After two and a half hours of press conference with Vladimir Putin, a journalist asks a question that apparently evolved from the day. It wasn’t about a possible war with Ukraine, not about Corona, not even about Nord Stream 2. It was about Russian Santa Claus. How does the president feel about “Ded Moroz”, Father Frost, asked the journalist. Whereupon Putin said he was grateful to Santa Claus for having the job that he now has. The social network then exploded with laughter, with a Russian demanding a tough answer to Santa Claus, who was flying over Russian airspace in his sleigh.
Putin’s press conference, which this time barely exceeded the long-term average with a little more than four hours, would be silly, a carnival, with all the small considerations of handicrafts in the Republic of Mari El and power outages in Buryatia – if it weren’t for the appearance of a president who might soon to be at war with a neighboring country. Putin stayed within his current threat level on the Ukraine question. It is not Russia that has to give Ukraine security guarantees, but the US has to give Russia, “immediately,” after all, Russia is not stationing any missiles at the US-Mexico border, although there have also been territorial conflicts there, think of Texas or California. Russia had been “brazenly deceived” by NATO: “The eastward expansion of NATO is unacceptable to Russia.” The fact that he interwoven calming tones in between and held out the prospect of talks with the USA in Geneva at the beginning of the year, which he described as “altogether positive”, reinforced the impression: Nothing has been decided yet, even Putin probably does not yet know what will happen in Ukraine will happen.
Who are actually his partners? And what does he have to offer you?
Viewed objectively, the violent enforcement of security interests is not uncommon for a great power. Few of the great powers do without coercion on this issue. In very few cases, coercion is sufficient. Precisely for this reason it is striking how isolated, lonely, yes, lackluster Russia was that Vladimir Putin let rise in these four hours. Russia cannot be defeated, according to one of his numerous quotes, that it can only be disintegrated from within. He no longer expects anything good from Europe or the West. But who are Russia’s partners then? What does it have to offer you?
In the few more critical questions you can feel the tension between the need for progress of a globalized country and the impossibility of doing justice to it under the given political circumstances. Theater people feared for the freedom of art? Artists have to know their limits, according to Putin, after all they don’t want attacks like those on the French caricature magazine Charlie Hebdo. Is there systematic torture in Russia’s prisons? Unfortunately, that is the case in many countries. The fact that the western gender debate in Russia is spreading as inexorably as Corona was ultimately one of his more blatant punchlines. Putin’s annual show is always big, but it shows that even in four hours one cannot answer the most important question.