Pakistan’s increasing proximity with China and consequently Russia, everyone wants to know who Putin is. Let us introduce Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is the incumbent president of Russia and is believed by several international affairs analysts to be the most powerful man in the world.
To understand the 21st century Machiavellian, let us take you back to Dresden, East Germany on December 5, 1989.
The Berlin Wall had just fallen and the local population were lashing out at symbols of Communist rule. That night they found a target, a KGB [Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti] local office.
The officer-in-charge of the building was a young KGB Lieutenant Colonel, Vladimir Putin. Fearing that the mob would storm the building, he called KGB headquarters in Moscow for instructions and received the reply, “Moscow is silent.”
He immediately started burning thousands of pages of documents present inside the building. He went outside to face the mob and told them that they would be shot by armed guards inside the building. He had successfully bluffed them but this incident would remain with him for the rest of his life.
Putin quells the fear of popular uprising through absolute control. At his inauguration ceremony in one of the world’s busiest cities, the streets were emptied. Completely.
Putin’s moment came when during his time as prime minister, former president Boris Yeltsin suddenly announced his resignation.
In a jiffy, Vladimir Putin was ushered into the Russian presidency in the very first moments of the twenty-first century. Putin’s first words as soon as he assumed office were, “We live in a competitive world and we are not among its leaders.”
Russia was quick to fall in love with Putin soon after.
Former president George Bush said about Putin, “I looked the man in the eye and found him trustworthy and I was able to get a sense of his soul.”
Then came Hillary Clinton. Hillary had said about the Russian president, “He was a KGB agent and by definition, he does not have a soul.”
When a reporter questioned Putin on Hillary’s statement, the Russian Machiavellian said, “Statesmen should not be guided by their hearts but they should use their heads.”
Beginning with the Arab Spring protests early that year, in 2011, the kind of popular uprising that Putin dreaded, came to Russia.
While the slogan “Russia without Putin” grew louder, Clinton drove harder and exclaimed, “Russians have a right to be heard and their vote counted.” She went further and alleged that the Russian elections were “rigged”.
That year, Vladimir Putin announced to run for president again. He chose nationalism as his slogan and blamed Clinton for inciting the protests.
In March 2012, propelled to victory, the ‘Tsar’ said, “We have demonstrated that nobody can impose anything on us.”
Later, the United States (US) 2016 elections propelled Donald Trump to victory, which most political scientists around the world understood as Russia’s victory.
Following the elections, it was alleged that Russia had “hacked” or “meddled” with the US elections.
Vladimir Putin’s approval rating soared as high as 86pc and that too according to US poll firms.
In 2014, the oil party stopped and Russia was sanctioned by the US and its allies. The Russian president managed to handle the situation well and proved to be a fiscal conservative.
In 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine under the pretext of Russian Nationalism. The people of Russia felt that their pride had been won back.
Now, with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan that will link it to Central Asia and then Europe, what will be the Tsar’s effect on Pakistan?
