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How the demonization of Putin has become the most dangerous myth of recent times and what the actual record shows
The widespread and highly exaggerated criticisms of Putin-led Russia are not at all justified, particularly the tendency to demonize Putin and Russia.
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What is the right word for a person holding the highest position in a country who in the middle of many adversities including highly restrictive sanctions and even sabotage by the most powerful opponents manages to take his country from a situation of economic decline, plunder, disruption and possibilities of disintegration to stability and economic development and steady, sustained rise of human development indicators?
Several persons will say that such a person can be called a savior, most will agree that such a person should at least be called a very good leader of his country. While this record of President Vladimir Putin of Russia is firmly supported by data, as we shall soon see in this article, most western leaders and opinion makers have instead chosen to describe him more or less as a demon.
There are a few exceptions of course, and one of these is Sharon Tennison who had the chance of not only seeing the changes taking place in Russia from close quarters but also of personally helping in this as an American guiding NGO efforts in Russia to sincerely help the recovery there. While several top western ‘experts’ were in Russia after the disintegration of the Soviet Union merely to facilitate plunder and increased dependence of Russia, Sharon Tennison tried her best to help in a genuine way, creating partnerships. Her account of the impressive recovery of Russia under Putin titled ‘Understanding Russia, Un-demonizing Putin’ was published in Consortium News (16 February, 2018). This speaks not only of very real achievements made in difficult conditions, but also of Putin’s personal honesty combined with alertness, politeness combined with firmness and high intelligence as seen earlier in more junior roles. Tennison wrote her essay after examining most western writings on this subject in great detail and says that most allegations made against him are not backed by evidence. There is no record of personal corruption against a man who has held high office for a long time, a trait that was visible from early days, she says (compare this with Trump). Just one of these episodes may be recalled here. The US Consul General in St. Petersburg Jack Gosnell had been impressed by the young Putin’s record as Deputy Mayor and when Putin’s family faced an emergency situation in 1994, he arranged for generous help without attaching any conditions. Putin thanked him profusely, said he was deeply touched by the gesture, but added that as a Russian official he cannot accept this generosity.
Some critics may say at this stage—OK, OK, we accept Putin may have been good for his own country, but surely he is too aggressive against others and this is why we demonize him.
Here is a very simple question any child will find easy to answer. If there are two countries and one is responsible for five million people getting killed in its invasions during two decades and the second country is responsible for five thousand people getting killed in its invasions during the same period, then who is to be blamed more?
Any child will tell us that it is the first country which is to be blamed more, and of course this answer is the correct one.
However in a specific situation and time, some of the west’s top and most educated leaders, experts and media-persons have behaved as if the second country is more to blame.
During the two decades 2000-2020 USA’s so-called War on Terror in several countries killed 4.5 million persons from direct and indirect impacts, according to Brown University estimates and there were many more deaths in several other wars and near wars not covered in these estimates. All of these wars were clearly avoidable. During these two decades Russia invaded Georgia and Crimea resulting in about 500 deaths directly and probably five times this number (2500) if we add all indirect impacts. Even if we further double this figure, it remains around 5000.
Now the top leader of a country whose invasions killed 5000 people in two decades 2000-2020 was constantly painted as the most scary demon by several top western leaders, experts and media-persons for two decades, but the top leaders of the USA which were involved in invasions killing around 5 million people were seldom if ever depicted in anything remotely resembling demon-like terms by them, and in fact instead often received praise, sympathy and support from them.
Critics may still say that after 2020 there is the Ukraine invasion by Russia and I’ll come to this soon, but let me say here that the factors and instigations which provoked a proxy war later can be clearly traced to the west and particularly the USA during the period 2008-21.
It is not unusual for leaders, media persons and other opinion- makers in any country to try to portray a leader of another country perceived to be a hostile country in highly critical terms, and in the process to use facts very selectively and exaggerate anything critical to the maximum extent. However there must be some limits to this, some cautions, some concern for facts. When all this is ignored then there arises the danger of relations with the targeted country and its leadership being damaged beyond repair leading to avoidable serious consequences. There also arises the danger of the perpetrators of the falsehoods and myth-makers getting trapped in their own doing to such an extent that when they feel the need to extricate themselves out of this they cannot do so. When an entire generation is raised on such myths then these rather than the facts can become the basis of important decision making and thereby the prospects for peace can be destroyed. In a world very heavily armed with the most dangerous weapons including nuclear weapons this can lead to life-threatening and destroying situations and consequences that no one ever wanted.
