For Putin, Sovereignty Means He can Do Anything He Wants and No One Must be Allowed to Object, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 7 – In his New Year’s message to the Russian people, Vladimir Putin invoked the word “sovereignty” six times, an indication that he has decided to make the pursuit of that the main goal of his policies and of his war in Ukraine rather than smaller and more mundane things like seizing territories that can be quickly lost, Abbas Gallyamov says.

            The term has the additional advantage, the former Putin speechwriter and commentator says, in that it is nebulous and can be invested with whatever meaning the individual using it wants. And because that is so, it is important to keep in mind exactly what Putin means by it in the current context (publizist.ru/blogs/112974/44853/-).

            For Putin, Gallyamov says, sovereignty is something he and Russia must have but that others must not. Thus, he insists that no one must tell him or Russia what to do but that he and Russia have the perfect right to tell others what they can and cannot do. An obvious contradiction but not one that troubles him.

            The core meaning of sovereignty for Putin is that he can “shamelessly impose his will on others, on his own subjects and also on their neighbors so as to be in a position to steal, oppresses and enjoy power and property – and so that no one will interfere.”

            In short, this is now Russia’s “national idea,” the notion that no one must ever disagree with Putin and in the name of which “people are dying.”