Putin’s “Pussy” Problem

By Dr. Myron Kuropas

“The landscape of Russian society today,” writes Edward Lucas in The New Cold War, “is marked by three phases in recent history: the Soviet era when political loyalty was at a premium; the Gorbachev/Yeltsin era, which prized talent and adaptability; and now the Putin era, which punishes only dissent.”

The latest group to feel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wrath are three young women from a tiny punk band which calls itself the “Pussy Riot”.  The three were arrested in March following a provocative performance in Moscow’s main cathedral calling for the Virgin Mary to protect Russia from Putin.  On August 17, the three were sentenced to two years in prison each for hooliganism.  Outside of the courtroom hundreds of supporters chanted “Russia without Putin”.  Several opposition leaders were arrested including Garry Kasparov who wrote about his ordeal in the August 10 edition of the Wall Street Journal.  The sentencing of the three protesters, explained Kasparov, “was the next logical step for Vladimir Putin’s steady crackdown on ‘acts against the social order’, the Kremlin’s expansive term for any public display of resistance”. 

Who is Vladimir Putin?  He was a KGB officer, a former member of the Soviet elite. But he was not just run of the mill KGB. He was a member of the trusted Soviet First Directorate which handled external espionage.  Putin was the best of the best. 

Lucas writes that to be a KGB officer abroad meant that you were loyal to the regime, very intelligent, very well-informed, very tough and ideologically impervious to the temptations of the West.  Putin is certainly all of that. 

The Kremlin today, continues Lucas, has adopted “an ideology based on Soviet nostalgia and xenophobic rhetoric because it partly or wholly believes in it.  If this explanation is true, it makes it all the more worrying that the outside world still seems so unbothered.” 

During the Cold War, Soviet agents penetrated the FBI, MI6, the White House and The Vatican. Putin dreams of those days. Recall that on April 25, 2005 Putin famously declared that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th Century.”  And the only way to restore that “glorious past” is to begin with the establishment of a regime where everyone is beholden to the supreme leader. 

Being close to Putin means being on the take, feeding at the trough, being part the new nomenklatura directing a mafia state. Corruption is rampant.  Duma deputies live a lavish lifestyle funded by extortion.  Bribery exists, writes Lucas, “because Russian officialdom extorts predatory rents from every bit of human activity from birth to death, via imports, exports, taxes, and endless government inspections.”  Bribing politicians is the new normal.  Having a parliamentarian on your side is a sure way “to avoid the bureaucratic thickets” but one that doesn’t come cheap. 

Those who don’t go along with the Putin doctrine suffer consequences.  Media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky dared criticize El Supremo for his handling of the tragic sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine. Putin had refused assistance from Great Britain and Norway when it was believed there were survivors.  His people argued that all 118 sailors on board died instantly. Later it was discovered that there were survivors who might have been saved.  Gusinky was forced to liquidate his empire and to move to Israel.  Other victims of Putin cleansing include billionaire Boris Berezovsky who fled to England, Aleksander Litvinenko, a dissident who was poisoned in London, and dozens of reporters who have been arrested or worse. 

Today, Russia continues to push the envelope in its “near abroad”, especially in Ukraine which Putin believes shouldn’t exist as a separate nation. Unfortunately, some of the power structure in today’s Ukraine seems to agree.  Dmytro Tabachnyk, for example, the current Minister of Education, Science and Sports in Ukraine, has helped rewrite Ukrainian history textbooks to reflect a more positive, “brotherly” view of Russia,  promoting at the same time legislation that would make Russian an official regional language of Ukraine.  Tabachnyk has also denied that the Holodomor was genocide.

Russia has also flexed its muscles in the far abroad.  Putin huffed and puffed about a U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic and U.S. President Barack Obama capitulated.  Currently, Putin is supplying arms to Syria’s Bashar Hafez al-Assad and turning a deaf ear to requests from the West to honour UN sanctions against Assad.

And finally, external espionage is once again a Putin priority.  The 2010 arrest of 10 Russian deep-cover agents in the U.S. is just the tip of the iceberg.  Russia has returned to targeting the West, archenemy of Russia’s President, who believes Russia will blossom again only if the U.S. and its allies wilt. 

U.S. Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has called Russia a major threat to America.  Media moguls rolled their eyes and chuckled.