10 причин, почему Путина пора менять (English subtitles… — Transcript

Maxim Katz presents 10 reasons why Putin should be replaced, highlighting political repression, war normalization, economic risks, and future uncertainties in Russia.

Key Takeaways

Putin’s regime suppresses political opposition and controls public discourse.
The war is used as a tool to sustain the economy and justify authoritarianism.
Ending the war poses economic and political risks, making Putin unlikely to stop it.
Russia faces deepening isolation, economic challenges, and potential social unrest.
An informed electorate is crucial to challenge the status quo and seek change.

Summary

Political dissent in Russia is suppressed with imprisonment and opposition candidates are removed from ballots.
Putin avoids genuine political debate, controlling media narratives and limiting public discourse.
The ongoing war is portrayed by Putin as an economic driver and a new normal, despite its devastating consequences.
War-related economic benefits mask underlying systemic risks and potential collapse if the war ends.
The political and social environment in Russia has drastically deteriorated since 2018, with increased repression and loss of freedoms.
Putin’s long-term rule has led to economic mismanagement, isolation, and a shrinking inner circle prone to derangement.
The risk of extreme scenarios, including armed coups or escalated violence, grows the longer Putin remains in power.
The emergence of a new generation shaped by misinformation and state propaganda threatens Russia’s future.
Diplomatic solutions require genuine bilateral willingness, which is currently lacking under Putin’s leadership.
Voting for Putin is a clear political statement supporting ongoing war and repression, and Katz urges informed decision-making.

Chapters

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Effectively, there’s no real political discussion in Russia. Dissent is punishable by prison sentences. Candidates who could offer an alternative take on governance get yanked off the ballot, while the incumbent doesn’t bother debating even those who’re on it.

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Vladimir Putin grants occasional press interviews to those whom he deems politically reliable. More often than not, these interviews become lectures, with audiences bursting into an occasional round of applause.

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But that’s not the way discussion is meant to be. The presidential office and the presidential election are super-important.

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All Russians, regardless of whether they approve of Putin, have a right to hear what each side has to say and decide whom to vote for.

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People aren’t just a herd of morons that must be shielded from any counterpoints so that they don’t tick the wrong box.

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And the Russian authorities are doing just that. A quick glance at a random TV show proves it.

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No one breathes a word of disagreement with Putin’s policies. But imagine we’re part of the real Russian TV industry that respects various views and gives a platform to those who oppose the president.

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Imagine we have a first-person show where the host believes you shouldn’t vote for Putin and makes his case for the viewers to mull it.

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Our country sure deserves it. And that’s exactly what I’m going to try to do today.

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It won’t be available to the TV viewership, but anyone can access YouTube. Four years ago, a similar video started our conversation with a Belarusian audience ahead of their presidential election.

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That video was titled “9 reasons why Lukashenko is a bad president.” Today, I’ll give you 10 reasons why Putin staying in power spells a ton of trouble for everyone.

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To begin with, I’ll vote for Vladislav Davankov. But today, I’m not urging you to follow suit, take my word for whatever I say, and things.

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Instead, I want to make my case, and I want you to think it through and make an informed pick based on the pros hyped up by the TV and the cons I’m going to argue for today.

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If you’re my constant viewer, please do me a favor and share this video with the people you know who don’t watch my channel.

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I doubt that they’ll all brush it off, and if they disagree with me, so be it.

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Let’s roll. PUTIN WON’T STOP. The biggest scare for us isn’t nuclear saber-rattling and threats to attack Washington DC and London.

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These are meant for the impressionable Western politicians and regular people abroad. The worst thing for us is the normalization of war.

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If you pay closer attention to Putin’s statements, you can almost hear him say the war is his major achievement.

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Not the victory (because no one can even offer a vision of an endgame), but the war itself.

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The war as viewed by Putin is driving economic growth, people’s wages, a manufacturing boom, the reform of the armed forces, and everything down the line.

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Sure enough, this is an illusory world. But that’s not the point. Importantly, in his world, Russia should be fighting forever no matter whom and what for.