False propaganda over a long time can sometimes result in serious problems in policy making as policy makers are forced to respond not to realties but to the false notions spread among people as a result of the propaganda effort of the same authorities. Something similar has happened in the context of the devilish image of Putin promoted by western propaganda over the years. Due to this it has become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to raise the important issue of improving relations of the west with Russia or stopping the disastrous, destructive Ukraine war as early as possible. To move in the direction of peace it is important to seriously consider what the other side or its most important leader is saying in an unbiased way, but this has become difficult due to the propaganda created demon-like image of the top Russian leader. As a result we have one escalation after another instead of moving towards peace. This is of course harmful for Ukraine and Russia but this can also ultimately prove very harmful for the west.
In fact the west needs to seriously re-examine various aspects of its perceptions of President Putin. One aspect is to examine his role as a national leader of Russia, whether he has been good for Russia and for the welfare of Russian people. The second aspect should be to re-examine whether internationally he has been as aggressive as he has been often portrayed in the west, more specifically to what extent he is responsible for the Ukraine war.
Putin took over the leadership of Russia at a time when its development had been disrupted during the decade of 1990-2000 to such an extent that various development indicators had fallen and even life-expectancy had declined. This had happened during a decade when western advisers had been active in Russia, leading to sale of public Russian assets to private investors, including foreigners as well as Russian oligarchs at cheap rates, resulting in huge profits for a few but also in terrible disruptions in the economy and drain of resources.
It may surprise many people to know that the years of Putin’s leadership have been a time when the country could make a remarkable recovery in terms of human development indicators, to the extent that some of these are now better than or almost equal to those of the USA. This has happened despite the fact that all this time the USA operated in highly advantageous conditions, while Russia increasingly faced sanctions and other opposition.
Child mortality, or under five years of age mortality, measured per 1000 live births, is widely considered to be an important indicator of health in any country. In this context it is useful to see the UN data which tells us that for the latest year 2021 the child mortality rate was 5.1 in the Russian federation, while it was 6.2 in the USA. Hence Russia has been able to achieve a lower child mortality rate despite being confronted with very difficult conditions compared to the USA which enjoyed the most favorable conditions at the world level.
If we see this data for the period 2000-2021, then in the USA this declined from 8 in year 2000 to 6.2 in 2021, while in Russia this declined from 20 to 5.1, a very significant reduction. In comparative terms, Russia was much behind USA in this respect but surged ahead over the 20 years of Putin’s leadership.
In the case of infant mortality (or mortality under 1 year of age per 1000 births), according to Macrotrends data, the infant mortality in Russia declined in a big way from 19 in 2000 to 4.8 in 2023, while during the same period infant mortality in the USA declined from 7.2 to 5.4, so that Russia which had been far behind the USA surged ahead of it during the Putin leadership years, despite all the difficult conditions the Russian Federation faced.
In the case of maternal mortality rate or MMR (reported per 100,000 births), according to UN data, from year 2000 to 2020, this declined very significantly in Russia from 52 to 14, while that of the USA actually increased from 12 to 21. Thus during this period, according to UN data, Russia was recording a very big decline of 6.66% per year while the USA was recording not a decline, but instead an increase of 2.88% per year in maternal mortality rate.
According to Macrotrends data, from 2000 to 2017, the maternal mortality rate of the Russian Federation declined from 56 to 17, while this rate increase in the context of the USA from 12 to 19.
In both these sets of data, it is common that the Russian Federation starts at MMR much higher than that of the USA, and despite facing difficult conditions, reaches a lower MMR than the USA within two decades or even earlier.
During 2000-2019 according to UN data the life-expectancy in the Russian Federation increased significantly from 65.3 years to 73.2 years. According to Macrotrends data, this increase was from 65.4 in 2000 to 72.98 in 2023.
The increase of income or GNI per capita in Russia during this period was very significant—from $1710 in year 2000 to $4450 in 2005 to $9980 in 2010 to $11,610 in 2021. On the contrary when the Russian economy was acting much under western influence earlier during year 1991 to year 2000, there was a huge decline from $3440 to $1710.
The literacy rate for the Russian federation is around 99%.
The Human Development Index of Russia has improved from 720 in 2000 to 822 in 2021.
