At the risk of being controversial and no doubt unpopular in some so-called “conservative” circles, I’ve written an article for the International Business Times entitled “Russian Revelations: Putting Putin in Perspective”:
http://www.ibtimes.com/russian-revelations-putting-putin-perspective-1561224
This is an excellent piece that properly provides some much-needed balance to this timely topic.
Joseph is correct in his anticipation of negative feedback from both leftists and neo-conservatives; Putin’s unwillingness to march in lockstep with the pro-homosexual crowd makes him anathema to both groups. The former actively promotes that agenda while the latter pays lip service to traditional morality but acquiesces to every incursion of anti-Christian legislation into our society. (see Arizona governor’s recent veto as only the latest example.)
Ukraine is a nation whose history is complicated; a complication made even more intractable since Khruschchev’s move to attach the Crimea to it in 1954. It defies simplistic solutions.
However corrupt the existing Ukrainian government might have been, it was there by popular vote. The forces who toppled this elected government involved several unsavory elements that include the Svoboda Party which has considerable neo-Nazi proclivities.
People who are protesting Putin here in America would be hard-pressed to locate Ukraine on a map. Keyboard commandos who are urging a belligerent stance against Russia are flirting with apocalyptic ramifications.
Commentators in the West who are bellowing about the sanctity of borders miss the irony of their own previous support for the US-led NATO bombing of Serbian Christians not so long ago, not to mention multiple forays into Middle Eastern countries. So much of what has been written or spoken about this situation reflects historical and linguistic ignorance, suspect reasoning and puerile prose.
What we need now are sober minds, informed diplomats and most of all, constant prayer.
Dear Joseph,
Am a fan of yours, own some of your books, heard you speak at Our Lady of the Rosary in Greenville some while back.
Question: Have you or anyone done a hard-nosed review of Putin’s multiple policies and what they add up to? Is there a coherent whole in his actions? Is he sincere in his conservative, Christian-friendly efforts, or just another wavering politician playing to various crowds perceived as important to him and his grasp on power? Etc.
Came across two news stories (below) in Russian press recently and don’t see the need for Putin as would-be ex-Communist to curry favor with Castro and other left-wingers in Latin America. Do you?
Best regards,
Tom Ashcraft, Charlotte, NC
#1
From Reuters in The Moscow Times, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/putin-promises-to-assist-cuba-with-offshore-oil-exploration/503332.html:
Putin Promises to Assist Cuba With Offshore Oil Exploration
HAVANA — President Vladimir Putin pledged to help revive Cuba’s struggling offshore oil exploration at the start of a six-day tour of Latin America as Russia aims to reassert its influence on the communist-ruled island.
Putin was joined in Havana by ally and head of state oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin, to finalize a deal to explore for oil off Cuba’s northern coast.
Putin also promised to reinvest $3.5 billion of Cuban debt with Russia into development projects on the island, part of a deal in which Russia forgave 90 percent of Cuba’s debt, or almost $32 billion, most of it originating from Soviet loans to a fellow communist state.
Both measures inject much-needed foreign investment into Cuba and demonstrate an act of defiance against the U.S., which maintains a 52-year-old economic embargo that effectively shuts out many Western companies from doing business in Cuba.
“We will provide support to our Cuban friends to overcome the illegal blockade of Cuba,” Putin said Friday.
Putin’s journey to the back yard of the U.S. comes at a time when he is under pressure from the West to help restrain pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and urge them to find a negotiated solution.
Sechin is one of the Russian executives the U.S. has targeted for economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. Washington has blacklisted individuals believed to be part of Putin’s inner circle, and Sechin is among the most influential people in Russia.
On his first stop in Cuba, the Cold War ally of the former Soviet Union situated only 145 kilometers from the U.S., Putin met with former President Fidel Castro and current President Raul Castro before receiving the Medal of Jose Marti, Cuba’s highest decoration.
Fidel Castro, 87, stepped down in favor of his brother for health reasons in 2008 after 49 years in power. For an hour he and Putin discussed international affairs, the global economy and Russian-Cuban relations, the Kremlin said.
Any major oil find would radically improve Cuba’s economic trajectory.