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The war is thought of as the main driver of the economy and welfare. The Soviets had been upholding the “Peace to the World” motto since the early 1950s. Now it’s the other way around.

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Putin and his supporters don’t even bother citing loftier goals to die for. The war is being spun as a money-making enterprise.

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Indeed, an average Russian guy can now get a whopping $5,000 paycheck for just signing the army contract, and a factory seamstress can do without taking out microloans.

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That’s what Putin's message is about. It’s about small-town and rural Russia with its withering Soviet factories and plants, a part of the huge country that has slept on all previous economic growth spurts and endless oil revenues that were used to build lavish palaces.

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It’s about the people who used to commute to Moscow and work 12-hour shifts at a storage facility for $20 because they’d never seen that much money in their hometowns.

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Finally, all these people feel like they are in-demand, and they’re being offered a pretty penny.

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They’re doing their utmost to show that the war isn’t just the new normal. It’s the heyday of Russian history. We don’t need to win.

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We won on Feb. 24, 2022. Previously, you’d been holding a part-time job at a factory.

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Earning $250 was your rosiest dream. Now the factory is operating seven days a week, and your monthly wages start at $750.

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Putin is convinced that the war has now become an operational framework for his system.

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Therefore, ending the war would shock the system the way its outbreak did or, more likely, much worse.

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Almost 1 million men who’ve grown accustomed to $2,000 a month salary will be discharged, only to get back to their $7 a shift manual labor jobs.

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Hundreds of thousands of jobs created for the purpose of sustaining the war will be redundant.

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The economic growth underpinned by pumping the budget funds into the national economy will grind to a halt in a heartbeat.

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Worse still, there’ll be no more of this major distractor that justified everything. Inevitably, even hardcore Putin loyalists will start wondering, “What the hell was that? Was it really worth the bloody price we’ve paid?” These questions will arise sometime after the initial sigh of relief has worn off.

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Ending the war is a high-risk call for Putin. Which means Putin’s new six-year term will be six years of war, deaths, conscription drives, coffins, and bombardments of the neighboring country.

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THE LONGER, THE MORE ABNORMAL. Now, let’s try and assess the juncture Russia is currently at.

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Let’s face it. In early March 2018, the Echo of Moscow radio station had no problem airing its shows.

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Navalny and I were debating the candidacy of Kseniya Sobchak ahead of the presidential election.

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If someone had prophesied what we’d be facing in March 2024, even the staunchest of Putin critics would’ve offered them to see a shrink.

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To say nothing of his supporters who sought a better life. There was no way it’d get that bad.

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No way it was going to happen! Imagine yourself running into such a prediction. Navalny would die in an Arctic supermax facility.

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Whether or not you were a fan of Navalny, he was the leader of the opposition.

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In 2018, no one could imagine he’d die in prison. No one could imagine a million people fleeing the country.

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The most eminent cultural figures would be labeled “foreign agents.” We’d be surprised if a celeb foreign performer played a concert in Russia.

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There wouldn’t be a single independent media outlet within Russia. Outspoken media personalities would have to choose between leaving the country or going to jail.

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Mediazona and BBC would be publishing death toll updates twice a month, and it wouldn’t even be making top headlines. There had been 43,000 confirmed deaths—this time it was 45,000.

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It wouldn’t even make a news feed. Armed ex-cons would be riding battle tanks toward Moscow, and many serial rapists and killers would’ve been pardoned.

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Every single day, we’d be hearing about new criminal probes and searches and watching humiliating apology videos shot by the celebs.

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Scrolling through a news feed from 2024, a person from March 2018 would’ve decided it was a macabre spin-off of Vladimir Sorokin’s latest novel.

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There’s no sane reality where writer Boris Akunin would be designated as a terrorist and pop star Alla Pugacheva decried as the enemy of the people.

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The nastiest thing isn’t just that we’ve found ourselves in a world that looks like we’ve OD’d on psychedelic drugs.

