Putin's meeting with the Press

Vladimir Putin held his annual Q & A session, which lasted 3 1/2 hours. I can't think of another 'democratic' leader who would spend so long fielding questions from the media, local and international.

"The western media assault on Russia is truly amazing!

"Apparently my friends, neighbors and I are walking the streets in filthy blankets looking for scraps of food to eat – eying mice and rats as a hardy meal! The freezing cold is breaking our will and making us turn against Putin! Actually the winter has been amazingly warm and heating still cheap. Putin’s popularity is high and stable. Though there is concern.

"Then Putin spoke to the nation today. What happened? The strength of the ruble increased during his hours’ long Q&A. Can any other leader in the world do that? Putin is Russia’s FDR – “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Are there some tough times ahead? Yes, but that is when the Russians finally get their shit together.

"What is the upside to all of this? Russian liberals are in again in retreat. I hope they all leave Russia and leave us in peace."

---Peter Lavelle

Putin Defiant, Lashes Out At West, Tells Russians Economy May Stay Weak For Two Years

Zero Hedge,

18 December, 2014

Having started at noon Moscow time (4am Eastern), Putin's annual Q&A run for a massive three and a half hours, during which the Russian leader took numerous questions from the public and as expected, reiterated the key "rally around the flag" talking points that have permeated Russian rhetoric over the past few weeks as the economic situation in Russia deteriorated.

As Bloomberg notes, the conference was attended by hundreds of reporters and carried live on television around the world, the event took on heightened importance this year as the president sought to reassure a Russian public unnerved by the ruble’s plummet.

While he did acknowledge the difficult economic reality, Putin sought to reassure his countrymen that the current weakness "would last no longer than two years." 

Putin promptly pivoted against the west and accused the U.S. and European Union of trying to undermine his country and blaming external factors for the sharp plunge in the ruble, notably the drop in oil saying that “the economy will naturally adapt to the new conditions of low oil prices.”

As caught by the WSJ, when he was asked by a Russian television reporter about the sense that new divisions in Europe have emerged since the Ukraine crisis, Putin blamed the tensions on the West, saying “they didn’t stop building walls” after the end of the Cold War. He accused the West of building up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization toward Russia’s borders and expanding an antimissile systems.

“It’s not a matter of Crimea. We are defending our independence, our sovereignty and our right to exist, we should all understand this,” he said later in response to a question about whether the current economic troubles were “payment for Crimea.”

In tough language, Mr. Putin returned to an analogy he’d used earlier this fall, comparing Russia to a bear in the Siberian Taiga wilderness, saying it was naive to hope that the West would leave Russia alone.

“They will always try to put it in chains and once they have it in chains, they will take out its teeth and claws, which in this case means our strategic nuclear deterrent,” he said. “Once they’ve got the Taiga, they won’t need the bear,” he said, accusing Western leaders of saying publicly that Russia should be deprived of its vast natural reяources.

Asked about tensions with the West, Putin struck a harsh tone, accusing it of seeking to subdue and disarm Russia. Acknowledging that Western sanctions over the country’s role in Ukraine were biting, he said the current economic troubles “are payment for our independence, our sovereignty.”

Putin did reserve some blame for his Russian peers, criticizing the central bank for not responding faster and halting the Ruble collapse. He vowed to guide the country through the current situation in the same way he steered Russia through the 2008 financial crisis, and warned citizens to brace for a recession. Somewhat ironically, Putin said that Russia shouldn’t waste currency reserves protecting the ruble as the country prepares for a downturn brought on by the collapse of the oil price and sanctions over the Ukraine conflict, he said.

“Under the most negative external economic scenario, this situation can last two years,” Putin said. “If the situation is very bad, we will have to change our plans, cut some things.”

Some of the other notable highlights: "Putin sparred with a Ukrainian journalist, reeled off statistics on the fall harvest and spoke about guiding gifted children. He even told reporters that he has a good relationship with his ex-wife and is in love with someone new. The tone of the back-and-forth was captured in an answer about the freeing from prison of former oil tycoon and political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky: “I don’t regret anything. I did everything absolutely correctly.”

So will the presser do anything to change the status quo? Hardly: Putin will continue to be viewed as a pariah by the west, certainly for as long as he continues to challenge the US state department-imposed regime in the Ukraine. 

Meanwhile in Russia Putin is still enjoying popular support because the simple equation is that for the vast majority the recent territorial expansion courtesy of the full Crimean annexation is seen as worth the hardship and the soaring prices. 

Which is why Putin again accused the U.S. and European Union of using the Ukraine conflict as way to contain Russia as they have done since the end of the Cold War through the expansion of NATO, comparing the current situation to a new division akin to the Berlin Wall.

