The Duran Podcast
Vladimir Putin's election victory
All right, Alexander, let's talk about the elections in Russia yesterday, historic turnout. Putin won with about 85% or 87% of the vote, predictably, the collective West leadership and the collective West media, they're freaking out. Sham elections, these are fake elections. But here's my take on it. And let me know if I'm correct in how I'm assessing this. These were not sham or fake elections. And they weren't sham or fake elections if you go by the polling data from collective West sources, which consistently, over the past couple of years, have put Putin's polling numbers, his approval ratings, at about 80% to 85%, not Russian polling companies are polling data, collective West, or at least collective West, endorsed polling institutions, have consistently put Putin's approval rating at anywhere between 80% to 85%. So to me, this result falls exactly in line with Putin's approval numbers, as put out there by collective West institutions. Am I seeing this correctly? You're seeing this right now. You're seeing this absolutely correctly. I mean, there is nothing about this vote that I have seen that leads me to think that what we're seeing is not an accurate reflection of the Russian public mood at the present time. Now, clearly, this was, in some respects, well, in many respects, a different election from other elections that we have seen, in the sense that the other candidates who were there, Karitan for the communist slutsky for the liberal Democrats, this new ban, whom I don't know very much about, Davorno for some whatever he named his name is. I mean, they weren't really campaigning because this election was an election held at a time when Russia is, and so the overwhelming Russians, majority of Russians believe, in an existential conflict with the West, which is playing out in a proxy war in Ukraine and in an economic war that the West has waged through all the sanctions that it has imposed on Russia. So in that respect, this election is, if you like, a kind of referendum on Putin's leadership and on the course he has taken over the course of this conflict. And, of course, that has undoubtedly increased the turnout because people wanted to come out and show that, you know, they support what Putin is doing at this time, and they see that, in effect, as a vote of support for their own country and for their army that is fighting in Ukraine, and that's pushed up the turnout, and it's also pushed up the approval rating. So it is a different election, but that doesn't mean that this is a manipulated or rigged result in any meaningful way. It is a product of the present conditions that are taking place in Russia. Now, the reaction of the West, having said all of that, is not only, you know, predictable. It is predictable, but extreme. And you can't help but feel that behind it all, there is real anger that after all that has happened, after the war that was started, where they were expecting, you know, last year that Russia was going to lose, incredible work that seems, after the economic war, which they were expecting was going to lead to a Russian economic collapse, after all of these things, not only is Russia standing strong, both economically and militarily, but Putin, the man they wanted to push out of power, is still there, stronger than ever. So you see the anger, everything has gone, completely contrary to what they expected, and the frustration and the anger is boiling over. And that's, I suspect, much of the explanation for a lot of the commentary that you're seeing coming out of the West over the last a few hours. So, I see it exactly the way you see it. The entire project Ukraine was about regime change in Russia. And now you have Putin in office for another six years. Do you think that the collective West, through their anger that they're displaying now with these election results, do you think they're finally going to accept the fact that they have to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin for six years? Are they going to finally accept this reality? And it is a reality. You know, maybe a month ago they could have still held on to the hope Putin's going to, somehow he's going to leave. But this drives home the reality that Putin is going to be president for six years. Can they finally accept this? Right. Now, I get to come to two comments that have been made about this whole issue. And the first is from Putin himself. He gave this extraordinary interview, just of Geiki Selyov, the Russian journalist. And he had this to say about the plans of the western powers of the start of the war. It's been completely overlooked. But he said that they wanted, they were looking when they started the war to essentially carry out a regime change in Russia. And he said this very, very straightforwardly and very openly in a way that I've never seen him done at any time in the past. He actually says that when the west arranged for the war in Ukraine to start, he, there were lots of people in the west who got very excited and said this is our opportunity to finish off Russia once and for all. And they're now very angry when they've discovered that it has turned out differently. So that's what he said. And here are his exact words. After our attempts to stop the war unleashed by the west in Ukraine in 2014 by force failed, western elites blinded by their russophobia were delighted. They even rejoiced because they believed that that now they would finish us off under this barrage of sanctions. Practically a sanctions war declared against us with the help of western weapons and war through Ukrainian nationalists, they would finish off Russia. Hence their slogan, inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. So you see, even Putin could see that this is all about ultimately generating a crisis in Russia, finishing it off as a geopolitical competitor, arranging regime change in Russia. Now the other article which I'm not going to read from, because I scarcely ever like to read things from the economists, but it concedes exactly the point that you have just made, that in fact Putin is there to stay. The west has to just accept the fact they're furious about it. The economist is seething about the fact that Putin is there to stay. They're saying that, you know, the Russian people will pay a terrible price to this, their economy will stagnate, their population will fall, but it also goes on to say that Putin will remain in power and Russia must now be seen as a dangerous adversary and competitor for the future. So you're right, you're right about both the regime change point, at least Putin clearly thinks that you're right and the economist, which I believe is very close to the thinking of the US and British political leadership, and even the Neocon establishment makes exactly the same point as you. They will have to accept the fact that Putin is there to stay. They don't like it, they're furious about it, in a sense they're trying to