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An even nastier thing may be our world in 2030 if our today’s world is going to seem as placid and serene as 2018 seems to be now.

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We may well look back and go, “Things didn’t look as murky going into that election. We thought we’d seen it all, but crazier stuff was about to come.” Now it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen in the coming six years under Putin.

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Any attempts at a prediction will sound like deranged fantasies. But one thing is clear: we won’t recognize our country in six years.

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It’s not just about an

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The existence of Russia is going to be increasingly at odds with the existence of Putin.

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NATIONAL RESOURCES ARE FINITE The welfare as portrayed by Putin is now predicated solely on the unprecedented government spending.

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Everything from arms production to air travel is covered by a single source of money.

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True, with election day rolling around, the incumbent tends to be showering people with freebies.

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But they’ve already announced personal income tax raises. The government is having such a hard time engaging in acts of pre-election generosity that this unpopular move was announced by Putin in his Address to the Federal Assembly.

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To ensure the current stability, they’ve tapped into the reserves. Russia’s treasury now resembles a family that’s run out of earnings and keeps pawning heirloom silverware.

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Even the three-year budget plan suggests there’s only enough money for 2024. They’re planning severe spending cuts starting in 2025.

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Severe spending cuts in an economy that revolves around spending (amid the lack of other investments) means launching an economic downward spiral.

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Those who are profiteering off the war and those who are profiteering off the profiteers will have to come to terms with the fact that the best version of their lives where they can earn a store principal’s salary just sowing camo nets in bulk will soon be over.

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Sure enough, Putin can manage a world where the economy hasn’t just acclimated to the war but is thriving.

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The adaptability and gains of the first year were mostly due to a sky-high сurrency stemming from a spike in oil prices amid the expected sanctions, while the current ostensible stability results from spending the reserves.

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Many Russians have grown accustomed to a situation where, on the one hand, things are going crazy, but on the other, their everyday lives haven’t changed or have even improved.

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But this bizarre kind of normalcy will run out. Those who are looking to pull through the next six years staying on the sidelines while earning the money and enjoying the comforts of living in Moscow may end up facing a very different reality.

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PUTIN HAS BLOWN EVERYTHING No other Russian ruler before him had ever enjoyed better conditions.

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In fact, it was the luckiest one could ask for. The successful reform package of the late 1990s that really kicked into gear in the early 2000s came together with skyrocketed oil prices to ensure the unprecedented economic growth.

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Throughout most of Putin’s tenure, the government had more money than it could spend. The country didn’t have a single external enemy, while the citizens were increasingly leaning toward humanistic values, with pleasures of consumption taking over the criminal behaviors.

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Lower crime rates, lower alcohol consumption, and improvements in other social factors—none of those were due to Putin’s policies.

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In a unique development, all Putin needed to do was not get in the way of Russia getting better, safer, and richer.

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A quarter of a century later, the country finds itself in the middle of a deadly war.

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Not just that, in his campaign speech, Putin didn’t balk at announcing a raise in the minimum wage to a paltry €350 by 2030 in a country that was once inundated by free petrodollars.

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To put into context, that’s half the amount in the poorest counties of Eastern Europe.

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We all know for a fact that if Putin stays for another six-year ride, the promised 35K rubles will convert to far less than €350.

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But that’s beyond the point. The thing is, Putin has the nerve to say that 30 years into his rule, the minimum wage will be equal to that in Colombia.

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Russia’s economic heyday has been squandered to a point where the government seeks to raise the taxes for $900+/a month earners because that’s who it means by saying “the rich.” However, statistically, they’re right.

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Despite the soaring wages and the current shortage of professional talent, those who earn over 100K ($1,100) a month make up 7% of the population, technically making it a rich minority.

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A 25-year-long oil high has led to $1,100/a month earners being the rich minority. He’s literally ruled his way into a mess.

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Do we need such a sequel? IT’LL GET WORSE AFTER THE ELECTION Russian presidential elections are a perpetual riddle.

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On the one hand, the winner is always a shoo-in. The procedure is designed to be completely airtight so that the dear leader doesn’t face any real competition.

