Putin met with business for the first time in a year. So what? So they gathered a bunch of millionaires and billionaires into one room, and all that came out of it and what everyone is talking about is Putin's phrase about turnips. All. Another void?

Imitation of reality as Putin's way of life

Perhaps Putin is saying in this way that it's okay that there are sanctions on oil, nothing that the European gas market has lost, because there are turnips. Like, we will sell this turnip. There is nothing to eat in the West. Soon we will organize RipaProm, 51% of the shares of which we will write to grandmother Kabaeva and will export.

For what? The only opinion is an imitation of normality. Simulation of a situation where nothing happens. Everything goes according to plan. And the budget deficit – do not look there. Look, there's nothing to eat in Europe.

The Russians shot down an American drone. As many as two Su planes doused him with fuel until they touched the propeller due to their clumsiness and shot him down. And so what? Imitation of strength. “Daring in the alley” is Putin's favorite game. He knows that no one will do anything because of such an incident, no one will escalate through a drone, which means you can show everyone that you are scary, strong and not afraid of anything.

He found where to hit this “insidious” NATO. Now he is showing everyone the aircraft carrier that allegedly sunk near Crimea. Like a pug yelling at an elephant. And then he boasts about how strong and scary she is. After all, everyone saw that she was screaming, and she had nothing for it.

Russia is a country of constant imitation. A country that imitates greatness, confusing it with a vast territory. A country that imitates stability, confusing it with slipping into insanity. A country that imitates the struggle for freedom, confusing it with fascism. But does imitation work?

The Kremlin manages to make people believe in fiction

By the way, here it works. Both with Russian society, and, for example, with the Global South and with some citizens of the EU countries sensitive to Russian propaganda, who are sure that prices in the store are rising because of sanctions, and not because of trillions of dollars and euros printed.

Russian society behaves like burghers from Munich sometime in 1938. “What about war? War is bad, but we have no choice. If not for us, these reptilians would attack us first. These Ukrainians (Jews) just get what they deserve. We will be a little poorer, but life goes on, war is normal, that's how humanity has always lived.” They really “bury” this story, hiding behind official propaganda from madness.

The global South believes in Russian strength. In India, they are convinced that Russia only became stronger during the war. Yes, India is there – Ukrainians are competing with each other in who will come up with a more humiliating term for NATO, which for some reason does not start a third world war because of a drone. So Putin will continue ignoring reality because he is allowed to ignore.

It's like an economy on the eve of a crisis. When everyone pretends that nothing is happening. Even if all the signals say that the holiday cannot last forever. But no one will come along and tell a Silicon Valley banker to think about risk when everyone else is thinking about returns.

This means that no one will stop Putin on his path of self-destruction. He started the process himself. We can only hope that the fear of him will be so strong that he will destroy Russia with him, and no one will dare to create a rebellion to turn the ship around.