Russian writer who fled Russia last year says: In 2015, Putin will be an outright dictator
Last edited Thu Jan 1, 2015, 04:23 PM - Edit history (1)
I hated what happened to Russia in 2014 so much that I decided to move away. It's safe to say, however, that 2015 will be worse. President Vladimir Putin's regime is on the verge of transitioning from mild authoritarianism to outright dictatorship. The country's newly amended military doctrine is an especially ominous sign. Judging by it, the Kremlin's response to the ongoing economic crisis will be to crack down on all signs of popular discontent. The Kremlin seems determined to turn inward and complete its break with the Western world.
Russia's wariness of the West is nothing new. The 2010 edition of the country's military doctrine — issued under "liberal" President Dmitri Medvedev — listed as the top external threat the eastward expansion of NATO toward Russia's borders. Putin's new, post-Crimea version reiterates the vision of NATO as the arch-enemy creeping up on Russia. The new doctrine differs from the old one, however, in treating domestic challenges to the ruling regime as military dangers to the nation.
Where the 2010 document merely referred to "attempts at violent change of the Russian Federation's constitutional order," the 2014 one adds "the destabilization of the domestic political and social situation in the nation" and even "information-related activity aimed at influencing the population, primarily the country's young citizens, with the goal of undermining the historical, spiritual and patriotic traditions in the area of defending the Fatherland." Political opposition, in other words, is now classified as an activity worthy of a military response.
This marks an important shift. Despite a gradual tightening of the screws since Putin started his third presidential term in 2012, a 13-year-old consensus was still in effect at the start of this year: Less political and economic liberty for more wealth. Protests were usually ineffectual, but often tolerated. In 2013, I took part in demonstrations that clearly violated freshly adopted restrictive laws, and, like thousands of others, escaped unscathed. There were enough uncensored media to vary one's news diet and, if you were a journalist, to write for. The economy was slowing down and growing more dependent on colossal state projects like the Sochi Olympics. But banks weren't failing and workers weren't being laid off in droves. Moscow still emptied out for the New Year's holidays as wealthy Russians descended on European ski resorts and the tropical havens of Southeast Asia.
You wouldn't have easily mistaken Russia for a European country, but, in the big cities at least, it was still a relatively prosperous one. Then the ice cracked in the frozen kingdom, and so did the edifice underneath.
Read more
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/12/30/leonid-bershidsky-in-2015-putin-will-be-an-outright-dictator/
or
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-putin-2015-comment29-20141229-story.html#page=1
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