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You never know what these guys giving all the right answers in the polls will actually do once they get hold of the ballot.

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On the other hand, every time the system pulls through, they act as if they’d gone through the wringer and eked out a win.

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Then, all hell breaks loose, and they embark on a series of decisions they considered “unpopular” or dangerous before the election.

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Raising the retirement age had been a hot-button issue since the early 2010s. But Putin didn’t announce it until after his 2018 inauguration ceremony.

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He saw that as an opportune moment. Indeed, in six years’ time, that unpopular move would’ve faded into oblivion.

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Really, who will remember pension reform now? Clearly, the current emergency steps that were taken to hold back the ruble’s value, including the 16% key interest rate and the mandatory sales of foreign export revenues, aren’t meant to work forever.

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The budget and monetary policies can’t sustain the collision course forever where the economy is boosted by the treasury rubles, only to be refrained by the high interest rate.

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Whether incrementally or abruptly, as was the case in December 2014, the foreign exchange market will have to recoil, and the ruble’s value will start declining.

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Besides, the war requires constantly replenished manpower. The capture of Avdiivka and suchlike came at a heavy price.

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What’s the evidence? There’s no rotation in the active roster. The first-wave recruits aren’t getting discharged anytime soon.

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At the same time, the Russian regions are willing to pay more and more to hit the manpower targets that still can’t be hit.

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Clearly, there’s no surplus of boots on the ground. It’s hard to predict if there’s going to be a new conscription drive, if YouTube, Google, or Telegram will be blocked, or if the borders will be partially closed.

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But it’s important to bear in mind that if the system breezes through the election, Putin will be cocksure he’ll get away with anything.

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Hence the heightened odds of the most gruesome scenarios. ISOLATION & DERANGEMENT The longer Putin stays in power, the narrower his inner circle is.

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High-profile investigations show that taking Kyiv in three days was something Putin really wanted to do.

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He was certain that he’ll be met by a vast pool of pro-Russian politicians, executives, soldiers, and spies instead of an armed confrontation.

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We know who was cobbling together this imaginary world for him. And the consequences of his decision suggest Putin never questioned the reality of this fictional world.

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And that’s where it gets ominous. The person who wields great power and makes the calls is cut off from any outside sources of information and is instead surrounded by a surreal world engineered for him.

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We can only guess what kind of world it is going to be by his decisions.

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And there’s no way to predict his decision-making. Having Putin at the helm isn’t just a high-risk situation.

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It’s an unpredictably high-risk scenario. You can somehow put up with evil if you know what it’s capable of doing and what it’s not.

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There are rules, conventions, and laws. There’s some system of checks and balances. That’s not Putin’s case.

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Everything we consider crazy may fit in perfectly with his worldview as he may deem it reasonable.

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DEEPLY INFECTIOUS Putin doesn’t mince his words saying the key job is to grow up a generation that’ll fit the system.

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The indoctrination of schoolkids through Important Conversations and officially rewritten history books is part of the government policy.

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And so is the public censorship. It’s increasingly harder to be a singer, an actor, a TV host, or any other public personality inside Russia without having to partake in warmongering.

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The Kremlin clique realizes more or less that their messaging is lost on the young adults.

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These guys dread the idea of razing the Ukrainian cities. They’d rather make a mad dash for safety and flee the country.

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But Putin’s system apparently cherishes the hope that today’s 10-year-old will soon be indoctrinated in madness to a point where they can be put on the same psych ward the Security Council members are headed for.

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We needn’t fret about it, though. They won’t succeed in raising a generation of thugs because they are too mediocre for that.

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To do so, you need a real ideology as opposed to tales of ancient tribes sinking their teeth into the Soviet bologna.

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What they will succeed in, though, is raising a generation of people desensitized to lies and lip service.

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That’s too bad, and it can get worse. This generation will know that a family conversation over dinner is starkly different from what they tell you at school.

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Adults lie. They know they do. They don’t believe a word they say. They just follow the guidelines.

