What money can’t buy – a 3-minute video

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Who is Vladimir Putin – an update

The concerted campaign of demonization of Vladimir Putin in western media compelled me to do a bit of digging to try to find out about him. Even though I’d started to doubt the demonization at least since Russia’s military intervention in Georgia (Putin completely pulled the troops out of Georgia within three months of having entirely crushed Georgian military), I still had lowish expectations: the man is a politician, after all. So I was rather surprised to come across an article by one Sharon Tennison who’d worked in Russia for some 30 years and met Putin personally through her work with US non-governmental organizations and diplomatic core. The portrait Tennison painted did not match that of a typical politician: young Putin was into martial arts, he stood up for other kids against school bullies, he was curteous and helpful as a state bureaucrat, he took no bribes, etc… This really did not match the image of a typical politician who is keen to rise to a position of power, and once there does everything possible to stay in power, ethical or not, legal or not… More recently, journalist and author Israel Shamir who spends time between Israel and Moscow offered another glimpse of Putin in his recent article, “Ukraine in Turmoil:”

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So who is Vladimir Putin?

The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it. – George Orwell

Ukraine remains the topic of most discussions on global economy, and Russian president Vladimir Putin is an inevitable part of that subject. Although he is almost universally demonized by western leaders and media, more impartial observers increasingly concede that his administration’s conduct seems more rational and more constructive than that of his western counterparts. But even then, most people pad their comments with a kind of disclaimer:

• I don’t like Putin, but…
• Putin s a thug, but…
• Whatever you may think of Putin, …

I find that curious, so at some point I started asking people in such conversations to tell me why, specifically, they didn’t like Putin or thought that he was a thug? As I suspected, most people did not really have more than a vague answer reflecting the familiar mud slung daily by our mainstream media…