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World News See other World News Articles Title: Declaring himself a modern Peter the Great, Putin offers a new threat to Estonia Declaring himself a modern Peter the Great, Putin offers a new threat to Estonia Tom Rogan - 9 June 2022 Increasingly imbued with a mythology of destiny that his fate and Russia's are inextricably linked, Vladimir Putin declared himself a modern Peter the Great on Thursday. Addressing top technology students in Moscow on Thursday, Putin drew a line between Peter the Great and his own presidency. Peter the Great was the early 18th-century Russian czar whose expansionist policies, administrative and military reforms, and cultivation of an intelligentsia helped Russia become a great power. Contemporary Russian nationalists such as Putin celebrate Peter as a leader of destiny who boldly seized territory and power for Russia and who laid the groundwork for what would become a geopolitical powerhouse. Addressing top technology students in Moscow, Putin drew a line between Peter and his own presidency. The importance of technology to the nation, Putin explained, is again underlined by increasing threats to national sovereignty. Derisively, if not directly by name (Putin said he didn't want to "offend anyone"), the former KGB officer referred to the European Union as a "colony" of the United States. Putin warned that no nation could both be sovereign and a colony. Perhaps reflecting his rage at the EU's support for sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Putin observed that even a historically vested colony "has no chance of surviving in such a tough geopolitical struggle." Putin lectured the students on how sovereignty rests on the consolidated intersection of culture, economy, and military strength (he directly mentioned Russia's hypersonic weapons program). He implored the students to complete great feats with this political understanding in mind. But it was the Russian leader's concluding comments that underlined his increasingly xenophobic nationalism. Comparing Peter the Great's conquests against the Swedish Empire with his own war on Ukraine, Putin observed that Peter was both patient and resolved. Putin railed that "when [Peter] founded the new capital [St. Petersburg], none of the European countries recognized this territory as Russia, everyone recognized it as Sweden." Note the implicit reference to the international community's refusal to recognize Crimea and the Donbas as Russian territories. The nature of Peter's struggle against the Swedish Empire also appeals to Putin's sense of destiny in light of Sweden's present effort to join NATO. Putin wasn't done. Again, referencing Peter's campaigns, he continued, "The same is true in the western direction. This applies to Narva, [Peter's] first campaigns." Putin noted that when Peter launched his second attempt to seize Narva from the Swedish Empire, he did so "returned and strengthened — that's what he did." Narva is now part of NATO member Estonia's territory. It sits on the Estonian-Russian border just 75 miles from St. Petersburg. Thus followed Putin's crunch line threat: "Apparently," Putin remarked, "it also fell to our lot to return and strengthen." The message and associated threat are clear: Putin's campaign of destiny is expanding, not retreating. These are not the words of a leader who is cowed or seeking compromise. Indeed, these words likely represent the growing influence of the Kremlin ultra- hawks, led by Nikolai Patrushev. Recently aggressive rhetoric from top Kremlin figures like Dmitry Medvedev further emphasizes the hawks' rising power. Yet Putin's theory has a problem. The Russian president forgets that as he gazes toward Narva, he faces one challenge that Peter the Great did not. Peter's 1704 siege of Narva never had to contend with a rapid response brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division. Nor did he face the forces of those NATO allies such as Britain, Poland, and the Baltics, which are willing to fight. Thus, for all his mythology, the truth is that Putin isn't actually a modern Peter. Instead, to borrow from Pushkin, he appears to be "a sick man in his troubled bed." Poster Comment: During the American Civil War, the British were thinking of entering the war on the side of the South. Lincoln had a good Ambassador in Russia, and he convinced the Czar to send the Russian Navy to New York Harbor and San Francisco Bay. When the British saw this they changed their minds about entering the war. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
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Told y'all! 2014: Why Ukraine's Situation Makes Russia's Other Neighbors Nervous
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