The war of words between Putin and well, everybody else, has continued this week after Vlad threatened that the world is likely to return to the ‘Cold War’ days. Blair is due to meet with him at the G8 summit and promises a “frank discussion” with the Russian leader. In the BBC interview Blair went on to say that many people were “concerned about the direction Russia is heading.
But what is more interesting is why Putin is causing this confrontation and media frenzy; is it to cause a distraction from the Polonium poisoning which he or some of his ‘mob’ have been blamed for (no doubt Blair will raise this one with Putin) or is he just using the media to make his voice heard and build global-support?
The media are no fools and they know when Putin speaks it will get an audience (and rightly so, as he is the leader of one of the planet’s largest nations), so who is using who?
Used correctly, the media can help you build support although threatening the world with weapons may not be the way to go about this. So this brings us back to the above question – what is Putin up to? I don’t pretend to be an expert on Russian politics but I think we can expect some more PR activity from Moscow over the coming weeks. Watch this space…
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Far be it for me to be an expert on Russian politics or the state of a foreign nation, but this smacks to me of nostalgia on the part of Putin. You could, though not entirely, consider a slight similarity with the Russia now to the behaviour of European nations which lost their Empires after the Second World War. Remembering a time when parts of the world were worried about your involvement, when they treated you like an equal or at best a rival. But after Empires collapse, nations are sometimes treated like a sick friend, an injured enemy or like a grandparent who fought in the war, you have tremendous respect for, yet now needs two walking sticks to get around.
Is that how Russians feel they are now perceived, as a de-clawed cat? Look how they used to be represented in western media, specifically in films, ‘The Hunt for Red October’, ‘Firefox’, ‘2001’, ‘The Forth Protocol’, ‘Rocky 4’, the James Bond films up until détente. How does TV and film consider them now? Corrupt drunks, backward, poor, rusting weapons and abused soldiers; see ‘Goldeneye’, ‘Airforce One’, ‘Eurotrip’, ‘Hostel’, etc.
Is it better when you’re feared than when you are ignored? How many European nations wished they still had their Empires? Is the best way to stop people laughing at you, to punch them in the nose?
Russia are at it again now, not handing over the murder suspect. Wouldn't surprise me if Putin was involved anyway.
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