On the left is Russian President Vladimir Putin's new ride. On the right is the Batmobile from the classic Batman: The Animated Series of the early 1990's.
Tell me one didn't inspire the other.
The big thing about this new car for Putin is that it is completely Russian sourced, likely down to all of the control hardware and software. It's no secret that Putin doesn't like U.S. technology and has banned a great deal of it from being used in Russia.
The main reason for this is not the tired cliche' that Putin is a dictator and a thug but because all U.S. produced hardware and software have backdoors installed at the micro-code level to allow NSA access to them.
And, frankly, after the incident involving Putin's personal driver in September 2016, which looked for all the world to me like a hack, I don't blame him for taking every precaution at this point:
https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=68f_1473546246 (follow link for Video, not NOT YouTube)
I've seen a different angle of this which clearly showed the passenger side brake engage in a big puff of smoke which caused the course correction that sent the car across the lane into the other car.
It wouldn't surprise me if that video has been dumped down the memory hole.
What this move speaks to is how serious Putin is about cutting all ties with U.S. sourced technology. Aside from the obvious benefits that accrue to Russian-cronies versus U.S.-cronies, he is rightly treating our private sector as sub-contractors for our military and intelligence services.
And this is why we'll see more Russian software, cryptography and chip technology entering into the market over the next few years. We'll never see it here in the U.S., unless we're talking Bitcoin mining rigs, but as both China's One Belt, One Road project and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) mature the markets for these technologies will flourish.
For another example, this report from Vesti News about Russia's modern railways for moving people across the vast Russian Tundra at more than 250kph (150+mph).
Note: the map at 2:15 which shows the spur going straight to Iran.
So, while more column inches have been spilled in U.S. media about Vladimir Putin's sins than just about any other foreign leader, the most obvious thing has been missed.
According to his detractors Putin is:
- The richest man in the world, secretly owning hundreds of billions in stock of companies like Gazprom and Rosneft
- A Martial Arts master -- holding a black belt in Judo and still practices to this day
- A former Russian intelligence officer that makes him a brilliant data-analyzer and synthesist
- A great chess player whose affable public image masks a desire for revenge on the U.S. for destroying his beloved Soviet Union.
I can only come to one possible conclusion.