Cuba produces about 55,000 barrels per day, through aging onshore wells and imports about 110,000 bpd on favorable terms from socialist ally Venezuela.
Following a number of foreign companies whose wells have all come up dry, Russian oil company Zarubezhneft last year began drilling in Cuba’s Boca de Jaruco area. That project has been suspended. Zarubezhneft also has been helping Cuba extract from existing onshore wells.
An aide to Putin in Moscow said on Thursday that Zarubeznheft would sign a new deal in Cuba along with Rosneft, but in the end only Rosneft was present.
“Developing new blocks on Cuba’s offshore shelf is [expected] in the very near future,” Putin said.
#2
From The Moscow times, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/ortega-celebrates-putins-nicaragua-visit-as-a-ray-of-light/503358.html
Ortega Celebrates Putin’s Nicaragua Visit as a ‘Ray of Light’
• By Ivan Nechepurenko, July 13, 2014
President Vladimir Putin visited three Latin American countries over the weekend in a whirlwind tour aimed at demonstrating Moscow’s resilience as an international power despite Western attempts at isolation stemming from the Ukraine crisis.
Putin began his trip with visits to Cuba and Argentina, before traveling on to Brazil in time for the World Cup Final on Sunday. He signed a range of deals along the way, including agreements to establish Glonass positioning stations in each country, as well as a nuclear power plant development deal with Argentina.
Although the visit to what for strategic purposes is broadly viewed as the U.S.’s backyard was planned prior to Kiev’s regime change, analysts see the trip as a geopolitical move in the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Vladimir Davydov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Latin America Institute, told The Moscow Times on Sunday that the trip illustrates the point that while Russia is more than simply a regional power, it is not striving to become a global superpower.
“Russia wants to counterbalance the U.S., but it wants to do so together with China and other BRICS countries. Russia positions itself as a separate pole of power, but not as a single alternative,” he said in a phone interview.
Dmitry Trenin, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center tweeted on Thursday that Putin’s goal in Latin America was to demonstrate that “Russia is not a regional power.” Having been excluded from the Group of Eight, Russia has shifted its focus to BRICS, he added, noting that the trip further proves that Russia has friends among the U.S.’s neighbors.
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, U.S. President Barack Obama caused an uproar among pundits by labeling Russia a “regional power.”
“Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors — not out of strength but out of weakness,” he said at a news conference in The Hague in late March.
Putin’s Visit a “Ray of Light”
All of the countries on Putin’s Latin American itinerary abstained from voting in March on a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
On Saturday Putin also made a unscheduled stopover in Nicaragua, one of eleven countries that rejected the resolution altogether. The small Central American state is also one of the few that, like Russia, have recognized independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Putin met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who referred to Putin’s arrival as a “historic visit.”
“It is like a ray of light, like a flash of lightning. This is the first time a Russian president has visited Nicaragua,” he told Putin in his opening remarks.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in February that Russia was in talks with Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, among others, to allow its navy ships dock at their ports. That same month, Reuters reported that a Russian intelligence-gathering vessel had docked at a port in Havana.
Double Standards
During an official luncheon in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner toasted to a “world without double standards,” referring to the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and EU against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
Putin noted Argentina’s criticism of the sanctions and returned the favor by saying, “Russia, for its part, has invariably stood for resolving the dispute over the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands by way of direct negotiations between Argentina and Britain.”
Malvinas is the Spanish name for the Falkland Islands, which Argentina fought and lost a war with Britain over in 1982.
Putin also thanked Argentina for inviting the Spanish-language version of Russian state-owned international news channel RT to broadcast around the clock alongside the state-run channels, an honor never before bestowed on a foreign channel, according to RT.
World Cup and BRICS
On Sunday evening Putin arrived in Rio de Janeiro for the World Cup final, which will include a ceremony of passing hosting duties to Russia. Upon arriving, he discussed Ukraine with German Chancellor Angela Merkel who came to support her country’s bid to win its fourth World Cup.
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko had initially been slated to attend, but decided to refrain, citing the ongoing armed conflict in his country.
Over the next three days Putin will conduct talks with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and meet with his other counterparts from China, India and South Africa in the framework of the BRICS summit in the cities of Fortaleza and Brasilia.