Putin had a very intense conversation with Russian media immediately before New Year. As the year started, he turned to communicating with foreign ones, which included an interview with the German newspaper Bild given on January 5. Putin has always found the Russian media to be very comfortable interlocutors, whether it was Vladimir Solovyov sitting in front of him on the edge of a chair and looking into the eye like a dog, or hundreds of media workers gathered in one room. Even when some of them asked questions on burning issues, Putin always easily brushed them off by lying, claiming to lack knowledge on the issue in question and promising to look into it later, or cracking a joke about sex-changing grandparents or a fur coat. People like it.
This interview with Bild was peculiar in that Putin talked with German journalists exactly like he does with Russian ones. He was not even relaxed, but rather pert, it seemed that he talked to servants standing in his waiting room. His compatriots or foreigners, there is no difference for him now. In the parallel world, which the Russian president has inhabited for some time, the line between domestic and foreign policy has been finally erased. There is no Putin’s foreign policy, because no one on this planet can explain what interests Putin has in Syria, why he continues his aggression in Ukraine, and why he has stolen Crimea.
Putin explained the latter issue to the Germans, though, by referring to the historical figure with whom he apparently identifies himself. “Napoleon once said,” Putin told the Germans in a confidential manner, “that justice is the embodiment of God on earth.” He added: “For example, reunification of Crimea with Russia was a just decision.” It is difficult to say who Putin self-identifies with in his alternate reality: Napoleon, justice or God Himself.
We know from history that Napoleon tried to bring divine justice to Russian soil in 1812, but the peoples of Russia were somewhat skeptical about it. Today, after two hundred years, the people of Ukraine and peoples of Europe and most other countries treat Putin’s version of justice with the same rejection with which the Russians treated the justice offered by Napoleon back then.
Regarding Putin’s interview to Bild, it makes sense to look at it from four angles: that of journalism, of Putin himself, and its impacts on Russian and European audiences.
In my opinion, Bild’s journalists did a poor job out of it. They just gave Putin a platform for yet another propaganda speech aimed at a 12.5-million audience, which will expand to include virtually the entire Western world were one to consider reprints and reposts. By contrast, one can compare this complacent interview to another one, which saw journalist Tim Sebastian literally tearing to pieces President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko on Deutsche Welle TV. It was an example of real, hard-hitting, proper journalism that allows one to see the rulers of any country in the true light. I am sure that Putin would have fled from Sebastian’s studio in a minute.
Journalists of the leading German tabloid allowed Putin to spout his usual lies, including statements that Crimea was annexed without firing a shot and without any lives lost, and that Bashar al-Assad does not try to destroy his own people. Probably this kind of vegetarian, not to say servile, tone of the interview was discussed in advance and put forward as a condition of the interview taking place. Otherwise, any normal Western journalist would have grabbed at this lie and turned the liar inside out, showing his underside to the entire world, as they always do with their own politicians in the West.
The only episode in which Bild’s journalist allowed himself an ironic comment came when Putin said that “the German press experiences a sizeable foreign influence, especially from the other side of the Atlantic.” At this point, one of the German journalists chuckled: “This is news to us!” However, his docile Germans returned to their senses then, knowing better than to ask Putin to give at least some evidence of this sensational discovery. Russian interpreters, being even more docile, removed this tactless escapade of the German journalist from the Russian version of the interview altogether. Thus, the Russian audience saw clearly that the Germans listened to Putin in silence and were forced to agree with him on everything, literally crushed by the power of his arguments.
However, judging by the reactions of the rest of the German press, Putin’s mantras have neither deceived nor convinced the German audience. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s commenter Reinhard Veser sarcastically remarked about Putin’s folly regarding the US’s sizeable influence with the German press: “Since most German newspapers sharply criticize the US, its agents of influence are working rather sloppily.” As for Putin himself, Veser said: “Putin’s idea of the world system is simple and transparent: he is right and everyone else is wrong.”
Almost all German and European press outlets were damning in their assessments of both the content of Putin’s interview and the servility displayed, according to Western journalists, by Bild’s interviewers. “Putin’s interests are the interests of the corrupt elite,” Die Welt’s headline read after Bild’s interview, and the former newspaper, unlike the tabloid, which published the interview with Putin, is one of the most influential quality media in Germany.
Putin’s belief that the world is the same everywhere, and every nation works the same way as Russia does, by stealing, lying, and engaging in hypocrisy, but they are just better at hiding it – this belief played a bad joke with him. Look at Putin’s passage about democracy and freedom: “As for democracy, I would say that freedom is usually bandied about by the ruling classes to deceive the governed masses.” When talking about democracy in Russia, he said: “There are 77 parties eligible for the parliamentary elections in Russia.” When asked about his assessment of his longevity in power, Putin replied by telling the European audience that they have long-serving prime ministers as well. This he said to Europeans who know about irremovable governments only from history books.
Putin’s attempts to tell his version of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict turned into a session of self-denunciation. When asked when the fighting would stop, Putin began to explain that it depended on Ukraine, as its government was delaying a constitutional reform. When a German journalist asked if it was better to carry out the constitutional reform after the cessation of hostilities, Putin strongly denied it. “Restoring full control over Ukraine’s borders to the Ukrainian state should take place only after the constitutional reform,” he stated.
That is, the Russian president publicly announced to the world that the fighting continues in Ukraine only because control over the border belongs to the Russian side. That is, the Putinist myth of brave tractor drivers and miners who purchased artillery and tanks at a nearby general store and went on to fight the Ukrainian army has been successfully exposed as a myth by Putin himself.
Total control over information flows is allowing the Putinist propaganda to fool most Russians so far. Trying to get the same information product marketed to the European audience is surprising and ridiculous. The Western world answered the question “who is Mr. Putin?” long ago, and the answer turned out to be extremely unpleasant for the Russian president.
