As Putin’s views on Russian and world history are becoming more coherent, they are also growing more delusional. Coherence is achieved through a strong unifying narrative, as is typical of conspiracy theories: “they’ve always been after us” in Putin’s case. Crimea as the the Temple Mount is a new meme though – we’ll see where it goes from here.
That’s as far as the Weltanschauung part is concerned. In the economic part, there was a promise not to raise taxes for three years and no praise of inflation but no serious reform proposals either. So all in all, nothing much.
[Added later] Speaking about evil Americans, comparing Obama to Hitler and elevating Chersonesus to yet another new Jerusalem, he sounded – not for the first time, but this time unmistakably, to my ears – like a wronged child: “They gave a bike to my big brother and made me wear his old clothes!” The man’s psychological – or shall I say mental? – issues have become a global problem.
I’ve said all along that Ukraine is no threat to Russia but it is a massive threat to Putin. He was absolutely paranoid about the Orange Revolution and Maidan pushed him over the edge. It’s a shame so many people have to die because of his fragile ego/mental problems.
The Crimea as Temple Mount analogy was scary but funny. After all, Crimea is such sacred ground Putin is planning to turn it into a casino zone.
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