Podcast: The Putin Illusion

Dear Brian,
why don't you have transcripts of the podcasts?
the multimedia does not always run well and sometimes I personally feel like scanning through the text for useful insights.
Best,

Andres

Kirill made an interesting comment about Putin being dependent on "pop culture." He did not follow up on this except later in the podcast when he said that Putin can lose his "high-brow" support but when he loses his "low-brow" support it will be a problem-- his Walter Cronkeit moment.

Can any one of Putin's subordinates take the initiative and to eliminate or to imprison opponents of Putin?
And then in the gym or sauna to say:"Volodya.. I'm sorry, but I took responsibility and told to kill the rotten bastard who is against you "
Is it possible or not?
I think that it is impossible..
Putin has always said, "Let's work as a team".
Therefore, we can say that certain decisions taken collectively.
And then we can say that not only Putin can be initiated certain ideas, but other people...but it is obvious that the last word for him...he may reject the idea, and can support it..

Putin's defenders deny that Putin has made ​​some decisions, because it is too small for him and he has no time for miscellaneous trifles..
but in fact the whole issue and that people outside of Russia can not understand what exactly Putin decides on various small cases it is Russian mentality and the specificity of the Russian President..
Putin's opponents insist that the power must be controlled and stupid ideas of the president might be blocked and become the subject of public discussion, before making a decision.
And it's not in Russia .. here only one person decides to-whom executе, whom show mercy..
So it's all true, "Putin killed him, Putin put him in prison, Putin bought a corrupt scumbags,Putin poisoned him, Putin to bomb..

So, when you Mr.Whitmore meet Mr. Putin, you can shamelessly say:"Volodya, why did you kill him?... he was a good man."

Congratulations to the team of RFE/RL: this latest "interesting negative" piece of writing on Putin has provoked an increadibly high level of public interest - the whole 3 (!!!) persons found it necessary to comment on the article (well, ok, Vakhtang seems to have come back from his vacation on the Black See and obvioulsy could not miss a chance to say something negative about Putin as usual :-)).
Just compare this number to, for example, the number of those who commented on the article on downing of the Turkish jet in Syria - just to get a comparative perspective on what is "interesting" and what is not :-).

"he famously vowed to rub out the Chechen rebels in the outhouse"

Careful, Vova. You'll go blind doing that.

I suppose it goes back to one’s idea of history and the role that the leader plays. Tolstoy believed that Napoleon merely rode the crest of a wave that had been building for ages, while other historians posit that the great leader does in fact shape the course of history. The illusion of leadership is likely based on some mixture of these and 10,000 other variables that historians try to sort out.

This dilemma regarding the role of the leader and society is not unique to Russia. One could easily write of the ‘Obama illusion,’ the Merkel illusion,’ the Sarkozy illusion,’ etc… over the past decade. Obama, like Putin and these other leaders, inherited a mess, and it’s naïve to believe that any leader alone could bring their country into the promised land.

From a Russian perspective, I believe that Putin has done a great job. Yes, I’m aware that he has limited some freedoms, but he has provided the necessary stability for the country to regain its balance and some belief in the future. Like Obama’s, his ideology might be based on illusions, but it’s a ‘change’ that the people can believe in (or at least could for awhile).