Putin is juggling with fire

On the 18th June, 2016, Stephen Sestanovich (left) wrote that,

"Having seized Crimea in 2014 and intervened in Syria in 2015, [Putin] can claim credit for the strongest and most successful assertion of Russian power since the end of the Cold War.

At the same time, the country is more isolated internationally than it has been in decades.

Putin faces a similar problem on the economic front. A leader who, many Russians say, made rising living standards the basis of his legitimacy now cannot promise that the good times will return.

These contradictory realities have produced wildly disparate assessments, both by Russian observers and others, of Putin’s political prospects and policy intentions." (Newsweek : 18 June, 2016) (my emphasis)


Putin’s political prospects and policy intentions are fast beginning to show confusion, as evidenced  by the appoinment of Anton Vaino as his new Head of the Presidential Administration, following the sudden sacking of his long-time friend and ally, Sergei Ivanov (right: Ivanov and Putin).

But who, exactly, is Anton Vaino?

As reported by Olga Ivshina and Dmitry Bulin,

"Russian President Vladimir Putin's new chief of staff Anton Vaino has reached the top shrouded in mystery.

He does not appear to have given any press interviews in his past career, and his official biography reveals little, beyond a steady rise over many years of service to the Kremlin." (BBC News : 19 August 2016) (my empahsis)

Even more disconcerting,

"Mr Vaino argues that the economy and society in general have become too complex to manage by traditional means. Governments need to seek new ways of regulating and controlling them.

The article describes a new device called a "nooscope" which, it says, can tap into global consciousness and "detect and register changes in the biosphere and in human activity". (ibid Ivshina and Bulin)

Even Daria Litvinova, (right) writing in the Moscow Times, reports that,

"A bizarre article about “spacial scanners” and “registering the unseen” has been linked to the newly appointed top bureaucrat Anton Vaino.
.....
The bigger question is whether Anton Vaino, president’s chief of staff, really wrote it, says Mikhail Gelfand, a prominent biologist and co-founder of Dissernet.

“If he is really behind this delirium, then it’s quite scary,” Gelfand told The Moscow Times. “If, he’s just signed off on other people’s work, we have another problem. That means we’re living in a country where head of the presidential administration can sign off on an absurdity with his eyes closed” (Moscow Times : Aug. 15 2016)

One would like to believe that by employing Vaino as his Chief of Staff, Putin is simply using the Russian strategy of 'maskirovka', a strategy of deception and smoke & mirrors, to keep people guessing what his next diplomatic move will be after the recent 'Crimea incident', and the building up of his forces along the Ukrainian border and in Ukrainian Crimea.

Let us recall that,

"Largely Unnoticed, Full-Scale War May Be Returning to Ukraine. July was the deadliest month in the Donbass for over a year." (Ola Cichowlas and Matthew Bodner : Moscow Times : Aug. 04 2016) (my emphasis)

just as 

• Putin wants the High Ranking military official, Mikhail Babich, to become his ambassador in Kiev, 
• Putin's dyed-in-the-wool Soviet foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, says that Putin is "seriously concerned" by the uptick of fighting in the Donbas 
• large amounts of Russian military hardware have been massed near the towns of Dzhankoy and Armyansk in Crimea's north, close to the administrative border with mainland Ukraine,
• More than 100 people arrived in Donbas from Russia to replenish the combined Russian-separatist forces, and
• Combined Russian-separatist forces attacked the Ukrainian army positions in eastern Ukraine 47 times in the past 24 hours? (blog entry : Tuesday, 9 August 2016) 

Christopher Miller (RFER/L)10.08.2016

 

 More recently,

"U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Friday for a resolution in the conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

A White House statement said Biden and Poroshenko spoke by telephone and "expressed deep concern over the recent surge in fighting in eastern Ukraine, where cease-fire violations by combined Russian-separatist forces are at their highest levels since 2015, often using heavy weapons."

The White House said Biden "relayed that the United States had sent a message to Russia that the world is watching and underscored the need to de-escalate the situation." It said the vice president also urged Ukraine to "show restraint." (VOA : August 20, 2016) (my emphasis) 

And whilst Putin's Russian soldiers and rebel-proxies continue to trample all over the Minsk2 ceasefire agreement, Putin himself is cementing a deep relationship with Turkey which, no doubt, has put paid to the deepening relationship between Erdogan and Poroshenko shortly after Turkey shot down that Russian military plane that had entered Turkey's air space.

Rather chillingly,

"An MP from the Russian parliament, Igor Morozov, suggested that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could offer Russia use of the airbase, which is currently used by NATO and is home to around 50 US nuclear warheads.

...

It is not guaranteed that Russia needs Incirlik, but such a decision can be regarded as Turkey's real readiness to cooperate with Russia in the fight against terrorism in Syria, and not just pay lip service," Ozerov said, according to the Russian state-funded Sputnik website." (Middle East Eye :Wednesday 17 August 2016 ) (my emphasis)

If we add to these chilling developments the belief of Putin's new Chief of Staff, Anton Vaino, that,

"...  the economy and society in general have become too complex to manage by traditional means. Governments need to seek new ways of regulating and controlling them [through the use of a 'nooscope']."

we can expect Putin to throw caution to the wind and ramp up his war with Ukraine as the Duma elections draw ever closer.

(to be continued)