“This is payback for our natural desire to preserve ourselves as a nation, as a civilization and state,” Putin said. “The crisis in Ukraine should make our partners understand that it’s time to stop building wall.”

Finally, Putin said he’s firmly in control of the country and is not in any way worried about a coup from within his ranks. “People in their hearts and souls feel that we, and I in particular, are acting in the interests of the vast majority,” he said. 

Judging by his record high popularity numbers, the people appear to believe him

Western nations want to chain 'the Russian bear' - Putin

Zero Hedge,

18 December, 2014

Western nations want to chain “the Russian bear,” pull out its teeth and ultimately have it stuffed, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned. He said anti-Russian sanctions are the cost of being an independent nation.

Putin's 2014 Q&A marathon LIVE UPDATES

Putin used the vivid metaphor of a “chained bear” during his annual Q&A session with the media in Moscow in response to a question about whether he believed that the troubles of the Russian economy were payback for the reunification with Crimea.

“It’s not payback for Crimea. It’s the cost of our natural desire to preserve Russia as a nation, a civilization and a state,” Putin said.

The president said that even if “the Russian bear” started “sitting tight… and eating berries and honey,”this would not stop pressure being applied against the country.

“They won’t leave us alone. They will always seek to chain us. And once we are chain, they’ll rip out our teeth and claws. Our nuclear deterrence, speaking in present-day terms,” Putin said.

“As soon as this [chaining the bear] happens, nobody will need it anymore. They’ll stuff it. And start to put their hands on his Taiga [Siberian forest belt] after it. We’ve heard statements from Western officials that Russia’s owning Siberia was not fair,” he exclaimed.

“Stealing Texas from Mexico – was that fair? And us having control over our own land is not fair. We should hand it out!”

The West had an anti-Russian stance long before the current crisis started, Putin said. The evidence is there, he said, ranging from“direct support of terrorism in the North Caucasus,” to the expansion of NATO and the creation of its anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe, and the way the western media covered the Olympic Games in Sochi, Putin said.

Here is the version by the unfailingly russophobic Guardian presstitutes.

At one point the article gives verbatim a report of a question put by a Ukrainian journalist without bothering with the response. Great journalism - lol. 

Everything’s fine, says Putin in press conference – including my love life

A classic example of the Russian leader’s annual conference: just don’t mention the rouble or military involvement in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin at his annual press conference on the state of Russia, which lasted for more than three hours. Photograph: Nickolay Vinokurov/ Nickolay Vinokurov/Demotix/Corbis

The Guardian,

18 December, 2014

With flirtatious questions about his love life, noir wisecracks, earthy animal metaphors and forceful anti-western rhetoric, on the surface this was a classic Vladimir Putin press conference. The Russian president puts on the marathon performance annually, assembling more than 1,000 journalists to hold forth on everything from geopolitics to parking tickets.

But this year was nevertheless somewhat different. If Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in east Ukraine earlier in the year only served to boost Putin’s ratings among the populace, the dramatic slide of the rouble in recent weeks has raised the spectre of previous Russian crises and undermined the main tenet of his 15-year rule over the world’s largest country: stabilnost (stability).

Putin, who opened by reeling off a number of positive economic indicators including the year’s “record harvest”, could not ignore the elephant in the room for long, but he brushed off the crisis as something that would pass. Indeed, it was not even fair to call it a crisis, he said, despite the rouble having lost around half of its value against the dollar and the euro since the beginning of the year.

“Our economy will overcome the current situation,” said Putin. “How much time will be needed for that? Under the most unfavourable circumstances, I think it will take about two years.”

The rouble, which started the year at 34 to the dollar, fell to a record low of nearly 80 on Tuesday before recovering on Wednesday, staying reasonably stable at between 60 and 63 to the dollar during Putin’s speech. This suggested the markets were neither horrified – nor hugely encouraged – by Putin’s words.

On the one hand, Putin is likely to have reassured them that drastic measures are not around the corner: there was no talk of capital controls, no hints that heads would roll in the government or at the central bank, as some had feared.

But at the same time, there was very little by way of concrete solutions. Essentially, the message was that Russia would wait for the oil price to go back up and then everything would be all right. Putin denied that the government’s own domestic policies and actions in Ukraine have been in any way responsible for the currency collapse.

Although the president went on for more than three hours, he did not come close to beating his record, set last year, when he took questions for four hours and 40 minutes. He began the session looking somewhat out of sorts and with a persistent cough, but soon got into his stride, and appeared to be enjoying himself, dodging the tougher questions and making jokes about the friendlier ones.

There were a number of combative questions during the session, most notably from a Ukrainian journalist who demanded Putin justify the “punitive operation” he had launched in east Ukraine.

