THE CRUCIFIX OF HISTORY AND INTERNATIONAL POITICS: PUTIN’S RUSSIA; MISSION AND STRENGTH

Abstract

That Russia could be reversed, into penury, global irrelevance and domestic slide starting from the 1990s, not only appeared humanly un-daunting and historically anachronistic by almost all calculations. Breaking from the sleazy Yeltsin past, marching sturdily towards restoring Russia’s power and prestige, Putin’s blunt, occasionally coarse style and energetic demeanor appears to have successfully galvanized the electorate against the country’s unwieldiness and institutionalized bureaucratic subtle sabotage. Beset with systemic diseases post the Soviet Union’s collapse, Putin inherited a sick country in every sense of word. Determined to liberate and propel Russia within a twenty-years period, into one of the top few most developed nations in the world, Putin through myriads of sweeping administrative changes has placed previously extremely powerful oligarchs in check, scared governors, leveled Chechen villages, and annexed Crimea, through an admixture of modernized authoritarianism and reformist democracy. Applying more than a brains trust, Putin surprisingly in transforming Russia, has not allowed Russia to transform him. Just as the fear of a future that might prove even worse (a roll back to the past), is complemented with a generalized popular love. To the West, Russia’s strides is no more an illusion, most especially with its indelible nationalistic gait imbued with Putin’s guerilla tactics foreign recognition policy approach. Putin’s Russia is simply back to global assertiveness and recognition. Could this be a lesson in statecraft? Call him the new Czar or Stalin, one clear issue is that in the 21st century, it’s becoming pretty difficult to demarcate the Russia federation from the personality of Vladimir Putin.