypocritical talk and today's actions of the so-called collective West. They don't need, don't need a strong and sovereign Russia, they won't forgive us our independent course, nor that we stand up for our national interests... And now again, they want to repeat their attempt to crush us, destroy us, turn us into a weak, dependent country, violate our territorial integrity, and dismember Russia in the best way for them. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.

Once again, Putin is obsessed by his fears of an imminent attack by the West on Russia to subjugate and divide it. During the same time, Russia has been subjected to external aggression only three times (Napoleon and the two world wars).

Dictatorship to be!

Yes, of course, they will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on the national traitors, on those who earn money here, in our country, but live there, and "live" not even in the geographical sense of the word, but by their thoughts, by their slave consciousness.... many of these people are mentally there, not here, not with our people, not with Russia... The collective West is trying to split our society, speculating on military losses, on the socio-economic consequences of sanctions, to provoke civil confrontation in Russia and, using its "fifth column,” seeks to achieve its goal. And the goal is the same, as I have already said - the destruction of Russia.

Putin switches to domestic politics and takes out of his desk the thesis of national traitors, which was actively used after the annexation of Crimea to combat dissenters, and which (the term) is directly borrowed from Hitler. As is always the case with dictators, there is an internal enemy and an external enemy, with the inner enemy serving the interests of the external enemy. He who is not with us is against us. I do not doubt that difficult and dark times are coming in Russia when the "witch-hunt" will unfold with renewed vigor. Russia is becoming a true dictatorship, which differs from an authoritarian regime in that it has an ideology. Putin's ideology will be built on the supremacy of Russian civilization and the concept of a "besieged fortress.

The so-called collective West and its "fifth column" are used to measure everything and every one by themselves. They believe that everything is sold and bought, and therefore they think that we will break down and retreat. But they do not know our history and our people ... We will fight for the right to be and remain in Russia.

Today the "battle for the right to remain Russia" takes place on Ukrainian soil. Tomorrow ...