An Iron Fist Amongst Rising Flames
Putin’s Control Tactics Will Send Shockwaves Throughout The Global Markets
Rostov-on-Don
The rumble of tanks rolling can be felt under the asphalt, and the noise of their tracks striking the road grows louder. A resident draws their phone out to check the baffling occurrences, but chaos has thrown the usually organised state news services into disagreement. Resistance and Western media fail to come to consensus either.
This is the position the citizens of Rostov-on-Don — a Russian coastal city on the Black Sea — found themselves in the early hours of the 24th of June, earlier this year.
Starting with electoral meddling in the early 2000s and growing to a complete eradication of free speech following the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s reign has been dominated by a notable regression of democracy in Russia.
An early hint at the qualities of the individual charged with leading Russia was given on the morning of the 12th of August, 2000. On that day, “Summer-X” commenced; it was the country’s first major naval exercise in more than a decade. Only hours later, a catastrophe occurred and the Kursk, a submarine heralded by the Navy as invincible, had sunk following two explosions of unknown cause.
Putin’s administration handled the case with disregard. The President continued his vacation in Sochi, a resort town frequented by Russian holidaymakers. The Russian fleet, despite its awareness that it was improperly equipped to rescue any potential survivors, was not authorised to accept international assistance, despite British and Norwegian eagerness; when permission was given five days later, divers from these countries successfully entered the submarine but no survivors were found.
Such contempt for human life, especially for the lives of those serving to defend the nation, never had positive indications.
Civil Rights and Putin’s Information Campagin
Since then, Putin has gradually but consistently cracked down on civil rights in Russia and increased his authoritarian control over the nation.
Throughout this period, he has utilised two major categories of tools to maintain his grasp: active and passive methods.
Active methods are those that involve directly preventing or prosecuting actions that do not align with the administration; these include increasing surveillance (and reducing citizens’ right to privacy), imprisoning and assassinating political opponents, and enacting law changes — not excluding the Constitution — to permit what would be previously illegal.
None of these manoeuvres, however subtly done, would be possible without the more passive tactics. The scope of propaganda within the country has elevated from being occasional to encompassing the entirety of the television and news networks, just as the daring of the misinformation being disseminated has grown from small omissions of details to unabashed lies and major rewritings of ongoing events.
It is not infrequent that the narrative peddled by major state channels, such as “Channel 1” or “Rossiya-1” (‘Rossiya’ being a transliteration of Russia in its language), changes weekly with little objection from its consumers.
Of course, such efforts have been matched by vast appropriations from the Russian budget, funded primarily by the country’s significant exports of natural resources.
According to Boris Grozovski, a prominent journalist who focuses on the state of the Russian economy, fifty percent of the federal budget is now directed towards the military or the “siloviki”. This is a Russian term stemming from the word “force” and used to describe those who work for organisations permitted to use force against citizens such as the FSB (Federal Security Service – the agency that replaced the domestic arm of the KGB) or police.
The state propaganda budget, meanwhile, has swelled to over two billion dollars.
Despite the unlikeliness of such an event, on th night between the 23rd and 24th of June, the country got the closest to a major insurrection that it has since Putin came to power.
Numerous theories exist as to why the rebellion was mysteriously abandoned less than a day later, including that the entire affair was orchestrated by the Kremlin to leech out dissidents, that a significant part of the Wagner troops did not wish to continue, in addition to the official narrative that a deal was brokered by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
Due to the immense effect of propaganda and the far reach of surveillance, it is improbable that a random rebellion could occur. However, it could be triggered by the introduction of excessively stringent measures or of a loss of faith in the current President; the latter could be caused by further increases in sabotage attacks on Russian territory or continued conscription for the war effort in ever-growing numbers.
Effects on Global Markets
The volatility in global commodities markets will surely exacerbate the situation between Russia and Ukraine — witness the Black Sea Grain Initiative — as many countries are likely to deepen their dependence on the two countries for grain and fertilisers in the future.
The ongoing effects from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in international politics have raised the issues of global food security throughout the developing world. The issues of concern here have been thoroughly analyzed and covered due to the devestating impacts to food security brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This is also relevant to what’s happening in the Black Sea right now, since militarisation and re-building is commencing in support of Ukraine by its Black Sea neighbours, particularly Romania and Bulgaria.
Regardless of the latest events in the Black Sea, the Wagner insurrection happening in the early hours of a weekend morning meant that financial, investment and commodity markets were shut and could not be used to gauge international perception.
The universal shock around the globe, accompanied by mass confusion and bafflement, meant that few decisions were made prior to the resolution of the issue, and that the event had little lasting effect on global markets.
In this scenario, the next event is likely to happen again soon and last longer than mere hours, spurred not by a trickle of injustices — which would likely be tolerated by the Russian population — but by a drastic change in the political system. It would almost certainly alter the trajectory of the nation and have a significant effect on the world.
Putin’s control over the country seems secure, at the moment, but the Russian people are like a spring that can be stretched endlessly, one which will eventually snap. Once this spring is activated, reactions from the people to this sudden and violent snap will send shockwaves throughout the global markets.
