Page 25 - BNE_magazine_02_2020

bne February 2020 Cover Story I 25
Is Russian President Vladimir Putin
a megalomaniac? The reaction
of the commentatori to the huge changes in Russia’s political DNA suggested by the president was kneejerk and entirely predictable.
The Express went with “Putin’s naked power grab.” Bloomberg had “Putin the Puppet Master Shows He Still Has the Power to Shock”. And that was despite the fact that Putin’s suggestions result in moving power back into the Duma where it belongs and that he will voluntarily give up at least some
of his power.
Just how much power he will
retain and how of course is a key question. Whatever just happened,
a transformation of Russia from
a presidential republic to a parliamentary democracy was not one of them. Still, Putin’s decision to give up some of
his power is unprecedented, but the western narrative is so invested in its demonisation of Putin it has become
a crude reduction portraying everything in terms of Putin’s person.
In “Putin’s Russia” the Russia part
is missing. Everything Putin does is exclusively for Putin’s personal benefit and there can be no other explanation. The possibility that Putin is genuinely concerned about Russia and acting in the interests of the Russian people as
he tries to rebuild the country after its total collapse in 1991 is simply discarded.
In Putin’s Russia, Putin is a megalomaniac whose every action is designed
to increase his power and earn him
more wealth.
This description actually fits all the leaders of the CIS well. Almost all of them have changed the constitution to make themselves de facto leaders for life. Almost all of them have some sort of personality cult. Almost all of them are demonstrably wealthy. And clearly almost all of them believe they are the only one able to steer their countries through this difficult period. None of this is true of Putin except the last point: clearly Putin believes he is the only one capable of rebuilding Russia.
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