Intelligence officers live by a time-honored credo: When in doubt, admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-accusations.
It was in that spirit that Vladimir Putin, the KGB man who rules Russia, addressed his nation and the world Tuesday on the annexation of Crimea.
The speech began with a blatant falsehood-“A referendum was held in Crimea on March 16, in full compliance with democratic procedures and international norms”-and continued in that vein for more than 40 minutes.
Putin presented a legal and historical argument so tendentious and so logically tangled-so unappealing to anyone but Russian nationalists such as those who packed the Kremlin to applaud him-that it seemed intended less to refute contrary arguments than to bury them under a rhetorical avalanche.
True, during the days of the Soviet Union, Crimean Tatars were “treated unfairly,” Putin conceded-a rather bland formulation for the Tatars’ mass expulsion to Central Asia by Stalin. Nevertheless, everyone, but “primarily Russians,” suffered in those years, Putin said, so he feels the Tatars’ pain, and they can trust him when he says their rights will be safe now.
Putin professed sympathetic understanding for the protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square and their unhappiness with corruption and poverty, oblivious to the contradiction with his own repression of Russians who dare to protest his corrupt rule.
Putin trumpeted the right of “Crimea’s residents to freely choose their fate,” just as Americans declared independence in 1776 and Ukraine seceded from the Soviet Union in 1991. Yet consistent application of this purported principle would probably lead to the secession of at least two Russian republics-Chechnya and Dagestan-whose national aspirations Putin has ruthlessly crushed.
Putin’s most shameless syllogism related to Germany. Of all people, the Germans “will also understand me,” he said. Unlike Britain and France, the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev supported speedy German reunification after the Berlin Wall fell. Therefore, he said, “the citizens of Germany will also support the aspiration of the Russians, of historical Russia, to restore unity.”
Of course, the Soviet Union was largely responsible for dividing Germany after World War II and for the erection of the hideous wall that trapped the current chancellor, Angela Merkel, in East Germany for much of her life.
The biggest problem with this cover story is that Putin may actually believe it.
As Putin depicted them Tuesday, all U.S. presidents, Republican or Democrat, are heirs to an ancient Western policy-dating to the 18th Century-designed to “sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position.” Even Barack Obama-the dynamic progressive who came into office promising a Reset in relations, disavowed the “Cold War chessboard,” sought nuclear weapons treaties, scuttled a missile defense plan in Eastern Europe and reached out to Iran-is no more trustworthy than any of his predecessors.
Obama can lecture Putin all he wants about being on the “wrong side of history.” Putin doesn’t care and never will. He has his own interpretation of the past, and it fills him with a sense of grievance powerful enough to transform the map of Europe.
Editorial, Pages 16 on 03/22/2014