Thus as far as the welfare and progress of the people of the Russian Federation is concerned, Russia in the years of Putin’s leadership in the 21st century appears to have done remarkably well, despite many hurdles being placed its path by the most powerful countries, despite constant vilification and criticism.
However some people say that the progress of Putin-led Russia in terms of democracy has not been good. However only a part of the blame for this should fall on Russia, the other part should be assigned to those powerful western countries which have been using the openings made available in various democratic systems to intrude in unfair and undemocratic ways, sometimes even toppling governments, as in Ukraine in 2014 (a single highly regarded and published US study by Lindsay A. O’Rourke has documented 64 covert regime change efforts of the USA during a period of about 43 years). Also it should be noted that even according to polls which the western countries trust, the approval ratings of Putin have been consistently higher than those polled by several prominent western leaders, including the present and recent US Presidents. Democracy is precious, but most countries of the world including western ones have been falling far short of true democracy, not just Russia. For evidence just look at Trump’s America. Compare the language used by Trump on daily basis and the language used by Putin, and not much needs to be added further.
However the critics of Putin may still say that Putin has been very aggressive to others. Here too they should carefully note the entire recent history where they will find, as confirmed by several leading western diplomats and experts, that Putin tried repeatedly earlier to avoid conflict and to find a place of self-respect for Russia within Europe, that he made huge investments in ensuring cheap energy supply to Europe, that he repeatedly pleaded with the west to honor commitments made earlier regarding not moving the NATO and its weapon systems too close to Russia, that he took the Minsk accords very seriously while prominent western leaders later said that they were merely buying time for Ukraine to be armed better, that even in late 2021 he made very reasonable peace proposals, that he was very keen to clinch peace deals being made at a very early stage of the Ukraine war in March 2022 till these were sabotaged by the UK and the USA following a rushed visit to Ukraine by the British Prime Minister. There is adequate documentation for all this, confirmed by reputed western diplomats and experts. If European critics of Putin and Russia just honestly try to find the answer of a single question –who destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines installed for supplying cheap energy to Europe—they will need to reconsider a lot of their criticism.
However, all this is not at all to suggest that Putin led Russia has not suffered from any serious flaws. Certainly much more should have been done for democracy and human rights, for environment protection and peace, for reducing inequalities in a big way and improving the overall development model. While there remain so many areas which need improvement, clearly the record of Putin-led Russia has been good from the point of view of protecting the interests of the Russian Federation and the Russian people.
At a time when there is need for standing up firmly to hegemony and its arrogance, the courage of Putin and his colleagues regarding this has helped the cause of reducing hegemony and highly arbitrary exercise of hegemonic power. To that extent Putin has played an important positive role in recent history.
While balanced and evidence-based criticism of certain aspects of Putin-led Russia is welcome and will be helpful in bringing further improvement, on the basis of its present record the widespread and highly exaggerated criticisms of Putin-led Russia are not at all justified. In particular the tendency to demonize Putin and Russia is not justified at all.
The mobilization of almost the entire military might of the west and the NATO to encircle, bleed and defeat Russia is not justified at all and must be condemned. Considerations of justice, peace, safety and environment protection demand that immediately the west should give up its entirely unjustified confrontation against Russia and extend a hand of friendship, provide Russia a place of dignity in world and in Europe, paving the path for very quickly ending the Ukraine war and starting a big program of reconstruction and rehabilitation in Ukraine with the help and cooperation of western countries as well as Russia.
Our sympathies should of course be very much also with the suffering people of Ukraine. They are victims of an entirely avoidable proxy war that started way back in 2014 with a USA-instigated coup in Ukraine. The way out of these years of sufferings and distress of people is to have an immediate end to the Russia-Ukraine war and this is made difficult by propaganda that demonizes Putin and Russia. There is absolutely no rational basis for demonization of Putin and Russia. Some leaders of west who have not grown out of colonial thinking may still believe that it suits them better to see Russia, with all its resources, weakened and bled to the point of disintegration so that they can access its vast resources on their own terms. Needless to add, this thinking is inherently very dangerous and will only bring destruction and self-destruction. So the path ahead should be that of peace and friendship and many people in the USA and Europe need to stand up for this, joining hands with unity for a cause that is of very high importance for the safety and peace of the entire world.
Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Rift.
*GeopoliticsHuman DevelopmentInternational RelationsRussiaUkraine WarVladimir PutinWestern Propaganda
