“Why do you dislike us Russians so much?” my good friend Nikolai asks me when I visit him in Moscow in December 2008. His question is justified – in Sweden we are again hearing demands that our defence forces must be built up to protect us from the ‘ ...
“Why do you dislike us Russians so much?” my good friend Nikolai asks me when I visit him in Moscow in December 2008. His question is justified – in Sweden we are again hearing demands that our defence forces must be built up to protect us from the ‘Russian bear’.
The last two years, Sweden has been one of the most aggressive countries in the EU when it comes to criticism of Russia. Often, general pictures are given that can be interpreted as that the Russian is always a baddie, and the arch-baddie is symbolized to an increasingly greater degree by Russia’s earlier president, now prime minister, Vladimir Putin – a man in power about whom everyone has an opinion. In the West, he frightens us with his sharp, piercing gaze and the deadly serious expression on his face; at home, he is still one of the most popular politicians.
Who, then, is this man who was named the ‘Personality of the Year’ by Time Magazine? Why do politicians and the media in certain western countries see Putin’s Russia as a potential future military threat and why had some debaters compared him to Josef Stalin?
The fall of the Wall and the end of the Cold War twenty years ago were a turning point. We celebrated, and saw a positive development for Russia and the world. Ten years later, Putin came to power and we looked upon the former KGB-man with scepticism but praised him when he delivered what the West wanted – even though Russia lost from this.
With this book, Vladislav Savic wants to create a debate. He brings together the Western view of history and rhetoric, with the Russian equivalents. There are always two ‘truths’ and what seems black-and-white often turns out to be extremely grey.
Vladislav Savic has been a foreign correspondent for Swedish Radio for many years, earlier stationed in Moscow. The last few years, he has followed the theme of oil and the world’s growing energy requirements from a conflict perspective. He has also had a number of international missions for the UN in Central Asia, as well as having worked for the peace process in Bosnia.