delegitimize him, but they've tried everything and it has failed. Okay, so what happens now going forward? I mean Putin's going to be in office for many years, and this is going to be, I imagine this is going to be his last term as Russian president. What's going to happen now in the next, in the next year, and then even the next six years, and I imagine Putin is going to place a great deal of focus on the Russian economy, but also on his, on his succession to, I mean, who's going to come next after Putin? What is the political landscape look like? Something that, that Angela Merkel did not do very well, people forget that Angela Merkel was in power for, what was it, 16 years or 12, I don't know, a long time. She was in power for a long time, and she completely messed up the political landscape in Germany, and now we see the results of that. How do you think Putin's going to handle everything going forward? Well, I think the first thing to say is that because of the constitutional changes that were made in 2020, he can in theory seek a further term after this one that he's just won, so he could be there for 12 years. I'm not saying he will be, but he's got that theoretical option, and you can perhaps see some logic to this, because he announced a few, about week 10 days ago, when he addressed the Russian parliament, an extremely ambitious six-year programme, which is going to take him through the present term. By the way, he pointed out that in most respects, the programme that he announced before the previous presidential election in 2018, has been surpassed, politicians always say that, but the next one, a very ambitious programme, indeed, over the next six years, economic social programme, I think that what he might do, and I'm not saying this is his plan, I think that it could be, that he will want to see this programme through. He will certainly want to see the war and its consequences through and sorted out, and then perhaps he might decide to stand for a second for the next further term, and groom a successor during that period. I mean, that's occurred to me as one possible way forward, but I have absolutely no doubt whatever he decides to do, that he is going to start choosing a successor, promoting him, bringing him forward, and preparing the ground for the time when he leaves the sea. This is a man who is extremely concerned, not so much about his, you know, reputation, but as he says many times about his legacy, he wants to leave to whoever comes beyond him, a stable economically strong, geopolitically strong position in Russia. It's very important to remember where he started in 1999 when he was, when Yeltsin appointed him acting Prime Minister, a utterly disastrous situation. So he wants to make sure that, you know, what he leaves to his successor is strong, stable, successful. That's his legacy now, but he also wants to make sure that his legacy is protected, and that he will make sure that whoever succeeds him is somebody who has the ability to consolidate and be, build on what he has left. And you're absolutely right. Merkel did not groom her successor. None of the other leaders of the Soviet Union did either, by the way. I mean, that's a thing also to remember. Stalin in 1948 had decided on his successor, who was a man called Andre Shdanov, but Shdanov died, and then the whole succession issue was never resolved. And Brezhnev didn't really plan the key succession. And the result was political chaos, as we remember, the whole Perestroika affair. And so Putin will not want that. He will want to make sure that there's, that the Russian people are presented with someone who is, you know, able to consolidate and continue what Putin has created, and a political system which he will want to see as politically stable as well. And I think here we have to come back to the issue of democracy and whether Putin envisages Russia's future as that of the democracy. And I think he does actually, despite what everybody says. So he wants a political, a political successor, who he can present to the Russian people, who is able to take things forward, but do so moreover, in a more open political landscape. A more democratic, a more, let's say democratic, a more competitive political landscape than the one that exists at the moment. I would say that one of his major concerns is the constant foreign meddling inside of Russia. And even when you go back in history, I think that's been one of the defining factors of Russian history over the last century is the constant foreign intervention into Russia. And I think that Putin is very aware of that. So I imagine he wants to create a political system that is based on transparency and on a level of democracy. But in today's world, it's difficult to define what democracy is. It's definitely not coming on the collective West. But he is very concerned of the foreign intervention, whether it's NGOs, academic institutions sponsored by the collective West or the media or anything else. How do you think that's going to play it to his presidency going forward? How is he going to deal with the foreign intervention that the collective West is known for? It's that they're very keen on injecting inside of Russia. This is what they've been doing inside of Russia. This is absolutely good. It goes back to well before the First World War. And during the First World War and then during the later Soviet period. And then throughout the time since the fall of the Soviet Union. And of course in the 90s, Britain and the United States, especially the United States, basically ran Russia for a time and did so disastrously. And this is a fact people never want to be reminded of in the West. And then after Putin came in, they were meddling and interfering constantly and doing everything they possibly could to destabilize and remove him. And they started doing that, contrary to what many people think, I remember this well, they started doing that literally from the moment when he first was appointed by Yeltsin acting Prime Minister. I mean there were already hit pieces being published about Putin in the autumn of 1999. I will remember I remember reading them and being astonished. So of course he's aware of this. And of course he's very concerned about this. I think at some fundamental level he I think nonetheless thinks that the way to guard against this problem is to develop a strong Russian political system that is transparent and democratic and functions with the consent of the people through an informed democracy. Remember he also remembers the late Soviet period where the government basically controlled everything. The country was a genuine authoritarian state. The media was censored. There was enormous controls. And what that eventually led to was a disconnection between the rulers and the people they ruled. So he doesn't want that to happen again. So he wants a more open political system because he sees that that is more stable. But he also understands that it has to be conducted with