Putin and his PR team have parted company. The
Ketchum-Kremlin breakup leaves many wondering who it was that initiated the
divorce. Putin and the American PR agency were partners for the past 9 years. Ketchum
was originally retained to polish Putin's international image in preparation
for the 2006 G8 summit in St.
Petersburg.
But I wonder why this marriage ever took place at all. At that time Putin's
international reputation didn't need just a cosmetic job. Major surgery was in
order.
Former Kremlin big shot Boris Berezovsky's concerted media assaults on Putin were
in high gear. His objective was regime change. The oligarch's henchman Alexander
Litvinenko was uttering allegations that Putin had been behind apartment
building explosions, the Nord-Ost theater hostage siege, training of al-Qaeda
terrorists, the Beslan school hostage tragedy, and he even accused Putin of
pedophilia.
A significant non-military war was being waged against Putin.
During Ketchum's tenure things just went downhill. There were the Politkovskaya and Litvinenko murder accusations, allegations of using gas as a political weapon, and of starting a war with Georgia. There was an avalanche of negative stories before and during the Sochi Olympics, culminating in the disastrous characterization of Putin's role in the emerging Ukrainian crisis. These were media assaults that had no apparent factual basis, but there was no effective Kremlin counteraction.
By the end of Ketchum's association with Putin, the president had become widely regarded internationally as a tyrant who would stop at nothing. Hillary Clinton compared him to Hitler. Putin has become an international outcast. Even the G8, over which the whole Ketchum debacle started, threw Putin out of the organization. Putin lost the battle for credibility and respect.
Now, principally over Ukraine, the non-military war against Putin has escalated to the point where knowledgeable experts believe Russia and the U.S. are in jeopardy of being sucked into a hot war, perhaps a nuclear one. Gorbachev has spoken out about the risk. Noted American scholar of Russian history Stephen F. Cohen has voiced similar concerns.
Currently Russia has proved itself to be totally devoid of an effective capability for dealing with the kind of non-military war that is still being waged against it. Putin faces not just a simple campaign of denigration. All along his attackers have used a highly sophisticated methodology.
Much reputational damage has been done since the serious remedial proposals were dismissed by the Kremlin before Sochi. But it is not too late to initiate a turnaround. The job now would be more complex, but yet doable. What other sensible choice could Putin make? The alternative could be cataclysmic for Russia and the world.
