ONE LITTLE WAR IS ALL IS NEEDED

Elena Tregubova 

with her book

Tales of a Kremlin Digger

I was wondering about the big ‘why’ over Russia’s move into Crimea. Let’s not be naive, Russians there must be the last thing on Moscow’s mind. So what was that exactly? 

Something was dinging at the back of my mind when I reached for Tregubova's best-selling book Tales of a Kremlin Digger, published in October 2003. (BTW, I really can’t understand why there are no copies in English available). And there it was – a little paragraph about the time BEFORE Putin become a president. 

In September of 1999 Putin, according to Tregubova’s book, had no chances to become a president as he as the then-head of the FSB (Russia’s intelligence agency), was supported only by 5%, according to official polls, and un-supported by 29%.  When Tregubova, out of curiosity asked Alexei Volin, PR man for President Yeltsin at the time, is there anything that his PR team can do to make Putin a president. After a silent moment Volin told her that actually there is – a little victorious war. 

According to Tregubova, Volin had the right idea. There were apartment block bombings in September which led directly to the Second Chechen War. At that time Putin’s ratings started to grow like weeds – 3-4% a week, reaching 45 % in December when Checen war was in full force. 

Is Tregubova right? Well, seems like she really is. At the end of the last year Putin's ratings were at the lowest since 2000. And now look at this! See? 

While Western world shakes heads and make some rather judgemental assumptions over mental health of Putin over Crimea, he just seems working rather hard to raise his domestic ratings. 

It simply looks like things haven’t changed much in Russia since 1999.One little war is all is needed.