The interview by Prime Minister Putin to CNN and the attempts in general by the Russian officials to deliver their point of view on the Caucasian developments to the western audience demonstrate well the traps the unfree political regime drives its leaders and their flock into. 

The Prime Minister of a big country must not repeat the reasoning by bloggers and TV commentators and cannot use the “plot theory” alone. In a space where public politics exists the plot theory occupies initially a relatively marginal niche. On the opposite, in a space where public politics is discredited and eliminated, such a theory becomes the only respected way of interpreting of what is happening. On the whole, the propagandist machine enables getting an amazing unanimity in assessment of the situation by Prime Minister, blogger and the average citizen, however, making their argumentation absolutely helpless in the eyes of people who are not put on the informational and emotional needle of the propaganda.    

All the reasoning by the Russian officials, agreeing with them MPs and TV commentators, also by supporting them majority of citizen can be reduced to three points. 

First, Saakashvili is an aggressor and fascist, guilty of death of peaceful civilians and responsible for genocide. The latter word is the key one, as in accordance with international humanitarian doctrine it may justify presence of troops on another state’s territory.  

Second, it’s not our fault that the quarreling with the West is going on. This is caused with double-dealing position taken by the West. Instead of condemning Saakashvili and hailing the humanitarian deed by Dmitry Medvedev and Russian soldiers, the West is rather sympathizing with the war criminal and it condemns actions by Moscow.  

Third, quarreling with the West is not a terrible thing. Due to its inner problems, the West is too weak now to be able of pressing us seriously, while we are strong enough to act without consideration of its opinion.    

The first two theses are remarkable with the fact they deny directly the principles the Russian anti-western rhetoric has been built upon during last ten years. Wasn’t it the West to say all the time that struggle with separatism cannot be a justification of suffering by the civilian population? Wasn’t it the West to bring forward an idea of humanitarian operations of coercion to peace for the sake of defending the civilian population? Wasn’t it those arguments used to give grounds to bombing Yugoslavia and secession of Kosovo? And wasn’t it us to call all that an undermining of the fundamentals of the world order and a cover of one’s own interests, and an infringement on someone else’s sovereignty?

All that easily adds up in an excited by propaganda consciousness. And for an external observer, not only in the West but also in the East, the matter looks quite different. It has been watching for a decade the ferocious peripetia of war Russia conducted in Chechnya. This is why the humanitarian and peacemaking burst, overcoming the Russian leadership as an outcome of military operations in the South Ossetia, cannot arouse sincere sympathy and minimal confidence. Those people who today call Mikhail Saakashvili a fascist, it would be interesting to know what definition they gave to today’s Prime Minister Putin, who started and completed successfully a military operation on the Chechen territory, carried out within three years. Do they really suppose that during three years there have been less killed civilians in Chechnya than during three days in Tskhinvali? In the Russia, influenced by propaganda, such questions look blasphemous, but people who do not watch the Russian television, they cannot help asking such questions to themselves.           

The word “genocide” must be mentioned specially. It has been used in the Russian media as many times as during all our previous history. Neither soviet, nor Russian political leadership used this word before. Now it appears that the Russian MPs are instructed to use it as frequent as possible. Even in a brief interview they to put this popular stuff at least twice.     

However, it should be noted that of all the bloody human history it’s only about a few especially monstrous slaughters that the use of this term is discussed seriously. Anyway, the actions by Georgian militaries in Tskhinvali could be recognized to be genocide only after actions by Russian militaries in Chechnya during the both Chechen wars. Outside the Russian propagandist world behind the looking-glass, the thesis of genocide done over the course of a two-day war is felt just as juggling with a word the sense of which a person using it does not comprehend or does not want to comprehend. With same success and convincingness for the world community Russia might have stated that Saakashvili has used nuclear weapons in the South Ossetia.      

The thesis about weakness by the West repeated in abandon by the Russian politicians also arouses bewilderment. It’s not even about that it only becomes a mischief to boast that he wouldn’t get punished for what he has done. The matter is that in our case we shall anyway get it. A quarrel with a neighbor, who shouted at you and even broke the gate when leaving, can be easily forgotten. But when a neighbor behaves in a boorish way in your home and says you would never be able to turn him out of doors, such thing is never forgotten. It will be just waited for an occasion to take revenge.      

The tragic problem of the Russian foreign policy of the recent years is that what is advertised by propaganda as our success on the international arena and maintains the degree of inner quasi-patriotic exaltation, looks quite differently from outside. And this gap is getting bigger and bigger. However, the necessity of keeping on this inner exaltation degree makes the Russian leadership act in the way contributing to our image of inadequacy, wounded pride, inconsistency and danger maker. This is the image we are and will be paying dear for long.