Vladimir Putin is now officially serving his history-making fourth term as Russia's President.
Because they recently changed the rules, he's now going to serve 6 more years instead of four.
He was officially inaugurated on May 7, amidst protests across the country.
Russian authorities said the protests were “unsanctioned rallies”
and cracked down hard on them -
1600 people were detained by police, including some schoolchildren.
The election was held on March 18, with Putin allegedly ‘winning’ 77 percent of the vote -
but like their reaction to opposition protests might indicate,
it wasn’t exactly a free or fair election.
Just days before the election, the Human Rights Foundation brought together some Russian journalists,
activists, and other analysts on the region for an event called PutinCon.
Their emphasis was on the con -
the goal of the event was to expose Putin’s rule as a sham.
It's true that Putin does has supporters in Russia -
but this conference was focused on the suppression of dissent,
and how it’s hard to get an accurate read on his popularity simply because
the government doesn’t really allow opposition.
We sat down with a few of the speakers there and asked what we can expect from Putin's fourth term,
and what we should look for.
One of those people was the former president of Estonia,
a neighboring country of Russia’s.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves served as head of state of Estonia from 2006 to 2016
and he knows firsthand what it’s like to deal with Putin —
and he knows firsthand what it’s like to be one of Russia’s targets.
Back in 2007, Estonia suffered a cyber attack that officials blame on the Russian government:
Ilves has called it “the first case of cyber-war” and is a cybersecurity expert himself.
He’s also very active on Twitter. You should follow him.
What do you think we should be paying the most attention to for Putin’s fourth term?
Well, a continuation of these same policies.
I would look to where your elections are coming and be worried about that.
For example, actually, National Security Adviser McMaster already said in December
that the Russians are working on the Mexican election.
Because that’s another big, important country, especially to the U.S., that is a democracy,
and that where one candidate is being favored against another,
as was the case in the United States, as was the case in the French election,
as was the case in the Czech election,
as was the case in the Italian election…
These are threats to our basically rule-of-law based democratic system.
What do you think is most important that people should pay attention to in Putin’s fourth term?
For one thing, the West should be vigilant about new acts of terror.
I mean, we’ve had an example in Great Britain,
where a former double agent and his daughter were poisoned and are probably in horrific condition.
The problem with allowing someone like Putin to get away with what he’s gotten away with
is that it’s a standing encouragement to him to commit the same or worse in the future.
Satter lived in Moscow for many years as a working journalist,
but was prohibited from going back in December 2013.
His visa renewal at the time was denied.
He is reportedly the first American journalist to have been expelled
from the country since the end of the Cold War.
The Russian government claims that Satter violated migration law by not properly doing his paperwork,
but Satter says those claims are nonsense and it’s actually his critical work of Putin that got him banned.
That said, you had mentioned to me earlier that you’re optimistic that one day you may be able to return.
So what is there to look forward to, for Russia?
The kind of government that they have now is archaic
and doesn’t correspond to the kind of society that Russia is and has become.
I think that there’s reason to hope that, presented with the truth,
and presented with the obvious examples of misrule under Putin,
people will choose for themselves to embark on a different course.
Will you be voting in Sunday’s election?
Well, that’s a big question, but to be honest, I just don’t see any sense in it.
I mean, it’s not about real elections,
it’s not about the real competitions,
and that’s why I just don’t understand why to take part in it.
What I’ve been hearing from other Russians is: apathy is kind of at an all-time high.
People understand that Putin’s going to win no matter what,
so what’s the point of going to vote?
Everything that’s been going on with Navalny, and not allowing him on the ballot —
is that something that you hear as well?
Absolutely.
The most popular game now in Moscow is to count how old you will be when this term would end,
because there’s a provision in the Constitution that...after that, Putin might go for another term.
Well, people try to count how much of his life they will spend under Putin.
And for many people, it’s already about 40%, 50%, so yeah, it’s a bit odd.
Soldatov has co-written several books about the history and activities of the Russian security services,
and most recently, he published a book on the surveillance state
and how the Russian government tries to control the internet and social media.
He’s a longtime Russian investigative journalist, so I wanted to let him have the last word.
What do you think the world needs to know about what Putin’s fourth term might involve?
What do you think he’s going to focus on?
Well, unfortunately, we are way behind this idea of Putin being a strong leader
who’s really interested in developing us as a country.
He’s not that interested anymore in developing of the Russian economy,
and say, back in the 2000s, lots of people, even liberals,
they wanted to justify Putin’s methods by saying that at least this guy’s interested in modernization
of the Russian economy.
And what we see now is: of course he’s not that interested now.
He’s more interested in building up the Russian military-industrial complex.
And it’s bad for many reasons.
It’s bad for the world because it means — if you have a lot of guns, inevitably, you are getting more aggressive.
But it also means a lot about the climate in the country,
because we already have a huge military-industrial complex,
and it means that lots of people, the most talented people,
are working in the military-industrial complex.
And in this way, we are co-opted in this state-owned and funded system of producing arms.
Which is not a very good thing for the society.
We saw this before in the Soviet Union, and it was really, really bad.
My guess is that is what Vladimir Putin wants to focus on.
Because it’s a way to control the society.
Hey guys, it’s Versha!
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
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