To live in Russia means to be with Russia

The speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum contained important domestic political messages that the entire Russian society needs to rethink.

The unprecedented sanctions onslaught of the West on our country, supplemented by an information war against Russian society, ended in failure. The reason is in our unity and professionalism, in faith in our own strength and the justice of our cause.

"We are strong people and can cope with any challenge — just like our ancestors," the president said.

Here it is important to emphasise the key quality shown by our society in these months — solidarity. For some, even forced. It turned out that there is no life outside of Russia for any of its citizens, we are not needed there and are absolutely not protected. There is nowhere to run, and those who did run were stripped like a stick. Whether you are a Russian banker or a middle-class person, you are a stranger to the West in any way. You can only be saved together with your country.

But today our task is to move on, to increase production, to develop domestic demand, Putin says. To do this, serious measures are being taken to support citizens and businesses.

That's right, but easing and market mechanisms alone are not enough. We are at war. Russia is a warring country. This means that we need the full mobilisation of the economy, all resources and a change in the entire paradigm of macroeconomic policy.

This policy, what to conceal, for many years has been focused on the work of the "second number" within the framework of the neoliberal model of globalism. From there we took loans and technologies, and not the most advanced ones, we drove raw materials and capital there and saved up the financial reserves of the state there.

Now Russia has been deprived of this place in the "empire of the dollar" — it's time to finally build its own "power of the ruble", based on a combination of state dirigisme, strategic planning and entrepreneurial initiative.

It is the concentration of all the country's resources on strategic directions, the full use of the still undervalued human capital that will allow us to achieve our goal — to survive and turn Russia into a technological superpower.

But, as Vladimir Putin rightly pointed out, "sovereignty in the 21st century cannot be partial." It cannot apply to the economy alone: the financial, technological, and personnel spheres of Russia should be independent.

Let's add - Russia's achievement of humanitarian sovereignty, which I would put in first place. What does this mean? The primacy of Western values and way of thinking, the preaching of a liberal economic course, worship of the West and underestimation of their own capabilities should be eliminated from people's consciousness.

First of all, this concerns the Russian establishment: only those people have the right to occupy leadership positions whose consciousness is focused on Russia, and the purpose of their life is to serve their country. And today we can safely say that the lion's share of the future Russian elite is forged near Donetsk, Kharkov, Kherson, is being cleansed on the battlefields and in the rear.

The same applies to the entire Russian society. We will not win the war unleashed against us by the West and will not become truly sovereign unless the education of children and youth in schools and universities is radically changed towards the patriotic agenda, cultural policy is changed, national television and the Internet are created.

Literally all spheres of our life should be built in accordance with national values and guidelines. It’s possible to talk about them for a long time, but the general formula is very simple, and President Vladimir Putin voiced it in his speech:

"Real, lasting success, a sense of dignity and self-respect come only when you connect your future, the future of your children with your Motherland."

Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute