To Show Loyalty, Russian Elites Emulate Putin But Once He’s Gone, They Will Emulate Someone Else, Kolezev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 17 – To show their loyalty to the Kremlin leader, it isn’t enough that Russian elites declare that they do, Dmitry Kolezev says. They increasingly must emulate his behavior. If he plays tennis, they all will; if he goes skiing, they will do the same; and if he likes hockey, they’ll become fans even if they don’t like the game.

            The Urals journalist and commentator says that such demonstrations of loyalty are in many ways natural but do have a serious downside: “If the president loses his mind, then everyone around him goes crazy as well. Or more precisely they pretend to have done so in the same way he has” (t.me/kolezev/11288 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=627DED85AEC9E).

            If Putin acts like “a bloodthirsty madman,” they will do the same thing, demanding more corpses and even a nuclear apocalypse. But of course, “most of them are not really bloodthirsty at all. They are just cowardly and weak-willed. And as soon as Putin leaves the scene, they will behave entirely differently in an instant.”