Are there alternatives to charming Gazprom? LNG from Africa and Latin America could help to reduce the power of the Russian gas giant over Western markets, but this is an expensive technology, still in its infancy, and requires long-term commitments because of the enormous cost of investment. And the Gazprom explorers are not sleeping.
Obtaining direct access to Central Asian and Caspian gas would be helpful for Europe’s diversification of supply, but part of this strategy was already frustrated when, on 4 January 2006, Ukraine signed the deal with Gazprom that would bring gas from Central Asia via the Russian pipeline system to Eastern Europe. On the chessboard of European energy Ukraine was saved, for the time being, from the cold. But the Nabucco project, the EU’s strategic pipeline project to bypass Russia, has been seriously downgraded.
Saving energy, developing alternative resources, reconsidering nuclear power – if the West wants to have an equitable relationship not only with Gazprom but with Russia as a political player, the energy equation must change. But whatever new technologies may be about to weigh in, energy will be the most important of the new currencies of power. Gazprom will be the number one player.
9
Power and the people
‘Here to lie is to protect the social order, to speak the truth is to destroy the state. Nothing is lacking in Russia, except liberty… that is to say life.’
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The mass rally organized in Moscow in the run-up to the elections on 2 December 2007, to provide a stage for Vladimir Putin, owed more than a little detail to Republican and Democratic convention in pre-election USA. It was widely reported throughout Russia and beyond. The audience in Moscow’s Luzhniki sports stadium consisted largely of teenagers; some had daubed their faces in the blue-white-red colours of Russia, while others chanted old Soviet songs and waved banners in front of television cameras, eager to convey a message of strength, vigour and patriotism. The organizers did not even shrink from sending in a girls’ band, who chanted that if they wanted a man he would have to be like Putin, strong and decisive. This was, to be sure, anything but Soviet-style heaviness and formality. But it revealed an imaginative approach to staging a symbolic event rooted in former times. The rally was the centrepiece of the campaign, just ten days away from election day. It crowned the most intense election campaign seen since Soviet times – if election is the right word for a referendum organized to secure massive support for the party of power, United Russia, and, even more important, for the Kremlin’s incumbent. No other party than United Russia, where power and big business met, had much chance to make an impact. All the others had been harassed in every conceivable way by officialdom, and had been all but denied even a sporting chance.
Putin for president?
Putin marched to the rostrum shaking the hands of the faithful, American style, left and right. Wearing a smart black sports jacket with a turtle-neck pullover underneath, he gave a rousing speech. Before he had come to power, that was the leitmotif, chaos had beset the country, enemies were trying to grab what they could, terrorists were eyeing their targets, the outside world was envious of Russia’s rebirth, gas, oil and newly found strength. Ever since, the wisdom, decisiveness and energy of the President had turned the tide – Putin in his speech did not of course dwell on the fact that it was the rising tide of oil and gas at ever higher prices that had carried Russia to its new wealth and standing in the world at large. Putin offered a tonic to a deeply troubled nation not at all sure that the windfall profits were shared equitably or that a new age of prosperity for the masses or of fairness and justice was dawning. ‘Together, my friends, we have already done so much,’ he told the crowd and, via TV, all of Russia. ‘We have strengthened the sovereignty and revived the integrity of Russia. We have revived the power of the law and the supremacy of the constitution. Despite grave losses and sacrifice, thanks to the courage and unity of the people of Russia, the aggression of international terrorism against our Russia has been repelled.’
Stylish TV commercials were underlining the message of newly found power and glory. ‘Today we are successful in politics, economics, arts, sciences, sports,’ people were told on huge billboards. Prominent TV personalities sang, to the sound of a brass band, in praise of the leadership and, above all others, Putin: ‘We have reasons for pride. We enjoy respect and deference. We are citizens of a great country, and we have great victories ahead of us. Putin’s plan is a victory for Russia.’
Time and again Putin declared victory. But over what enemy? The greater the danger the greater the saviour. Was Russia going to war? Not really. Russia was not even channelling disproportionate amounts of oil money into arms or the army. The pompous language merely addressed a widespread sense of both pride and paranoia, deeply ingrained in the public mind and ready to be mobilized by the Kremlin.
Pride and paranoia?
Of course this sounds contradictory but it makes sense when compared with the fact that the vast majority of voters had not seen much benefit from the new oil wealth and that the Kremlin is uncertain how to channel the necessary amounts of money into infrastructure, pensions, or wages without setting in train a financial meltdown far beyond the recent two-figure inflation. So the parliamentary elections, instead of addressing painful bread-and-butter questions, were artificially elevated to a celebration of Russia’s greatness, a reminder of grave dangers past and present, from inside and from outside, and unspecified promises.
The Putin plan is widely advertised, a road map to the promised land, but without any detail, landmarks or clearly defined goals. Whatever it means, it hints at the fact that Putin and his people want to keep power independent of the controlled risk of elections and that voters are being persuaded to believe that without Putin all their achievements over the last eight years would be lost. The very vagueness of the Putin Plan implies that it is for the long term, a projection far into the future, that its realization needs a strong man, and that this man can be no other than Putin himself – a not-so-hidden sign that Putin will be around to help, direct and, if necessary, play the saviour. During the election campaign he was announced, in no uncertain terms, as the national ‘leader’. This is a new terminology that indicates what is in the offing. Not a voshd, which would be reminiscent of Stalin, but also not a mere chairman, of whom there were many in Soviet times. Secretary General is also that has had its time. Thus, national ‘leader’ has become a new word in the Russian language, sounding sufficiently innocent and also open to creative interpretations.
So far, no one in the government or in the United Russia party machinery has bothered to seriously spell out the detail of what is universally acclaimed as the Putin Plan. If people really wanted to know the long and the short of it, a Putin aide joked, they should read all the President’s speeches and find out. In fact it would take away the mystery if the plan were displayed and exposed to daylight like a modern-day version of the Gosplan of Soviet times. It is, at best, a roadmap, and only the driver is supposed to know where he is going.