Putin Again Uses a Film to Describe ‘World Order’ He Wants

Paul Goble     

Staunton, December 23 – For the third time, Vladimir Putin has used a documentary film to outline his ideas about Russia and the world, first in “Crimea. The Road Home,” then in “The President” and now in “The World Order,” a film that lacks the revelations of the first and the dramatic threats of the latter but that nonetheless merits close attention, Kseniya Kirillova says.

The San Francisco-based Novy Region-2 commentator suggests that this time around, Putin has advanced five main ideas, which both individually and collectively show “the illusions and goals of the Kremlin dictator” (nr2.com.ua/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/Miroporyadok-po-putinski-113864.html).

First of all, Kirillova says, “the main idea of the film is old to the point of banality: the Americans violate international norms, organize the export of ‘color revolutions,’ and in general sow chaos and death across the earth.” 

But there is one curious nuance: This theme is stressed not by Putin, who nonetheless must have approved the film and thus this message, but by the narrator. The Kremlin leader presents himself as some who is quite ready to assist the West and especially Europe in correcting what the film sees as Washington’s mistakes.

Second, the film offers the parallel message that Moscow believes in can work with ‘particular European leaders” and also with “the population of Western countries ‘over the heads’ of their governments,” exactly the same message Soviet propagandists delivered and one that also recalls the past that Moscow wants to work with Europe against America.

Third, Putin simultaneously insisted that he has no plans to restore the Soviet Union but that the Soviet Union was Russia, given that it defended “the geopolitical interests of Russia” albeit under a different name. Thus, in a clumsy way, Kirillova says, “Putin again confirmed his old thesis that Russia is the USSR.”

Fourth, the Kremlin leader used the film to issue yet another implicit nuclear threat to the West by suggesting that “Russia will perfect its nuclear weapons” and that “the nuclear triade lies at the foundation of our security policy.” 

And fifth, in the film, Putin delivered “two messages” about Ukraine: On the one hand, he said, “the countries of the West certainly already regret that they supported the turnover in governments.”  And on the other, he indicated by complaining that Kyiv’s policies were determined by the US that he has no intention of pulling back from his adventures in Ukraine.

Summing up the film, Kirillova says that its content show that the negotiations Putin has been conducting with Western leaders in recent weeks have in no way changed his positions but rather confirmed his earlier views.  Consequently, he wants to continue to “participate in the  negotiation process” not so much as an equal but as the one who proposes “a new world order.”