“As the commander in chief of the army, what have you said to the families of dead Russian officers and soldiers,” asked the journalist, taking the rare opportunity to ask Putin in public about the Russian military intervention in east Ukraine that the Kremlin has denied ever happened.

But the format of the annual press conference means there is no chance for dialogue or follow-up questions. Events in east Ukraine “really are a punitive operation, but one carried out by the Kiev authorities, and not vice versa,” said Putin. On the issue of serving Russian soldiers and military equipment crossing the border, he simply dodged the question.

Unsurprisingly, Putin also used the conference to rail at the west. He said if Russia had not annexed Crimea, the west would have found another reason to target Russia, comparing the country to a bear.

“Sometimes I wonder, maybe the bear should just sit quietly, munch on berries and honey rather than chasing after piglets, maybe then, they would leave it alone? But no, they wouldn’t, because they will always try to chain it up. And as soon as they chain it up, they will pull out its teeth and claws.”

By teeth and claws, Putin said he meant Russia’s nuclear weapons. The west was circling round to destroy Russia, said Putin, so it could steal its natural resources.

“Once they’ve taken out his claws and his teeth, then the bear is no longer necessary. He’ll become a stuffed animal.”

Putin covered everything from the traffic police to farmers’ pensions in the three-hour session, but the two key themes were foreign policy and the economy, and there was much less of the minor regional issues that have often dominated the conferences in the past.

Nevertheless, there were surreal moments, such as when a man from the town of Kirov grabbed the microphone to complain that major supermarkets such as the French chain Auchan were refusing to stock the locally made brand of kvas, a fermented bread drink.

“I don’t want to offend Coca Cola,” said Putin, in support. “But we have our own traditional drinks.”

Within hours Auchan announced it would invite the kvas company to submit a tender to supply its product, now it had the leader’s blessing.

At one point, a regional journalist told Putin her aunt’s friend had requested her to ask him if he had time for much of a love life since his divorce. Putin smirked, said hello to the aunt’s friend, and said that “everything is fine” in that department.

The combative questions from Russia’s embattled liberal journalists were mainly about the newly toxic atmosphere in Russian society, and whether Putin felt guilty for talking about a “fifth column”, which heralded a renewed crackdown against the political opposition. Was he able to distinguish between opposition to his rule and being a traitor?

“It’s very difficult to answer that. I’m being honest. Because the border is very subtle. It’s difficult, I think, to give a scientific definition of where opposition ends and “fifth column” begins.

Quoting the poet Mikhail Lermontov, who Putin said was a patriot who had also been in opposition to the Tsarist authorities, the president said the key difference was whether people supported their country in their hearts or were serving the interests of another country. Russia’s opposition and human rights community have often been accused of serving the interests of the west.

Overall, the press conference was an attempt by Putin to portray business as usual. The take-home message for ordinary Russians was that the economic woes are a minor blip, and even if they are not, it is the west to blame for hounding Russia, and not Russia’s actions on the international stage that have caused the isolation.

If the economy continues to worsen, the Kremlin will be looking closely for signs of either a split in the elites or Putin’s popular support eroding, but the message on Thursday was that Putin himself is not worrying about either eventuality.

When it was suggested to him that some of his close circle have privately blamed him personally for Russia’s economic position, Putin cracked a broad smile and said, with his usual dark humour: “Give me their names!”

When asked if there might be a danger at some point of a palace coup in the future, he again smiled.

“Calm down. We don’t have any palaces. So there can’t be a palace coup.”

And here is a more serious (and not totally unsympathetic) commentary on Radio NZ from a liberal Russian-speaking Reuters correspondent

Putin says US and key oil producers may be equally interested in lower oil

RT,

18 December, 2014

The sharp drop in the oil price, which has lost more than 40 percent since its peak in the summer, may be because the US and some of other huge oil exporters are interested in that happening, President Putin said.

"Now we are all witnessing a decline in energy prices. There are all sorts of conversations on why this is happening. Either there’s some kind of a plot by Saudi Arabia and the US to punish Iran or influence the economy of Russia, Venezuela, and so on. It may be or it may be not,” he said.

“Maybe it is a struggle between the traditional producers of raw materials and shale oil. We cannot say for sure.”

READ MORE: OPEC won’t cut production even if oil below $40 – UAE energy minister

If the price level remains low for a long time, companies will stop investing in difficult to develop deposits and new oil fields. He believes falling oil prices could eventually bounce back so hard that even industrialized countries would fully feel it. Putin believes many understand it.

“Our Chinese friends also understand it, they are not interested in oil prices dropping too low and remaining there for a long time," he said.

READ MORE: Oil producers to lose $1tn if price below $60 – Goldman Sachs