Melnichenko’s Message No Different than the One Putin has Been Delivering for Some Time, Parkhomenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 11 – Sergey Melnichenko’s article in The Economist is being widely discussed in both Russia and the West as an alternative vision of the future; but in fact, Sergey Parkhomenko says, it is “quintessentially Putinesque” and almost certainly was “crafted” in the Kremlin itself. 

            According to the commentator, Putin is indeed seeking “alternative channels of communication” given the shortcomings of his current messengers but his message remains unchanged—and the Russian oligarch in the British publication has “conveyed all his terms” (t.me/sparkhomenkovoice/3916 reposted at echofm.online/opinions/eto-sovershenno-putinskoe-poslanie).

            Parkhomenko argues that “the key phrase” in the  article, one Putin has used before, is this:  “the choice for external players is not between a friendly Russia and a hostile one. It is between a Russia whose behavior is predictable and a Russia whose trajectory is unknown. In the world now taking shape, predictability matters more than likability."

            Such logic is “very primitive,” Parkhomenko continues, “however much it is all dressed up in complex jargon and convoluted sentences.” And it has only one meaning: The Russian ruler “wants to survive and he hopes to somehow wriggle out [of his current difficulties] and hold on to power.”