With just 12 days until the New Year, what may turn out to be the strangest story of 2011 is just being revealed as Vladimir V. Putin’s body double -- with one look-alike in China and others in Russia -- that stand-in for this former KGB “Cold War” spy out in public.
Just when you thought you’ve seen and heard just about everything that's been "strange" in 2011 there comes the very strange happenings in China and Russia with body-doubles; identical twins taking the place of Vladimir V. Putin as prime minister of Russia when out in public. Even stranger is the current Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, doesn’t seem at all displeased that he will take Putin’s place as prime minister after Russia’s presidential elections in March that Putin back in charge as president. In turn, the recent revelation that Putin has “body doubles” is yet another concern that’s rising from promoters of a “democratic Russia in the Western mode,” as Putin puts the clamps down on more freedoms in Russia with an increase in “Big Brother” state surveillance with people back in the old U.S.S.R. saying "it's a police state."
Putin pleased that his body doubles are a hit
BBC News broke the story – as more of a joke in light of the crackdowns in Russia by Putin to win another shot at being president – when reporting last week that this former KBG agent is believed to have numerous body doubles that appear in public; while Putin is safe and sound back at the Kremlin.
For instance, both wantchinatimes.com and hindustantimes.com ran photos of Putin and a farmer from central China, named Luo Yuanping, on the front pages of leading newspapers in China and India recently exclaiming that this Chinese farmer bears “a striking resemblance to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.”
In fact, Luo Yuanping “has become a minor celebrity in both China and Russia after a visiting journalist discovered his likeness to Putin. Luo says that whenever he Fellow villagers in Anhui province have begun to call the 48-year-old Luo ‘Brother Putin.’ He is reportedly delighted about the attention he has received and the village is also glad to have a local celebrity. Luo, who is single, also hopes the attention may help him find a wife. ‘I wish to have a wife and a family,’ he told a reporter for hindustantimes.com recently.
At the same time, other Putin body doubles have sprang up all over Russia, with a cloaked police officer in Russia using the Internet to both challenge Putin about “rampant corruption,” and to remind voters that the Putin they’re seeing in person or on TV may be one of Putin’s body doubles.
Russia still a major player in the world
According to a recent United Nations report, the economy of Russia is now the 11th largest economy in the world; thanks to the country undergoing significant changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union and moving from a centrally planned economy to more market-based and globally integrated economy.
However, economic reforms in the 1990s have privatized most industry and created vast wealth for a group of super billionaires that either support or distain Putin who likes to run the show as both the president and prime minister of the country.
Putin swore an oath to do the right thing
For instance, Russians have told BBC News and other world media that Putin swore an oath back on May 8. 2000 to ''respect and guard the human and civil rights'' of Russia.
Putin was appointed prime minister in 1999 “by the ailing and foundering president, Boris N. Yeltsin, became president of Russia in 2000. Arising from obscurity, Mr. Putin proceeded to consolidate control over almost every aspect of society and business and marginalize what opposition still existed. He remained president until 2008, when he handed the office to his chosen successor, Dmitri A. Medvedev,” stated a recent profile of Putin in the New York Times; while it also noted how on Nov. 27, 2011, two months after Putin revealed his intention to reclaim the Russian presidency, he accepted his party’s nomination.
Thus, it’s no surprise that Putin is viewed as a “tricky character,” with the likelihood that this former KBG agent has a body double or two is “highly possible,” say political science experts who’ve watched Putin’s ticks for decades.
Russian’s don’t like Putin’s mind games
There’s now a view that “far from hailing the extension of the Putin era, Russia appeared to be deeply annoyed. In December, Mr. Putin’s United Russia party suffered surprisingly steep losses in parliamentary elections, barely reaching a 50 percent majority,” reported The New York Times last week; while noting that “three opposition parties made big gains. United Russia appeared to have little choice but to forge a working relationship with at least one of the three, and Mr. Putin now faces an unexpectedly challenging three-month campaign for the presidency.”
The New York Times went on to report that “the elections had shaped up not just as a referendum on United Russia but also on Mr. Putin, and his plans to remain as Russia’s paramount political leader. The results amounted to a clear rebuke from voters weary of a leadership that has been in place for more than a decade.”
In turn, political science experts in the West said the vote was marred by limited political competition, ballot box stuffing and the use of government resources for the party’s benefit, and the elections were followed by several days of street protests. Thus, it’s no surprise that Putin “hit back by accusing the United States and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in particular, of instigating the demonstrations,” the New York Times reported.
At the same time, demonstrations in Russia are growing with tens of thousands of “mainly middle-class protesters in the streets of Moscow.
The New York Times also reported that these recent December demonstrations have led to several “pro prominent figures — a billionaire industrialist and the recently ousted finance minister — to step forward to fill a void in the opposition leadership.”
