Andrei Kolesnikov about Vladimir Putin’s meeting with participants of the “Everything for Victory!” forum in Tula

On February 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Tula, where he met with participants in the “Everything for Victory!” forum. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov believes that Vladimir Putin wanted to make this meeting as warm and cordial as possible. Was it a success?

The event was organized in an exemplary manner. It was impossible to wish for more. That is, everything happened right on the territory of the Tula Kremlin, in one of the exhibition pavilions. A hall with 800 seats was equipped here, and the press center was in the same space as the hall. Which, however, almost played a fatal role when Vladimir Putin came and already began to speak. The fact is that the cleaners decided to empty the garbage from their buckets into large containers in the press center. They laboriously collected this garbage all the time, and at some point they simply did not pay attention to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, whom everyone was waiting for except them, and continued to do their job, rightly considering it the most important. The only problem was that in the silence that followed, every rustle echoed in the hall and in the microphones on stage. However, this circumstance only added spice to the event, which is often lacking.

Until it started, the folklore ensemble “Uslada” in the foyer was doing its direct job: delighting. Here, in the lobby, a festival of patriotic sweaters and T-shirts was in full swing, mostly filled with statements by Vladimir Putin on a wide range of issues. It seems that the president, who was expected here, did not need to say anything at all: from these inscriptions one could, without a doubt, compose a vivid journalistic speech.

Singer Denis Maidanov, who was sitting in the front row, was holding on for a long time, but at some point it was his turn, and from under his finally unbuttoned jacket the profile of the desired one somehow shyly appeared. Denis Maidanov performed without a jacket at all and sang five songs, and the last one, it seems, was superfluous, since Vladimir Putin appeared backstage after the fourth. But he listened.

The public, that is, the participants of the “Everything for Victory!” forum organized by the “All-Russian Popular Front”, gratefully received Denis Maidanov, as before the broadcast of Vladimir Putin’s meeting with the activists of this forum, which took place on the territory of plant “Tulatochmash”.

It was obvious that the president intended to make the meeting with the rear members as warm as possible.

— Our defense-industrial complex includes 6 thousand enterprises employing 3.5 million people. A lot of! – he said. – But if you keep in mind that in addition to these purely defense enterprises, another 10 thousand enterprises are in one way or another connected with the defense industry, are their allied companies, and in some part are their contractors, then you can imagine what it is like, what an army!

Vladimir Putin spoke extremely complimentarily about gunsmiths:

— Of course, if you compare modern NATO weapons and the weapons of the last period of Soviet times, they are inferior in some ways. By the way, not always! And if we take our latest weapons, they are clearly superior to everyone, this is an obvious fact! I mean both missile technology and armored vehicles… And everything that is used on the battlefield.

Vladimir Putin praised and praised the gunsmiths:

– I must say that we not only… you not only provide – I am now addressing those who work at these enterprises – you not only provide such high quality, but also quantity! Armor protection is the most necessary thing. We have increased the production of armor protection for our soldiers tenfold, and uniform production by 2.5 times!

Well, the consumption has increased many times.

The President believes that the country has rallied around the North Military District as much as possible:

“People of different ages, not only schoolchildren and older people, everyone, in one way or another, takes part in this huge joint work. I don’t know, this is probably 99% of the entire population of the country!

Still, 1% was cause for concern. After all, he is somewhere among the 99. But where exactly? And, most importantly, who?

“Everyone here,” Vladimir Putin continued peaceably, “everyone works for the guys who are at the front line fighting today’s neo-Nazis, who seized power in Ukraine several years ago as a result of a coup d’etat (it’s not a sin to repeat it again!” A.K.). And their masters aim them at Russia, use them as a tool in the fight against Russia!

Anastasia Litvinova, who heads the metrological service at Tulatochmash, admitted that her company’s employees “are involved in fulfilling the state defense order for the production of air defense systems, including the Pantsir anti-aircraft missile and gun complex, and testing equipment.”

— We, the gunsmiths of Tula, like our grandfathers and great-grandfathers during the Great Patriotic War, work under the motto “Everything for the front!” Everything for victory!”, and today we are faced with the task of increasing production volumes and developing new products… I am sure that we can safely be counted among the allies of Russia that Emperor Alexander III once spoke of, the military-industrial country complex!

