IT WAS Vladimir Putin as we have come to know him: unpredictable, cynical and skilful at trumping real events with propaganda. On December 29th Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats involved in intelligence work (along with their families), ordered two Russian diplomatic compounds in America closed, and imposed fresh sanctions against Russian security agencies and a list of individuals. Mr Obama was retaliating for Russian interference in America’s elections, which included hacking the computers of high-level Democratic Party officials and leaking the embarrassing contents to the press. The White House expected Russia to eject an equal number of American diplomats. Instead, Mr Putin responded asymmetrically, parrying the American action and mocking Mr Obama as a bitter loser.
Mr Putin’s performance was carefully choreographed. In the first move Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, appeared on state television to declare that Russia would respond to America’s actions in kind. The foreign ministry and other agencies, he said, had proposed to Mr Putin that 31 diplomats from the American embassy and four diplomats from the consulate in St Petersburg be declared personae non gratae. Mr Lavrov also recommended shutting down the American embassy’s dacha in a wooded Moscow park.
In the second move, Mr Putin publicly overruled his foreign minister. While America’s actions were “unfriendly” and “provocative”, and merited the toughest response, Mr Putin said, he would not “resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy” but would instead plan steps for improved relations with the incoming president, Donald Trump. Moreover, he would not punish the children of American diplomats for the tensions between the two countries. Instead, he invited them to a Christmas and New Year’s Day show at the Kremlin. He then wished Mr Obama and Mr Trump a happy new year.
Russian state television, which has been pumping out anti-American propaganda for years, quickly seized on a new narrative. “The provocation has failed,” announced a news anchor on Channel One. Mr Obama had found himself “in a puddle”, while Mr Putin had displayed diplomatic “mastery at the world level”. The invocation of Christmas and family seemed a backhanded jab at Mr Obama’s pacific reputation and his public displays of affection for children. The media stunt earned an unctuous tweet from Mr Trump: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin)—I always knew he was very smart!”
Mr Trump’s tweet added to the mystery of his apparent infatuation with Mr Putin and fuelled anxiety about Russia’s ability to undermine American democracy. Yet for pro-Western Russian liberals, the panicked attitude of some of America’s mainstream media was equally discomfiting. It seemed a mirror image of Russia’s own hysteria about the role of America in sowing chaos and staging colour revolutions in Russia’s back yard.
“In the eyes of the West, Russia appears to be the source of most uncomfortable social changes,” wrote Maxim Trudolyubov in a column in Vedomosti, an independent daily. “As a Russian, it is amusing to watch this. The West now identifies all its problems with ‘Russia’, just as Russia identifies all its problems with ‘the West’.”
Americans’ treatment of Russia as a bogeyman fills Mr Putin’s supporters with pride. They see it at a sign of Russia’s renewed great-power status. But while the Kremlin may be benefiting from fears of its influence in the short term, it is unclear how it plans to turn those fears to its longer-term advantage. Mr Putin has long depended on fear of America as a mighty enemy to reinforce his hold on power. Kicking the outgoing Mr Obama may be a poor substitute. Paradoxically, Mr Trump’s dismissal of Russian influence could be more harmful to the Kremlin’s narrative than fears of its interference.
Economist