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Lying to others isn’t just normal—words, actions, and motivations can have nothing in common. The longer Putin stays in power, the higher the odds of raising a new generation of Homo Sovieticus.

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The Soviet generation that’s now leading our country shows that the Soviet way of thinking does irreversible damage to one’s brain.

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If a person is used to adapting, saying one thing, doing the other thing, thinking something entirely different for an abstruse reason, this pattern will persist.

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We will survive Putin, but those infected by his toxicity will outlive us. Do we want them to be this way?

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Do we want them to be distrustful of everything and mindful of lies, hypocrisy, doublespeak, and BS being the norm?

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ESCALATION A large-scale war may escalate at any point. Recent history suggests that the longer the war drags on, the less predictable it gets.

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Top officials are making the calls that affect other people, and those effects often get out of hand.

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War is a dangerous endeavor. Today, it’s hard to imagine Russia clashing with a NATO country.

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But we’re witnessing the ongoing militarization of Europe. Today’s statements by European leaders are nothing like they were two years ago.

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The prospect of a large-scale war in Europe is no longer unreal. It’s just unlikely.

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It left the realm of mad ramblings. Responsible European politicians are broaching it as an option.

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Do we still think the prospect of the Russia–Ukraine war growing into a large European war is an insanely long shot?

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We do. But it’s not longer of a shot than the odds of the current war becoming a reality.

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A hot war in Europe is a whole different story. It may involve millions of deaths and even a nuclear exchange.

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In terms of the death toll and devastation, it would be similar to WW2, except advanced lethal technologies would propel the death toll quite fast.

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The Russian leadership calmly brings up the possibility of fighting this war and using nukes, but do we need it?

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Russian hasn’t been attacked—and wouldn’t have been. Europe doesn’t want to fight. It wants to trade.

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What does the current war bring us other than deaths and destruction? What would a future war, God forbid, bring us?

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Why do we need to have a leader who wants this? DEADLY COUP During Prigozhin’s Jun. 24 mutiny, we all saw the dress rehearsal of the regime’s funeral.

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We saw how they could resist an armed coup. While the rebels-driven tanks were rolling through Russia, those who were paid to stop them holed up and played dumb.

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The armed ex-con captured a regional center and grilled two top generals who were deputy ministers, both of whom kept their traps shut.

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There are forces capable of an armed coup, with 100s of thousands of disgruntled armed men potentially rising to the occasion.

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Right now they don’t have a charismatic leader like the late Prigozhin. But charismatic leaders tend to step forward once people feel the need to have them.

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Putin’s regime will change anyway, the two questions being how and to what. As Putin stays in power, making abnormal things look normal and getting rid of the sensible opposition, he’s boosting the odds of a violent takeover following the Mr. Thug-in-Chief contest rather than the one via an election.

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Why wouldn’t we use the upcoming election as a chance to vote for a different candidate to show Putin and the rest of them that he doesn’t have the overwhelming support and effect change politically without the use of violence?

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NO FUTURE The final reason seems obvious even to the most diehard loyalists. We may have different views on the nearest future with Putin at the helm, but we all realize there’s no appealing version of the future his system can come up with.

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We’re dealing with individuals whose sole goal is to stay in power for the rest of their lives.

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In trying to attain them, they may act more moderately, like switching to a survival mode and distancing themselves from everyone.

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But they may as well ratchet up the killing spree to unimaginable proportions. But those who are 20+ years in power just can’t get out of the self-inflicted mess, let alone work for the future, reform the system, improve people’s welfare and their lives.

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That’s not going to happen. Maintaining things the way they are would be the best-case scenario.

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It seems abundantly clear. Alternative scenarios are worse, and with each passing day, these possibilities are becoming more real.

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Perhaps it’s this thought—no hope even for a breather amid the murky mess—that’s the scariest part about Putin’s potential new term.

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What are we supposed to do about it? I totally get it if you don’t put any trust in the election and don’t see any way it can change things.

