Solovey Speaks His Mind Even More Forcefully than Usual

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – In recent weeks, Valery Solovey, an MGIMO professor and commentator, has been extremely outspoken about the situation in Russia, the shortcomings of the Putin regime, and the increasing divergence between the powers that be and the population. But in a new interview with Activist.msk.ru, he exceeds even the high standard he has set earlier.

            Below are twelve of his main points, presented in the order they were in the interview and not in order of importance. All of them deserve attention as an indication of Solovey’s underlying views about Russia today (activist.msk.ru/2019/04/spiski-tekh-kogo-nuzhno-zaklyuchit-pod-strazhu-byli-gotovy-v-2012-godu.html).

1.      Moscow could launch a new war against Ukraine after the presidential elections there, “but politically and strategically this has no sense. This war would not be the walkover that it might have been in 2014. Now it would be a real bloody war with major losses. And what is most important, it would not bring anything to Russia. I am certain the Kremlin’s position is more realistic.”

2.      “Russia is a country populated largely by poor people, either impoverished or at the edge of poverty. This is shameful for a country with such a quantity of natural resources and with the value of those resources which have already been extracted and sold.”

3.     
The Kremlin is preparing for war and is displaying “the worst traditions” of the Russian state in pursuing a policy that is harming the population because the powers that be don’t care what happens to the people.  As a result, “we a re in a state of social and already anthropological catastrophe if one judges by the level of mortality in Russia.” 

4.      The Kremlin’s staging of games and competitions “have no practical sense. More than that, they end in the most shameful fiascos.” In the case of the Sochi Olympiad, they ended in the toilet “in the direct meaning of that word.”   

5.      The Kremlin isn’t interested in the people whom it views only as material “for the solution of government and state tasks” or as the source of resources for the government to pursue its goals.

6.      The current pursuit of officials like Abyzov is easily explained: “the best way to keep the elite in tone are arrests.” That ensures loyalty, and “for the Kremlin this is problem number one. It is very much afraid of betrayal and conspiracies” and will do whatever it can to prevent their emergence.

7.     
Charges are corruption, but no one in Russia believes that what is going on has anything to do with a struggle against corruption. Society thinks that this will not have any impact on corruption” because the entire bureaucracy is corrupt.  The Russian people are “very realistic” on this point.

8.      There are people in the Putin vertical who would like the Kremlin to move from “vegetarian” repression to the real thing.  They are prepared for “much more massive measures: “Lists of those who must be arrested without preliminary charges were prepared already for 2012” and they have been updated. “In Moscow, there are about 1500 to 2,000 people” on such lists.  Such people could be “interned.” Putin has resisted moving in this direction, but he is under pressure to do so.

9.      Moscow knows little or nothing about what is happening beyond the ring road because the regime doesn’t want problems like the Ingush protests covered.  People are angry about that as well, and it is likely that “in the coming year,” there will be more such local protests and that they may grow into “an all-Russia wave.”

10.  The powers that be are prepared to shut off the Internet in the event of any political or social conflicts. They’ve already done that in Ingushetia. But the consequences will be the reverse of what the Kremlin wants. Instead of participating virtually, even more people will come into the streets to find out what is going on.

11.  “Russia is an aging and dying country. And this is a national catastrophe. Women do not want and cannot give birth: they have no money or place to live. How can you have children if there is nowhere to live How can you have a second child if you are having trouble supporting one? Forty percent of Russian families are buying food on credit now.”

12.  The situation in Russia is so uncertain that people are turning to fortune tellers and the like. “This is nature,” Solovey says, “but the extent of this phenomenon is something you can’t even imagine.”