Page 12 - Putin Cannot News Today

Thats what he said. then the g7 said, "sorry, contracts are in dollars "and euros, we will pay contracts in euros. "if you like roubles, its your problem," and gas continues to flow. and thats yet another argument actually challenging the austrian chancellors statement that this particular embargo will cost europe more than it costs putin. no, putin will be hit harder by the embargo than european economy. lets now switch from just talking pure economics, which has been fascinating, and talk poli...

Seen not as an old—style dictator wedded to violence, raw violence and raw fear, but as a more sophisticated operator, who wants to use some of the trappings of a democrat to enforce his authority. in a way, that was a charitable view of putin, and i wonder if you now feel that you got vladimir putin wrong? well, as i said, things change. and, indeed, in our book spin dictators, we, with daniel triesman, show that most of current dictators, most of 21st—century dictators are indeed dictators...

Isnt even going well. so, what are we to make of that? is this putins war or, actually, is there something deeper going on? its notjust putins war. well, definitely not every russian supports this war, and i dont support this war, and together with mikhail baryshnikov and boris akunin, we launched a website called truerussia.org, where we fundraise for, among russians, to help ukrainian refugees, and we have a lot of people writing to us supporting this initiative. we also set up anti—war comm...

Putin introduced wartime censorship. no, i understand that. so, if i say something that im saying to you now, i can go, in russia, i can go to jail for up to 15 years. so, whenever a pollster calls you and says, "do you support the special military operation?", you remember that there is a law that whenever you say something which is different from the official version, you can go to jailfor up to 15 years. and i can go under various ways to measure the true support of the war, which is much low...

The cost, prepare public for the cost, and also support low—income households with fiscal support. this is something the german government can do. german government does have fiscal capacity. sergei, lets flip the argument around forjust a minute because, so far, weve focused on whether europes prepared to take these punitive measures on oil and gas. lets flip it around and talk about whether there is a possibility that the russians might unilaterally turn off the taps and say, "were not selli...

A dictatorship based on fear. this is not uncommon. this happens. and in the book, we describe the example of venezuela, where mr chavez was the spin dictator, while his successor, mr maduro, is a bloody, 20th—century, repressive, totalitarian dictator, who is using mass repression. 0k. so, thats an argument which allows you to say, "you know what? "i didnt get putin wrong. "i didnt misjudge him. "its just that hes fundamentally "tra nsformed and changed. "so, its not my misjudgement. "its put...

And these are people who support the war. last question, then. even if we were to imagine a russia where putin, for one reason or another, was off the scene, that wouldnt necessarily solve the problem, would it? i mean, this is much deeper than just whether putin can be removed from power. let me give you just polls before the war. right? so, if you actually look at polls in september and october, the levada center that you mentioned, the only major independent pollster in russia, they would sho...

"i dont need to move to a fear—based model." and this is what we observed for the few first days of the war. he didnt close independent media before the war. he only closed them one week later, when he understood that things are not going according to the plan. and so, that is the moment when the transformation from spin to fear was actually complete. explain this to me, then. i understand your analysis, but the truth is, even if we accept the war is not going to plan, and it seems pretty clea...

On his economic performance. then, as his economy was destroyed by corruption, by domination of his friends, by the domination of the state, he was losing popularity, and then he did annexation of crimea in 2014. his popularity shot through the roof. and thats a typical spin dictator war — without blood, very quick. now, then he was losing popularity again. there was a rise of very effective opposition. in particular, mr navalny, who was a very smart user of modern social media, which allowed ...

That there is a strong strain of nationalism, based on victimhood and resentment, inside your homeland, which runs very deep, and which putin is tapping into today? thats true. and this is a normal post—imperial nostalgia, which has been used and, indeed, reinforced by mr putins propaganda. this is not unique to russia. many former empires have this problem. i live in france now. france has gone through a very painful period of decolonialising its narrative and its relationship with former col...