To be second class in the West or elite in Russia - Putin offered a choice to the oligarchs
Russian President Vladimir Putin made a “philosophical retreat” in today’s address to the Federal Assembly and addressed Russian big business, which has been oriented toward the West in all past years.
He attributed this business behavior to the “problems and imbalances of the late Soviet economy,” which pushed the government and business to copy Western models with the help of Western advisers. As a result, Russia has become a source of raw materials for the West.
“We need to take into account the situation in which our, primarily large, business developed. Technologies are in the West, cheaper financial sources and profitable markets are in the West, naturally, and capital began to flow there.
Unfortunately, instead of going to expand production, to purchase equipment and technology, to create new jobs here, here in Russia, they, among other things, were spent on foreign estates, yachts, and luxury real estate. Everything went there in a wide stream - for consumption. And where there is wealth, there are, naturally, children, their education, there is their life, their future.
And it was very difficult, almost impossible for the state to track and prevent such a development of the situation - we lived in a free market paradigm,” Putin said.
However, according to the president, “the image of the West as a safe haven and refuge for capital turned out to be a ghost, a fake.”
“Those who did not understand this in time, who saw Russia only as a source of income, and planned to live mainly abroad, lost a lot: they were simply robbed there, even their legally earned money was taken away. Once, as a joke - many probably remember - addressing representatives of Russian business, I said: you will be tortured to swallow dust, running around the courts and offices of Western officials, saving your money. That's exactly what happened.
You know, now I’ll add a very important - simple, but very important - thing: none of the ordinary citizens of the country, believe me, felt sorry for those who lost their capital in foreign banks, did not feel sorry for those who lost yachts, palaces abroad, and so on and so on. the like, and in conversations in the kitchen, people probably remembered the privatization of the 90s, when enterprises created by the whole country were sold for next to nothing, and the ostentatious, demonstrative luxury of the so-called new elites,” Putin said.
However, the president is concerned that big business, which controls the work of strategic enterprises, has become dependent on the governments of unfriendly states.
“Such a situation cannot be tolerated. Yes, everyone has the opportunity to choose: someone will want to live out their life in a seized mansion with blocked accounts, they will try to find a place, it would seem, in an attractive Western capital or at a resort, in another warm place abroad - this is the right of any person, we We won’t even attempt that.
But it’s time to understand that for the West such people were and will remain second-class strangers with whom you can do whatever you want, and money, connections, and purchased titles of counts, peers, mayors will not help here at all. They must understand: they are second class there,” Putin said.
He invited businesses to “be with their homeland and work for their compatriots.”
“And we have many such entrepreneurs, such real fighters in business - the future of domestic business lies with them. Everyone must understand: both the sources of well-being and the future should only be here, in our native country, in Russia.
I want those who have encountered the wolfish habits of the West to hear me: trying to run around with your hand outstretched, to humiliate yourself while begging for your money is pointless and, most importantly, useless, especially now that you clearly understand who you are dealing with.
Now there is no need to cling to the past, try to sue for something, or beg for something. We need to rebuild our life and our work. Launch new projects, earn money, invest in Russia, invest in enterprises and jobs, help schools and universities, science and healthcare, culture and sports.
This is how you will increase your capital and earn recognition and gratitude from people for a generation to come,” Putin said.
“The main idea of the Address on domestic political topics is that the world has changed, and it will no longer be the same as before, and all domestic entities need to focus primarily on Russia...
The reversal is planned for a long time, one might say forever. The changes themselves will be carried out in such a way that it will be either difficult or completely impossible to roll back them,” comments Mikhail Karyagin, an expert at the Center for Political Conjuncture.
“The economic portion of the president's speech confirms a turning point in our history. The course towards sovereignty of the Russian economy will allow us to escape from the semi-colonial dependence into which we fell in the 1990s and from which we did not have the strength to get out all this time,” says former State Duma deputy Elena Panina.
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