For example, the owner of the New Jersey Nets – Mikhail D. Prokhorov – is now running against Putin for president; while former Russian finance minister, Aleksei L. Kudrin also coming out against Putin by stating that “he would form a new political party to push for liberal reforms.”
Putin compares self to Franklin Roosevelt, says ‘a hawk is a very nice bird’
He’s a “hawk,” who prides himself in presenting a strong and powerful Russia with enough nukes to take out any enemy; still, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also views himself as a kindred spirit to President Franklin D. Roosevelt because FDR was “elected to four terms.”
Putin also confronted criticism over his decision to seek a return to the presidency next year, warning in a recent television interview show of a return to the volatility of previous decades should Russia swerve from its current course,” reported the New York Times back in October.
Meanwhile, there’s a growing movement in Russia dubbed “Putin must go” (Russian: «Путин должен уйти»)on a website and a public campaign of the same name organized to boot out this super-powerful Russian who rules with the same iron fist as infamous Joseph Stalin; the man who turned the Soviet Union from a backward country into a world superpower at “unimaginable human cost of tens of millions of lives.”
Putin is a power-hungry dictator-styled leader who rules with fear
“They say that things cannot get any worse,” said Putin while referring to his critics during a recent TV interview reported by the New York Times Oct. 18. “But I would be wary. It is enough to take two or three incorrect steps and all that came before could overcome us before we know it.”
Putin continued: “We lived through the collapse of the country. We lived through a very difficult period in the 1990s. Only in the 2000s did we begin to get to our feet. We are stabilizing the situation, and of course we need stable development ahead.”
These statements from Putin – which was shown on Russia’s three major government-connected and controlled television channels – reminded viewers how ruthless this Russian leader really is and, for the West, a wake-up call that Putin still has a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons with many still pointed at the U.S. and its allies.
“Since coming to power, Putin has eliminated most legitimate opposition, leaving Russia with a smattering of parties loyal to the Kremlin and little in the way of civil society. Few doubt that he will win elections next year (when replacing the puppet current president Dmitry Medvedev) though he took issue with critics who said Russians would have no choice in the matter,” reported the New York Times Oct. 18.
Putin thinks he’s the Russian version of FDR
When explaining his decision to seek the presidency again, “Putin admitted that he had not wanted the position when it was offered to him by Boris Yeltsin, in 1999, but would ‘take it to a logical conclusion.’ He likened himself to Franklin Roosevelt, who was elected to four terms,” stated the New York Times report.
“He ruled the country during the most difficult years of economic depression and the Second World War,” Putin said in a recent Russian TV interview. “He was elected four times because he was effective. The number of terms or years was not important.”
When asked about foreign policy and “re-claiming some of the former Soviet states,” Putin said “Russia would continue to protect its national interests,” reported the New York Times.
Also, the New York Times noted that “during Putin’s first term as president, relations with the West dropped to their lowest point since the Cold War.”
When one interviewer asked the powerful prime minister what he thought of a perception in the West that he is a foreign policy hawk, the New York Times reported Putin saying: “A hawk is a very nice bird.”
Putin smells blood in the water with ‘Eurasian Union’ rehash of USSR
One Russian official who spoke on the BBC recently about Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s plan for a “Eurasian Union,” said the sly fox “smells blood in the water,” and wants a redo of the USSR at a time when the world won’t balk due to fierce economic woes at home.
While Putin says a new political union would have a "positive global effect,” those who know this sly fox point to the statement: “Trust, but verify,” per the signature phrase adopted and made famous by President Ronald Reagan when he faced the Russkies.
According to an exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Reagan frequently used the term “trust, but verify” when discussing U.S. and world relations with the then Soviet Union. In turn, Reagan rightly presented it as a translation of the Russian proverb: “doveryai, no proveryai.” It so happens, that Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin also frequently used the phrase.
Reagan told his counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev – during the historic signing of the INF Treaty – that Gorbachev complained and responded to Reagan with “you repeat that at every meeting.” To which Reagan answered “I like it!”
Putin wants the world his way, and his ready to strike, state experts
Putin, 58, lists “political advisor” and “KGB Agent” on his official Russian government biography that also notes his “love for hunting, shooting all types of weapons, judo, karate, riding horses” and other “manly activities.”
In turn, political science experts told the BBC News Oct. 4 that “Putin is ready to strike” in getting the world back his way.
Image source of Putin’s Chinese body double Luo Yuanping, right, and a recent photo of Vladimir Putin, left, as part of Putin’s grand design of being both prime minister and president at the same time, say some experts who’ve watched his actions with amazement. Photo courtesy wantchinatimes.com.
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
