At a video conference, Vladimir Putin demonstrated what he has made of the Russian Human Rights Council: a willing puppet body that happily offers him the stage for his propaganda. For almost three hours he briefed the Council on his duties – and suddenly made no secret of his goals in the Ukraine.
The possibility of a nuclear war, the likelihood of a new wave of mobilization and the goals of the war in Ukraine – these were the topics Vladimir Putin discussed with the new Human Rights Council last Wednesday. It was the Council’s first meeting in its new composition. Last November, any member who had expressed even the slightest criticism of Putin’s war was expelled from the council. And so Putin sat at his conference table in the residence in Novo-Ogaryovo and looked on his screen at the faces of selected loyalists, such as the war correspondent of the Kremlin-loyal newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Putin himself openly made it clear how the members of the Russian Human Rights Council qualified for their seat. “A large block of topics is dedicated to the military special operation,” the Kremlin chief introduced the video conference. “From the first day Valery Aleksandrovich Fadeyev and the majority of the council members took an absolutely clear bourgeois position: they explain the real reasons and the need for the special military operation, they fight open racism and aggressive Russophobia, blatant lies and heinous, without exaggeration, heinous fakes circulated by foreign media and other propaganda sources.”
Putin also clarified the tasks of his Human Rights Council. “I also think it’s important that the renewed Council continues to do its part to accomplish the tasks facing the country and society; that it continues to work with perseverance and courage; to ask questions that matter to people – and together with the… government finds solutions,” Putin said in a lengthy monologue.
“It is indeed a difficult time, and your opinion, your position, your public statements and declarations must of course be coordinated and contribute to uniting society. In fact, this is already the case,” Putin finally said with a smile Face.
Even before one of the self-proclaimed human rights activists had a chance to speak, Putin made it clear to everyone involved what they were: his willing puppets.
The taboo list
Although the council has already been purged of anyone who might ask uncomfortable questions, the Kremlin still felt it necessary to draw up a taboo list. , attendees were forbidden from even touching on the following: the enforcement of the new law against alleged fakes, the protests of mothers of mobilized soldiers and the execution of former prisoner Yevgeny Nushin, whom mercenaries from the Wagner squad had bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Two members of the Human Rights Council and a source close to the body confirmed this information to “Verstka”.
The execution on camera was a trifle and an isolated case, the chairman of the council, Valery Fadeyev, told his colleagues, revealed a member of the council. Fadeyev is therefore the one who approves all topics and questions for meetings with Putin, all sources said unanimously. Two of them indicated that the chairman of the council had met with representatives of the presidential administration several times over the past few weeks to discuss possible issues and identify unwelcome questions. Afterwards, the council members were strongly recommended not to mention a word of the listed topics “so as not to annoy the president”.
Russian losses in the war were also put on the taboo list. The chairman of the council had declared the topic “toxic”, reported one member.
The video conference with Putin lasted almost three hours. () And the events confirm the statements of the sources. None of the complexes mentioned was addressed – not a single word.
Ordered instead of uncomfortable questions
Instead, questions ordered by the Kremlin were asked. A source had said in advance that a question about the end of the so-called “partial mobilization” was desired. Council members quoted the Kremlin’s recommendations as saying that everyone is currently concerned about a possible second wave of mobilization and they should be reassured. And lo and behold: Tatyana Merzlyakova, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Sverdlovsk region, actually asked the ordered question.
“Vladimir Vladimirovich, our hotline receives a lot of calls from relatives and friends. Many questions are related to what is written on social networks: Will there be another wave of mobilization? What should we prepare for?” words to Putin.
And he appeased and denied, as intended by the Kremlin. The fact that Putin had promised at the beginning of the war that there would be no mobilization at all was simply swept under the table. Like so many other things: For example, the threats with the nuclear mace. “Have we ever talked about the possibility of using nuclear weapons? No,” Putin replied in all seriousness to a question that had also been ordered. Only to moments later make a threat.
“We haven’t gone mad. We know what nuclear weapons are,” Putin declared, a strange smile playing on his chapped lips. “We have those tools. And they’re in a more advanced and modern state than those of any other nuclear power. That’s obvious. Today that’s an obvious fact. But we don’t intend to brandish this weapon like a razor blade while we’re at it run the world. But of course we assume we have those guns.”
They are a “natural deterrent” and are not intended to “provoke or escalate conflicts,” Putin asserted. “I hope everyone understands that,” he added ambiguously.
Stage for Vladimir Putin’s propaganda
Nuclear weapons, mobilization, legislative initiatives to prosecute alleged “Russophobia” – the session of the supposed Human Rights Council was much more like a session of the Russian Security Council, which in theory was supposed to decide on foreign, security and defense policy. In fact, this body has long degenerated into an authority that simply nods off every decision made by Putin. Putin’s new charade now made it clear that the Human Rights Council is only a stage for playing out its propaganda.
For almost three hours, Putin spread out his well-known slogans, which he drummed into his people at every opportunity – and the members of the council provided him with the questions they asked, the templates for his fantasies. Sentences like: “We didn’t start this war, it started in 2014 after the coup d’état in Ukraine. It was started by the then Ukrainian government, which with the help of this coup d’etat got into the government corridors to protect the will of the people in the country to oppress people living in Donbass.”
Or: “Russia could be the only real guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty within its current borders. After all, it was Russia that gave Ukraine these territories after World War II – a decision of Stalin, of course.”
Vladimir Putin and his goals in Ukraine
In the spring, it was still Lenin who Putin believed Ukraine owed its statehood to. Now it has become Stalin. Apparently Putin can’t even remember what he invented. And that also applies to his goals in Ukraine. On February 24, when Putin started the war, he declared the “demobilization and denazification of Ukraine” to be the goals. “We have no plans to occupy Ukrainian territories,” Putin said in his speech to the nation. Also on March 16, Putin assured that he did not want to occupy anything.
Surprisingly, last Wednesday it was the “new territories” that the Kremlin boss wanted to have celebrated as a result of his war. “You mentioned that there are new territories,” Putin responded to a question from the self-proclaimed human rights activist Yevgeny Myslovsky. “This is an important result for Russia, a serious matter,” Putin declared, anticipating any criticism that these “results” would be a long time coming.
“We don’t want to keep it a secret: this has become the inland sea of the Russian Federation. This is a serious matter. Peter the Great was already fighting to get to the Sea of Azov,” said Putin, grinning at his comparison, which he probably considered skilfully felt. After all, he has achieved something in his imagination that even the great tsar could not achieve.
Source: Stern
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