I watched Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly (Russia’s parliament) in full. The main conclusion: without the now-customary foreign policy hysteria of recent years, it immediately becomes dull and empty.
These are exactly the kinds of speeches every governor and city mayor here gives:
under difficult circumstances, we improved healthcare (he’s lying);
under difficult circumstances, we will allocate money for urban improvement (20 billion rubles for the whole country. In Moscow, they’ve siphoned off more than that just on paving tiles);
under difficult circumstances, we have industrial growth in certain sectors (this year they managed to dig up truck production figures, but overall it’s a lie, of course);
under difficult circumstances, we have successes in education (he’s lying);
under difficult circumstances, let’s increase non-commodity exports (he said the same thing last year, but non-commodity exports fell).
under difficult circumstances, let’s reduce pressure on business (they say this every time, but the pressure keeps growing).
For obvious reasons (Trump’s victory, the success of right-wing politicians in Europe, talk of sanctions being lifted soon), they can’t once again start shouting about Russia surrounded by enemies, punishers, a knife in the back, Banderites (a derogatory reference to Ukrainian nationalists), or revising the outcome of World War II. Not a word about Ukraine.
A little bit about Syria, but again, with Trump in the picture, there’s not much room to denounce the American military machine either.
Criticize NATO? Trump criticizes it even more harshly.
And that’s it—the speech is completely empty, made up either of outright lies about “successes” or of promises that have been repeated for 17 years.
If you watched the address, try now, an hour later, to recall something important from it. You won’t be able to. There was nothing important there.
And there’s a farmer sitting in front of the screen, unable either to get a loan or to connect gas service to his farm, saying to the screen: how shamelessly you lie.
And in one apartment there’s a doctor, and in the next one a patient. Both are saying the same thing: how shamelessly you lie.
Everyone who cannot afford to buy housing: how shamelessly you lie about success in home construction.
And everyone sitting in prison for catching Pokémon, for likes, and for reposts: how shamelessly you lie about national unity.
And the whole country: how shamelessly you lie about fighting corruption.
Every word is a lie.
And unlike military and foreign policy lies, this kind is instantly exposed by any citizen through everyday lived experience.
What 4% inflation next year? Don’t we see how fast prices are rising when we go to the shops?
This is very important: the regime instantly shrinks politically when it abandons military-mobilization rhetoric. How can “Holy Korsun” (a propagandistic reference to Chersonesus in Crimea) possibly be compared with urban beautification?
The conclusion is this: either Putin will find a new war in the near future—real or imaginary—or we will see a serious drop in support ratings for the authorities. Censorship, propaganda, and lies may slow that decline somewhat, but they will not stop it.