BY K P PASWAN.
At present there are three politicians in power who are hated by a large number of people. While Vladimir Putin of Russia and Donald Trump. the president elect of the US are hated and respected throughout the world, Narendra Modi, the PM of India is hated by his opponents in India and respected all ovr the world except Pakistan and few Islamic countries.
Here we are going to discuss about Putin and his political ideology responsible for his increased unpopularity
Putin emerged as the strong man of Russia after death of Boris Yeltsin , the first political head of non Communist Russia. It is rightly said that Gorbachew inaugurated an era of democracy in Russia, Boris Yeltsin destroyed it and Putin is trying to revive the past glory of Russia by democratic principles. These so called principles are his own creations.
Putin is being hated and criticised for various reasons and most of these reasons are not based on true facts. Prolonged battle in Ukraine despite of despite of substantial territorial gain has increased his unpopularity. Before the Ukraine war Putin told a western journalist that the US was already a Superpower so there was no need for another Superpower. So Putin accepted that Russia was not a competitive enemy of the US. During the era of Cold war Russia was known as Soviet Union which consisted a large number of small republics which were annexed by Lenin and founded a fragile USSR. So there were only two superpowers ,the Soviet Union and the USA. With the collapse of Communism Soviet Union disappeared and Russia along with a good number of former republics emerged, these former republics are now independent nations some of them have joined NATO and EU. During Cold war western Europe feared Soviet Union which posed serious existential threat to non Communist Europe. Unfortunately even after collapse of Soviet Union the same fear persisted as is evident from the futile attempt to expand NATO which became obsolete in absence of a powerful Soviet Union.
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But what the case has illuminated is the ultra cynical,hostile world view that informs Russia's truculence a view in which there are precious few values or rules. Russia under Putin is a more chaotic and frightening place than the resurgent ,authiritarian but orderly country that it is often thought to be It is a frightening with huge power.
Quite apart from its vast territory and nuclear arsenal Russia has the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves--now its chief foreign policy lever--plus a permanent seat on the UNSC. All that makes Russia an coperation vital to the West efforts over global problems like climate change,N Korea and most pressingly the future status of Ukraine on which Putin is unlikely to be helpful and restraining Iran'snuclear ambitions,
The knowledge that he can thwart Western design ,allied to the self confidence endangered by Russia economic revival despite of sanctions and his strangulation of domestic oppositions has allowed Putin to indulge his sense of grievance at Russians diminished status.
Trump administration has evidently decided that Russian insouciance ever what was in
effect a miniature act of Nuclear Terrorism on the street of Moscow. was a provocation too far.
Despite the echoes of Soviet era spat, this stand off does not, as some excitable commentators are persuaded,herald the onset of a new Cold War. Even if it is in some respect more worryingly unpredictable than the Soviet Union,today's Russia does not have the old empire's economic or military might, nor its rival ideology . But the Cold war analogy is instructive in one way. Even as they pretend to destroy one another the West and Soviet Union struck deals and traded in energy in diluted form, the same combination of opprobrium and and real politik is needed in relations with Russia now. For example despite the instinct in Kremlin that all diplomacy is zero it might be possible to encourage the Russians to help more with Iran by pointing out that if Iran had no bomb programme. Trump might not to press forward with a controversial missile defence in Eastern Europe.
The idea that Russia might quickly become a Normal country,like the hope that Putin might turnout to be a democrat has been discredited. But Russia is still a country the US and the Western Europe must do business with even as as its excessess are restricted.
As Putin outmanoeuvres Biden, Trump applauds. With the advent of Trump, the Russian television which has been pumping out anti American propaganda quickly seized on a new narrative With the fall of Democrats Channel One TV of Russia declared that Biden found himself in a puddle while Putin displayed diplomatic mastery at the world level. It did not mention the global humiliation faced in Syria where the bigots supported by Turkiye forced All Assad to flee and sought shelter in Russia. Mr Trump's policy added to the mystery of his apparent infatuation with Mr Putin and fuelled anxiety about Russia's ability to undermine the American democracy. Yet for pro Western Russian liberals the pamicked attitude of some of America's mainstream media was equally discomfiting. It seemed a mirror image of Russia's own hysteria about the role of America in sowing chaos and staging colour revolution in Russia's back yard.
CONCLUSION. Russia is on the threshold of economic revival but it is no longer a dreaded military power and cannot be an existential threat to the West. There is no question of nuclear escalation by Putin. Russia is needed to maintain stability in the post coldwar politics of the world. Its actions in Ukraine are condemnable but Russia cannot be discarded.
