Take Vladimir Putin’s propaganda push at face value

Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government via a teleconference call at the state residence outside Moscow. Picture: AFP

Remember when Vladimir Putin showed a video to visiting filmmaker Oliver Stone of a Russian helicopter firing on Islamic State fighters in Syria? When the segment aired on US television, the video was quickly identified as having been lifted from YouTube and showing a US helicopter combating militants in Afghanistan.

Mr Putin likely spends much of his time sorting out disinformation, flattery and manipulation from those around him. He may not know whether he’s hearing the truth from his experts and underlings. And that includes about the experimental vaccine he announced on Tuesday, supposedly given to one of his daughters (whose existence he usually doesn’t acknowledge). An outsider would be forgiven for withholding judgment on whether such a vaccine exists, was developed by Russian scientists according to some known or plausible principle of vaccine development, or has been tried on anyone.

The whole thing could be a theatrical Potemkin production, in response to an order passed along from Mr Putin through his billionaire cronies that a vaccine must be found now.

The world would benefit if a Russian vaccine, or any vaccine, were to prove effective. But so much of what the Russian government has done lately, if not a fraud or a delusion, has been a shambolic crime, including invading Ukraine and Syria, meddling in the US, and various murders and attempted murders of Russian émigrés in London and elsewhere.

It would be risky to assume the Russian vaccine gambit is what it seems. At the surface level, Mr Putin would be taking a huge gamble for the good of humanity by encouraging his own people to be guinea pigs for an unproven prophylactic. If the vaccine makes them sick or produces disastrous side effects, especially in mothers and unborn children — the kind of thing known occasionally to happen with new drugs — he may end up being seen as Vlad the Impaler II. His people are already disgruntled enough notwithstanding the jigged-up referendum that recently extended his tenure for a possible further 16 years.

Mr Putin has undoubtedly considered the risks. You would be wise to assume nothing, including that what will be distributed to the Russian people won’t actually be a placebo. The government can take credit anyway for a nearly certain decline in the COVID mortality rate, seen everywhere once the disease has spread beyond the most vulnerable and to more resistant populations.

Russia’s regional leaders, controlled by Mr Putin, can take care not to count mild infections. They can conservatively tally the deaths caused by COVID.

Mr Putin having put his imprimatur on the vaccine, it will surely prove a winner, you can count on it. A model here is the late 2016 sale to international investors of a stake in the state-controlled oil giant Rosneft. The sale had been authorised in legislation signed by Mr Putin, the expected proceeds incorporated in a budget he approved. The planned offering was meant to signal Russia’s triumph over sanctions. As 2016, the year he had set as a deadline, was winding down, you could bet the long-promised sale would materialise, even though it turned out to be a bit of a sham in which a distinctly second-drawer set of investors were shielded from risk by a Russian bank.

Mr Putin does not have a long view, he only pretends to. If you’re thinking “How can he announce widespread availability of a vaccine that he doesn’t know will be successful and may even prove disastrous?” the answer is that he will cross that bridge when he comes to it.

He will be aided by the fact that pandemics are not simple phenomena, as the current one has shown. And most of Russia’s media is under his control. COVID can get mixed up with symptoms of the flu, allergies and other coronaviruses. The progress of the disease has been partly mysterious everywhere, including in the US. Not only has the fatality rate been rapidly declining, but each day brings evidence of pre-existing immunity in certain populations. There is lot of uncertainty in which to hide the outcome of the Putin vaccine experiment, whether it even takes place.

Why Mr Putin needed a propaganda success related to COVID is a question that would require getting into his head and also knowing the state of play among the criminal elites who constitute the main instrument of his rule and are the main threat to it. One thing you would be well-advised not to do is take any vaccine claims at face value.

The Wall Street Journal