— Alexander III also seemed to mention about the church among Russia’s allies, however, in Soviet times they preferred not to notice this. Army, navy and Orthodox Church,” the president corrected. “Yes, in my opinion, but we need to check.”

Even what the emperor said about the army and navy is in doubt (appears only in the memoirs of the emperor’s son-in-law, and in no one else). And the Orthodox Church will appear only in the memoirs of Vladimir Putin.

Perhaps it was inspired by the morning meeting the day before with Patriarch Kirill on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the latter’s enthronement.

“Pantsirs are in high demand,” the president said encouragingly, “and I must say that they are very popular on international arms markets.”

Is it possible to talk about “Shell” in this spirit: that they are popular? Still a weapon of death. Isn’t it too much? But apparently it’s like this: why not?

– In great demand! – Vladimir Putin aggravated. – Like burning pies – just come on!

He called the pies “burning.” This time it was apparently inspired by the sight of drones burning out in the sky.

“I must say,” he admitted, “that last year we also supplied quite a bit, oddly enough, of our military equipment worth billions of dollars to world markets.”

The recognition is really interesting, considering that this is the case when it seems to be more necessary. But here, apparently, you have to choose what is needed more: weapons or dollars.

“We have increased the production of missiles several times,” said Vladimir Savinov from the city of Reutov. “But above all, we are interested in the housing issue…

Another interlocutor of the president, on the day of the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, “fell under deep water” and barely survived – “I was pulled out like a carrot from a garden bed.” After that, they began to call him “Battle Carrot.” “I live with this nickname or call sign now.” And one fighter “from the Caucasus asked: “What about carrots? You look more like cabbage…”

“There are no requests,” this man shrugged. “I just wanted to tell this story.”

He was ready to continue serving, but was no longer able to due to health reasons.

“When our units withdrew from the Kharkov region, we know what was going on there,” the president suddenly began to tell. “What these scum were doing.”

That’s who we’re dealing with. If we did not protect our people in the Donbass, in Kherson, in Zaporozhye, if we abandoned people in Crimea… What would our country turn into? To a dirty, non-self-sufficient country that no one really needs, which everyone – with a large amount of natural resources – would pat on the head and give rotten potatoes as humanitarian aid. And at the same time they would always think about what and how to chop off.

Vladimir Putin shared his innermost thoughts.

– Well, this is right before my eyes! I’ve been watching what’s going on for these two decades! — the president continued. “Sweet, good… But they think: a bite here, a bite here… Create rules in the world economy so as to stifle all our competitive advantages… (The sanctions, however, are aimed precisely at this, then there are approached from the other side.— A.K.) And if we don’t want to leave a decrepit, useless country, we don’t want to doom our children to feel like second-class citizens, then we should under no circumstances abandon our people… We must make our country self-sufficient !

Alas, that’s exactly what they abandoned in the Kharkov region.

Meanwhile, it was impossible not to call Vladimir Putin’s speech motivating.

The President, after a conversation with one of the activists, who is acting on the enthusiasm of his and his comrades, gave Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov an instruction to work on UAV suppressors – and the Deputy Prime Minister promised. It seems that until now Vladimir Putin simply did not ask.

“I just spoke with the General Staff in the morning,” said Vladimir Putin. “There, in one of the areas, of course, there is a difficult situation connected precisely with unmanned aerial vehicles…

However, there is nothing about this in the Ministry of Defense reports.

“To put it mildly, there is something to work on…” the president admitted. “This is our Achilles heel… But we are moving.”

It is obvious that the participants in the meeting were guided to not only ask for something, but also to tell stories – so that Vladimir Putin would also be interested. They tried. All this lasted about an hour and a half.

Then, together with the activists, the president moved to the Kremlin territory, where they had been waiting for him for so long (everyone except the cleaning ladies).

Here Vladimir Putin was brief, basically repeated the points voiced at the meeting with the activists, and went to the regional cancer center for a video conference with three new cancer centers. But the people remaining in the hall did not want to leave for more than an hour. They didn’t come here just to disperse so easily. They sang and danced on stage again, then everyone who wanted and could came on stage and sang the anthem…

The spectacle was unusual, because usually, as soon as the president finishes speaking, before the marks from the soles of his shoes have time to cool down, the participants in the events race to the cloakroom.

No, that wasn’t the case here.

Tula, whatever you want. There’s no hurry. Everyone seems to have arrived.

Andrey Kolesnikov, Tula