Warsaw / January 9, 2021
On December 30, 2020, sitting in his bunker, Vladimir Putin signed a few documents that could hardly be called laws. Those documents, actually, illustrate his desire to lower the new Iron Curtain in the face of irreversible changes in the world in which Putin's Russia has no place. I did not say "desire" accidentally, since in the modern world the Iron Curtain is simply an unreal thing. Putin's clique has far outlived its allotted time, and, accordingly, it is unable to understand the conditions in which it unexpectedly found itself.
1. First of all, this clique simply does not understand what Internet really is and how it works.. Blocking such resources as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has been successfully practiced by China and Iran. However, if we talk about Russia, its administration unable to do this. Slowing down the speed of traffic by operators will not do anything, since in addition to the presence of VPN programs, there are other methods of anonymous use of remote servers. Blocking Telegram channels proved that in this case it is necessary to block all Internet traffic, and that will inevitably lead to the collapse of the economy, which is already in a state of deep crisis in Russia, just as its financial sector.
2. The repressive laws “on slander”, “on foreign agents”, etc., require enormous human and financial resources for their implementation in the conditions of Russia. The Stalinist regime had both of those resources, whereas Putin's fascist clique does not have them and Putin's dreams of repeating mass repression perfectly fit into their Russian proverb: "God gave no horns to the butting cow." At the same time, deep split in the repressive bodies including the Interior Ministry, FSB and GRU, as well as the discontent in the ranks of Russian army, adds the personnel factor to the convulsions of desperate and dying regime.
3. Local repressions against the most iconic persons in the regions of Russia and at the level of the entire country are, of course, possible. It also goes without saying that they will not meet mass resistance from the population, which is in the state of full degradation, even in the biological sense of the word. At the same time though, quite a specific situation has been created in the regions of Siberia and the Far East, where poverty has reached a level that threatens the lives of the remnants of local population, which inevitably leads to the Chinese expansion. The protests in Khabarovsk, which continue to this day, are a clear confirmation of that. The arrested Governor Furgal is only a pretext, and there are plenty of such pretexts.
4. A well-known Russian public figure, Professor Andrey Zubov, said: "Any totalitarian regime is not only supported by the bayonets, but also requires the support on behalf of the majority of population. Putin's regime has lost such support completely and irrevocably". The rule of Putin’s clique has been marked by numerous defeats at the international arena, the latest of
which was the Karabakh war, as well as sharp deterioration in welfare, increasing poverty and unemployment, the severe consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic. All those factors deprived Vladimir Putin and his entourage of any popular support, and the passivity of “the silent majority” is not a favorable condition for the survival of any political regime.
5. It is well known that no dictatorship has ever been overthrown from within. The end of tyrannies has always been coming as a result of outside impact. Such impact could take various forms, starting with military defeats and ending with economic shocks. The end of the USSR was associated with its involvement in the arms race followed by the bankruptcy. The end of the Third Reich was a result of its military collapse in World War II. Thus, Putin's Russia has very limited choice.
Conclusion:
Undoubtedly, the signing of a series of draconian - and completely meaningless-documents by the leader of the Kremlin clique, was nothing but a result of panic fear of the coming radical changes both in the world and in Russia itself. These absurd and ridiculous documents had been prepared in advance and saved up for the most extreme situation. Well, that situation has come about. Global scenarios are inexorable. They can not be stopped by following Chinese or Iranian recipes, because China and Iran themselves are nothing more than just elements of that scenario. Like any other state on this planet.