MESOP TODAYS HEADLINE : MISSING PUTIN FOR A WHILE IN A MONASTERY
Russian Daily Mk.ru Removed Interview With Renowned Scholar Valery Solovei Predicting That ‘It Is Not Unlikely That [Putin] Will Have To Be Absent From The Public Spotlight For A Few Months’
On November 11, Russia’s daily newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets removed from its website (Mk.ru) an interview with one of the most influential and highly quoted intellectuals, Professor Valery Solovei, where Solovei predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin “may be absent from the public spotlight for a few months or appear there very infrequently,” before the next presidential elections in 2018.
Solovei is the chair of department of public relations at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. Moskovsky Komsomolets described him as a political analyst, who has “the reputation of a person who knows a little more than ordinary mortals about what happens beyond the Kremlin wall.” The Russian daily mentioned that Solovei announced already on August 1 on his Facebook page that “A specially entrusted person – Anton Vaino – will be the head of the president’s administration… Vyacheslav Volodin will become the chairman of the State Duma. According to the principle ‘You shall rule those you have chosen yourself’.” Moskovsky Komsomolets added: “We remind you that the country was astonished to learn that Sergey Ivanov had been dismissed from the post of the chief of staff of the presidential administration, and Anton Vaino had been appointed to it on August 12. And the fact that Volodin, at that time first deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration, was “recommended” by the president for the post of the Duma chairman was revealed only on September 23. In short, any discussion of Russia’s most immediate political future cannot dispense with a person like this [i.e. Valery Solovei].”