PUTIN ON TARIFFS: I TOLD YOU SO
Mocks Europe for following U.S., Trump
MOSCOW• As he watches Europe’s confrontation with President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be enjoying an “I told you so” moment. European leaders long ignored his warnings about the dangers of a world dominated by the United States, Putin said Thursday during his nationally broadcast annual call-in show. With Trump’s new metals tariffs, Putin said, Europeans are now finally getting their comeuppance for showing excessive deference to Washington — and getting a taste of the way the United States had long treated Russia. “In essence, these are sanctions,” Putin said of the tariffs. “What, did they ‘annex Crimea,’ as many of our partners say?” Putin went on: “Our partners probably thought that these counterproductive policies would never affect them . ... No one wanted to listen, and no one wanted to do anything to stop these tendencies. Here we are.” One of the show’s hosts responded, “They got what they deserved.” Putin’s 16th call-in marathon, which lasted 41/2 uninterrupted hours, provided a window into the president’s mindset — and a prime display of the stagecraft that the Kremlin deploys to boost Putin’s image and promote his worldview to Russian households. During the broadcast, he warned that a third world war “would lead to the end of civilization” as he accused America of violating the nuclear balance. Responding to a worried viewer, Putin called for new arms control negotiations and quoted Albert Einstein’s aphorism that “World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
He said Russia had developed weapons to breach U.S. missile defences after Washington left the Sovietera anti-ballistic missile treaty in 2002. “The fear of mutually assured destruction has always restrained and forced military powers to respect each other,” he said. “This is on the understanding that a third world war would lead to the end of civilization.”
He added: “The exit of the United States from the missile defence treaty was an attempt to ruin this parity, but our efforts in the development of new weapons will preserve the parity.” Nuclear weapons, including an underwater drone and a hypersonic glider warhead, prompted fears of a new arms race when the Russian leader announced them in March. U.S. intelligence said Moscow’s nuclear-powered hypersonic cruise missile with “unlimited” range had crashed in tests.
Putin argued that Russia had proved doubters wrong by developing weapons such as the Avant-Garde missile, which flies 20 times faster than the speed of sound. The Mach-10 Dagger missile and a laser weapon were already in service, he said.
As part of the show, state TV correspondents fanned out nationwide to deliver live footage of Russians showing their leaky floors or describing the sorry state of their small-town hospitals. After hearing a complaint, Putin often turned to one of Russia’s scores of state governors who were at the ready in live video feeds.
“You need to find out who these officials are,” Putin told Governor Sergey Zhvachkin after the head of the Tomsk region blamed a mother’s problems obtaining land for her family on poorly informed officials.
The videoconferencing element was a new addition to the yearly call-in show. It was the latest example — on the heels of last month’s elaborately choreographed presidential inauguration and Putin’s opening of a new bridge to Crimea — of the Kremlin’s work to hone the theatre of Putin’s madefor-TV presidency. Although polls show that Putin remains popular, the fact that he first became president 18 years ago means the Kremlin needs to ward off any public fatigue with the leader. Putin didn’t fire any of his governors on live television, as some Russian journalists had speculated he might. But the leader’s lectures to officials that they must do better to resolve people’s daily problems helped deliver the underlying message, which many Russians accept, that any difficulties they face in their lives are the fault of Putin’s subordinates rather than the president.
There were no questions about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, but Putin brought up the subject. One of the hosts asked him to tell a joke. Putin mentioned seeing a German news headline declaring, “Donald Trump pushes Europe into Putin’s arms.” “So, we influenced the U.S. elections, and he gifted us Europe in return?” he asked. “Utter idiocy. You can’t describe this as anything other than a joke.”