“Vladimir Putin has shown that he will not leave Russia humiliated, he is ready to take the toughest positions on the international stage“, explained Thursday, December 23 on franceinfo Cyril Bret, associate researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute, co-author of the Geopolitics blog EurAsiaProspective.net, associate professor and doctor in Russian-speaking philosophy, on the occasion of Vladimir Poutin’s speech for the new Year.
franceinfo: What do you remember from his speech?
Cyril Bret: The balance of power is maintained. Vladimir Putin is ready to take the toughest positions on the international stage in the name of Russian sovereignty and interests. As always in this exercise, which he has held for more than 20 years, his determination has shown that he will not leave Russia humiliated and he intends to show that it is he who dictates the international calendar as well as the domestic one.
Is his tone different from that used with the Defense Ministry this week?
The words he used to refer to the actions of NATO, the United States and the Europeans are extremely harsh. He recalled that he considered that Russia had been rolled in the flour. So he holds the same line. It is also its great power in the face of European leaders who have renewed themselves.
What image of Vladimir Putin does this great press conference reflect?
An extraordinary solidity and solemnity. He is a past master in this exercise. He is able to hold marathons, to expose himself, to select. While European leaders give national conferences, he gives world press conferences, just before the truce of the confectioners. It is very skillful. Journalists are handpicked, others are excluded, we can sense a certain reverence in the way Russian journalists address the president of the federation.
What is the image of Russia today, 30 years after the collapse of the USSR?
That of a power ready for anything. She very often announces what her strategic interests are. It has been able to gain, thanks in particular to its military power, a strategic status far superior to its real economic power.