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Putin and his system have done their best to make sure it doesn’t even occur to Russian people that they can be elected out of office.

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This despair and listlessness can be heard and seen everywhere. Many people even refuse to try to kick Putin out of office electorally.

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We’re afraid of even starting to talk about it to avoid despairing or looking naive.

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But even an unfair election is our chance to speak out. We’re asked if we’re okay with what’s going on.

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We can say no. True, they may later discount it and rig the entire thing, but it’s up to us to say no.

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Clearly, it’s not enough to say no to this. We all want to say yes to something else.

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The candidates who were offering clear and efficient ways of getting the country out of the mess were left out.

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The politicians who could do it well enough were either jailed or killed or forced out of the country.

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Those who could do it fairly well were yanked off the ballot. Either by mistake or by oversight, a guy who could do it poorly yet keeps trying made his way onto the ballot.

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He may not be a smooth talker. He may come off as a timid bureaucrat.

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But during the campaign, he’s saying we need talks, peace, and normal life. His name is Vladislav Davankov.

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“At your campaign program launch, you said we needed to hold talks without any prearrangements. You must’ve borrowed it from Boris Nadezhdin’s platform. Or you may have said it before, too.” “No, I’ve repeatedly said it.” “Explain why Russia should ditch its current stance, in your opinion.”

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“What’s the current stance? They claim it’s a special military operation. Both sides have dug in, and are mostly stuck.

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There indeed may be some slight changes. I don’t see a way-out other than give it another shot and go, ‘Let’s all sit down and start the negotiations, and we shouldn’t stand up before we reach an agreement.

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We shouldn’t approach these talks with the preset terms we’ve touted in the media. These talks should take place behind the closed doors.

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We should be looking for commonalities and may even agree to a compromise. There’s no negotiation without a compromise.

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It should involve some real diplomatic efforts and willingness to agree on both sides of the fence.

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We need to recalibrate the government system so that the diplomats start talking. But when our diplomats insult other national leaders, it’s no longer about diplomacy.

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That’s propaganda. I’ve yet to see a person who wants this war to go on.

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There are none. Not in the trenches, not nationwide. That’s a fair point. My dad is a fighter jet pilot.

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On Feb. 23, we traveled to Rzhev, the resting place of my great-granddad. When the military guys start toasting to something, they often say they wish there was no war.

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That’s an okay thing to say. We need to proceed to negotiations as soon as possible.

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Then it’s more about the art of negotiating. I’m sure you’ve taken part in a thousand negotiations.

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I negotiated in various contexts. Those were both positive talks and hard talks. But this willingness to reach an agreement must be bilateral.

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It should be communicated instead of threatening Washington with missiles. This isn’t to say both sides need to pull back the troops.

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That’s not how it happens. It’s a difficult process. It would be odd of me to announce my position before we even sit down and start talking.

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So, there should be no preset conditions.” Sure enough, Putin’s speeches are more compelling and vehement.

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But what does he says compared to what Davankov is saying? These are two opposite stances.

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I think at this election, we need to vote against the ongoing war and against the current policy.

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We should vote for normalcy, challengeable government, and a new generation of leaders. These ideas may not be represented by the kind of guy we think is perfect for the job, not even a good one.

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But voting for him is an unambiguous political statement. Let’s all make this statement heard.

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See you tomorrow!

Topics:PutinRussia politicspolitical repressionwar economyRussian oppositionMaxim KatzRussian electionauthoritarianismRussian warfuture of Russia

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Maxim Katz believe Putin should be replaced?

Katz argues that Putin’s regime suppresses political opposition, normalizes war as an economic tool, mismanages the economy, isolates Russia internationally, and risks future instability.

How is the war portrayed in Putin’s Russia according to the video?

The war is depicted as a major achievement and economic driver, creating jobs and wages, but it also serves as a distraction from systemic problems and justifies authoritarian control.

What are the potential consequences if Putin remains in power for another term?

The video warns of continued war, economic decline, increased repression, social unrest, and unpredictable political scenarios that could drastically change Russia’s future.

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