a more with a well-informed, well-educated public and one where, you know, the antibodies, the political antibodies are strong enough to resist this endless interference by the west. He talks about that again also a lot incidentally in that interview with Sergey Kislov. And this is a difficult thing to work through except of course that I think it is correct to say that most Russians now have figured it out. The experience of the 1990s is not one which Russians are going to forget in a hurry. And of course the political system is there to remind them of it all the time. The other thing I would say is that of course with the economy ground with the economic situation now very stable with the geopolitical situation changing all the time. Western power visibly in decline. He probably does calculate and say to himself, well, you know, we have to keep a sort of tight grip. But gradually this challenge from the west is going to fade and that will mean that we can start to release that grip and become more that which we basically want to be. By the way, you touch on a point which I have made many times though I suspect I'm all but alone in doing so. Which is that Western interference, this constant meddling by the west which is described by the west as democracy promotion does not actually promote democracy in Russia. It does the opposite. It does the opposite because if it succeeds what it does is impose on Russia a pro-Western government which does exactly what the west wants which loses support in the country that is what happened with the provisional government that appeared in Russia briefly in 1917 and it appeared in the 1990s in both cases with disastrous consequences. And at all other times it prevents the political system from becoming open and fully stabilizing because Russian leaders say to themselves if we open the doors, if we relax at all then the west will come and interfere in our affairs and what we will get is chaos and most Russians agree. So, you know, to give a good example, I think that the Soviet system, this is again my own view which is I said you won't find pretty much anybody said but my own view is that the Soviet system was prolonged at least 30 years beyond its natural life in the form that it was largely because of the constant pressure and interference by the west. Containment as it is called which became not just you know trying to restrict the Soviet Union to its geopolitical space but also to interfere within the Soviet Union itself, something which George Kennan the so-called designer of containment always opposed. Anyway, containment in my opinion did not facilitate the development of the Russian political system. It impeded it but I mean I don't want to press that because that is my own personal view and I haven't seen anybody else who agrees with me on this. Yeah, I think that makes sense. A final question from a geopolitical strategic point of view. I imagine Putin also has to safeguard Russia's security that being its western borders. Absolutely. So, Belarus, Kaliningrad and of course Ukraine and now you have Finland as well which is a NATO country right on its borders but this is going to be of immense importance to Putin and if I were to guess he would make sure that at least Ukraine at the very least Ukraine on the southern underbelly of Russia is no threat to Russia. Oh absolutely, this is an overriding priority and of course Ukraine is the big one. I mean Finland is a nuisance and the Baltic states a certain nuisance but it's Ukraine that really is the issue. If Ukraine is sorted out then a lot of other things on the western border fall into place but he's got to do that and I think that is his overriding geostrategic priority at the moment but he has other ones too. I mean one of the great achievements of the Putin period is that he's forged all these close relationships with all these other countries. He's been lucky in one respect because over the period that he has been president we have seen the multipolar system emerge. We've seen the rising powers China, India, Indonesia with which he has excellent relations, Brazil which he had good relations with both under Bolsonaro and Lula. Lots of other countries, good relations with the African states. He's forged all very close stable relations with all of these countries. One of the things he would want to do is he would want to consolidate these relationships with all of these countries and make sure that when he leaves these strategic partnerships are so well established that they become unbreakable and the reason again is that of course in the past there have been leaders in Russia that have fallen for the Lure of the West. He actually uses the expression that you know the West trying to lure Russia and he doesn't want to see that happen again. I mean he saw what happened when that was attempted before. He doesn't want to see that happen again and leaders around the world in these rising countries see that also and that is why overwhelmingly they support and are very happy about Putin's reelection. They're very happy to see him there. Now we have actually actual evidence of this because a few days ago the Western powers, the Western countries released a statement basically criticizing the Russian elections saying they were to free or fair and open, casting doubt on their legitimacy claiming that they violated the international law because they were held in Crimea and Luganskin, her son Zabrojia and all of that. Now Dimitri Poliansky, who is the deputy ambassador of Russia Security Council, UN Security Council, is a very very important to open that. Anyway, he has said that the West has spent the last couple of weeks armed twisting to try to get countries in the global south or the global majority to sign up and agreed to this statement and they refused. In every case the Western amissaries had their the door slammed in their face. So the result was that the only countries that ended up signing the statement are the 56 states that formed the collective West. None of the global majority countries, not China, not India, not Turkey, not the African states, the Latin American states, the big ones, all of those. None of them agreed to sign it and Poliansky made the point that that meant that more than two-thirds of the nations that are represented in the UN General Assembly basically rejected this statement and are happy about the way in which the elections took place in Russia. Anyway, consider those elections to be Russia's business. So Putin will want to consolidate those friendships and those relationships because he comes to see them as absolutely critical for Russia's future and not just for Russia's you know geopolitical future but also for its security and prosperity. It anchors Russia in a world system that is no longer dominated by the West. Well put all right the derailleurs.com we are on Rumble Odyssey but you telegram rock fin and twitter x and go to the Duran shop 15% of all t-shirts. Take care. [Music]