Our Internet access and cable TV access has been limited the past few days. Away from the minute-by-minute onslaught of horrors from Ukraine and the backsliding which the U.S. Supreme Court appears ready to engage in, to nullify abortion rights, our thoughts turned to the question, why is Putin in any way a surprise?
That Russia has been invading its neighbors before USSR had died and has continued to do so since over the past 30-plus years is no surprise. That is what the Kremlin does regardless of regime. After all, it was Yeltsin — darling of the West — who invaded Moldova's Trans-Dniester.
What is surprising to us, though, is the lack of attention to Putin's thin skin and authoritarian tendencies, obvious from the very start. Only a month after Putin took office as the elected—having been appointed by Yeltsin as his successor, president, these were the headlines that had already been in the news:
- "Clinton's exit, Putin's entrance" (12 May 2000) — FSB plans to preemptively discredit politicians suspected of planning to say something damaging about the Kremlin — extending to politicians in Georgia and the Baltics
- "Back to the USSR" (29 May 2000) — One of Putin's first decrees as president was the reintroduction of compulsory military training—topics including: Russian army history, loading a Kalishnikov, and synchronized marching (tellingly, Yeltsin outlawed this as one of his first acts of his presidency); last year, he restored a plaque to former president and KGB leader Yury Andropov on the walls of the Lubyanka; he recently unveiled another plaque honouring Russia's war heroes with Stalin's name listed first; also, a commemorative coin decorated with Stalin's face has been issued and there are plans to install a new bust of the Soviet tyrant at Russia's main war memorial.
- "Disquiet over Putin's appointments grows" ( 1 June 2000) — The aggregation of Russia into 7 super-regions; power granted to Putin to sack elected regional governors, dissolve regional assemblies and deprive governors of their seats in the Federation Council (the upper house of the national parliament); finally, "The most bizarre media casualty, however, has been the lifesize doll made in Mr Putin's likeness and used in Kukly, the Russian version of Spitting Image. The NTV channel, which runs the country's most popular show, said the Putin puppet had been 'temporarily withdrawn'."
- "But is it curtains for the Putin puppet?" (30 May 2000) — "NTV anchorman Yevgenii Kiselev announced on 29 May that NTV has reached an agreement with the Kremlin to withdraw the puppet caricature of President Vladimir Putin from the cast of the popular satirical show, 'Kukly.' An NTV spokeswoman told dpa that the Kremlin had asked the producers of "Kukly" to no longer feature the Putin puppet, which has an extremely large nose and wears the neck-kerchief characteristic of the Soviet-ear Pioneers." However, earlier, in February...
- "Puppets safe for now" (11 February 2000) — "Presidential spokesman Aleksei Gromov told reporters on 10 February that acting President Putin does not intend to file any complaints against the popular weekly puppet show 'Kukly'." So, "for now" means "3-4 months at most."
- "Russia Seizes Human Rights Report" (31 May 2000) — Amnesty International's reports on Chechnya confiscated because the reports appeared to be "anti-Russian government propaganda"
