OWEN MATTHEWS: Why puppet-master Putin is more dangerous than ever

13 April 2012

There's little doubt that Vladimir Putin still wears the trousers in the Kremlin. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's boyish new President, may technically be commander-in-chief of Russia's armed forces, but when the bullets began flying in South Ossetia last week, it was to Putin that Russia and the world looked for answers.


Putin stepped down from the presidency in May, as the Russian constitution required. But the Ossetian crisis has clearly demonstrated that Putin is still very much in charge.

He is not just the arch puppetmaster of Russian politics, but a man with a clear agenda for restoring Russia's might in its own former empire too.

Putin has stepped down by the Ossetian crisis has shown he is still in charge

Putin has stepped down by the Ossetian crisis has shown he is still in charge

Russian state-run television dutifully showed Medvedev attempting to look masterful as he addressed Russia's Security Council over the issue. Medvedev even gently slapped the table for emphasis and spoke in a grave, clearly enunciated voice directly copied from his mentor Putin.

But it was Putin himself who flew to Vladikavkaz, Imperial Russia's traditional staging post for campaigns in the Caucasus.

Here, he was shown chatting to army generals and issuing stern warnings to the Georgians about their alleged acts of 'genocide' in South Ossetia. He radiated resolve and natural authority.

Medvedev, by contrast, could barely conceal the fact that he was badly out of his depth leading his country into war. And as for Mikhail Saakashvili, the beleaguered President of Georgia: there's nothing more undignified than the sight of a President sprinting for cover.

As Russian bombs fell on the Georgian town of Gori yesterday, Saakashvili and his guards had to make a dash for the shelter of a nearby wall as Russian planes roared overhead.

While it was Georgia's attack on the capital of the breakaway province of South Ossetia last Thursday that sparked off the latest conflict, this is a war that Putin has been preparing for for years. And in recent months, Russia, at Putin's behest, has done everything to ready Georgia's rebel provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, for war.

Russian military engineers repaired and laid railway tracks into Abkhazia in April, just as the Russian government made the first legislative steps towards recognising the separatist enclaves' independence. Meanwhile, Russian planes buzzed Georgian villages and air defence facilities, testing their strength and resolve.

Medvedev could hardly conceal the fact that he was out of his depth leading his country into war

Medvedev could hardly conceal the fact that he was out of his depth leading his country into war

The Russian invasion of Georgia is the latest act in a very personal feud between Putin and Saakashvili.

The two men took a strong dislike to one another as soon as they met in 2004. Saakashvili, a 40-year- old, U.S. - educated lawyer, is everything that Putin despises: fervently pro-Western, an ardent supporter of George Bush and an outspoken critic of Russian attempts to expand its sphere of influence.

As such, Saakashvili has become a favourite hate figure of the Kremlin's propagandists. The Kremlin-created nationalist youth movement 'Nashi' regularly parades with caricatures of Saakashvili dressed as a prostitute, his pants stuffed with dollar bills.

Saakashvili, in return, goaded Putin by aggressively pursuing NATO membership and attempting to block Russia's membership of the World Trade Organisation.

Perhaps most cheekily of all, in 2007 he paraded a group of alleged Russian spies for the television cameras; they were led away in handcuffs by butch female Georgian police officers wearing U.S. - style police uniforms.

Putin suffered a serious senseofhumour failure: in retaliation for the spies' expulsion, Russia cut off all air, rail, postal and banking links to Georgia, and thousands of expatriate Georgians in Russia were systematically harassed by the police and expelled from the country.

But it's not just about Saakashvili. Ever since Putin came to power in 2000 he has dreamed of reasserting Russian power over its backyard. Putin always talked a big game, harking back to the rhetoric of Soviet and Tsarist Russian imperialism.

A demonstrator burns a picture of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a rally in front of Russian embassy in Madrid against the Russian military support in South Ossetia

A demonstrator burns a picture of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a rally in front of Russian embassy in Madrid against the Russian military support in South Ossetia

But the reality was that on Putin's watch, Russia's actual power shrank drastically.

Between 2000 and 2008, pro-Moscow regimes in Ukraine and Georgia were replaced by pro-Western ones, NATO expanded to within a few hundred miles of St Petersburg and the U.S. hatched a plan to station missile defence radars and missile batteries all along Russia's Western border, in Poland and the Czech Republic.

And so the war in Ossetia is really about Vladimir Putin's unfinished business  -  evening up the score and sending a signal to Georgia, Ukraine and Europe that Russia won't be pushed around any more.

Last year, while he was still President, Putin spoke of 'dismembering' Ukraine if it continued to pursue its dreams of NATO membership, by annexing the Crimean peninsula. Back then, the Ukrainians dismissed the threat as so much hot air.

But now, with Russian bombs falling on Tbilisi airport and Russian troops forging deep into Georgia proper, it no longer seems such an idle threat.

It's a great shame for Dmitry Medvedev  -  and for Russia  -  that his ambitious agenda for reform has been hijacked by Putin's old imperial ambitions. Medvedev, like Saakashvili, trained as a lawyer; both are much more Westward-looking than their predecessors, and are passionate about stamping out corruption.

Medvedev, when he came to office, spoke of ending Russia's culture of 'legal nihilism' and the way laws were used as arbitrary tools in the hands of private individuals who bought courts and policemen  -  or as an instrument of extortion by Russia's law enforcement bodies themselves.

He told Russian bureaucrats to stop 'terrorising' businessmen by enforcing petty regulations and demands for bribes; he also promised to create a functional system of law courts and protection of private property. All, on paper, wonderful ideas.

But just as Medvedev was making progress on reform and feeling a little more confident in his role as President, he found himself mugged by history, and a festering little post-Soviet conflict which Putin has blown into a full-scale war.

Russian troops ride atop armored vehicles and trucks near the village of Khurcha in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia

Russian troops ride atop armored vehicles and trucks near the village of Khurcha in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia

Rather than building bridges with Russia's neighbours and perhaps  -  who knows  -  even forming an alliance with Saakashvili, Russia's bright young President is now locked into destroying him.

Saakashvili brought disaster on his own head by launching an impulsive invasion of South Ossetia. He overplayed his hand and is now paying the price as his capital is bombarded.

But coming days will also be a crucial test of just how headstrong Putin is too. Last night Russian troops were on the point of taking the western Georgian towns of Zugdidi and Senaki, and were advancing on Gori, just 35 miles from Tbilisi.

If the Russians don't bow to an increasing chorus of Western pressure to stop, he risks making the same mistake as Saakashvili.

Supporting rebel groups in a proxy war is the stock-in-trade of colonial power-plays. Brazenly invading a neighbour's territory is something more serious altogether. It is the difference between a wily colonial player and a reckless aggressor.

For most of his time in power, Putin was on the back foot, retreating before encroaching Western influence.

Now he is victorious, it remains to be seen whether he will be wise and pause  -  or whether the desire for revenge will drive him to destroy Saakashvili, and Georgia with him.

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