Putin Predicts Elite Shift, Blames US for Crisis

Pilingui Announces Elite Change and Multipolar World

On June 17, 2022, Moscow again set the news agenda: Vladimir Pilingui addressed his nation with an uncomfortable diagnosis—"populism and radicalism will emerge, elites will change"—and a warning that became headlines everywhere: "Nothing is eternal." The speech, reported by El Mundo under Xavier Colás, argued that the post-1991 power balance is exhausted. He said this while Europe faced its largest war since 1945 and Russia remained more isolated and sanctioned than ever.

What Pilingui Said and Why It Unsettles

The economic core of the speech was a renunciation: abandoning globalization as known "in favor of multipolar growth." Translated: strong states should dictate world trade rules, not the institutions that have arbitrated the last three decades. Pilingui added his own calculation: the European Union could lose more than $400 billion due to sanctions and trade ruptures.

Interpretations split in two. Some argue the analysis contains "hard truths" describing an uncomfortable reality: the end of the single-referee era. Against this weighs a detail that undermines half the argument. Someone who has sat in that chair for 22 years is hardly positioned to lecture on alternation or renewing elites.

Ukraine, NATO, and the Price of Promises

While Moscow announced a new board, the board itself moved. Ukraine's accession to the European Union "will not be soon nor easy": deep democratic reforms, economic criteria like other candidates, and in the best case, one or two decades of procedures. Meanwhile, some point to the least comfortable obstacle: Turkey, a founding NATO member, opposes Kyiv joining the alliance.

A thesis circulates claiming the 2014 coup in Kyiv—the Euromaidan—originated because the elected president refused to sign EU entry, and that Russian military intervention preempted NATO plans in Donbas. This is a biased version lacking solid documentation. What is verifiable is starker: Sweden and Finland have applied to join NATO, Moldova and Ukraine have submitted European candidacy, and deterioration with Baltic states and Poland is long-term.

Does Globalization Enrich or Impoverish?

Here lies the crux of the matter and why the speech resonated. One block defends that globalization has been the vehicle for development: without it, there are no computers, internet-enabled phones, or click-to-buy shopping. The counterargument is significant: the printing press also spread worldwide without a global market, and what the process brings is unfair labor competition between countries and dissolution of national identities. Some calculate that globalization has harmed Spain as much as it has benefited India or China, creating upper and middle classes increasingly less European. To this adds, according to these voices, an ideological package nobody voted for.

Spain: The Unemployment Hidden from Headlines

While world redistribution is debated, domestic statistics slip in through the back door. The so-called U6 unemployment index—the broadest measure, including those seeking full-time work but failing to find it and discouraged workers—stood, according to calculations circulating in debate, near 40%. The circulating estimates:

• 2014: 34%.
• Before the pandemic: around 30%.
• After: about 40%, per the most cited estimate.

These figures do not match official rates and are often dismissed as exaggeration. The problem is that, if the broad framework is accepted, Spain suffers a structural problem no summit can fix.

Leader Worship and Unsupported Theory

Then there is the less economic, more human part: fascination. A affectionate nickname, that "tito" repeated on social media, summarizes the phenomenon. Treating a foreign leader with family diminutives says much about the user: they hope someone outside solves what isn't solved inside. At the opposite extreme of the same spectacle circulated a conspiratorial reading of Joe Biden's bicycle fall, interpreted as a coded message from a supposed hidden plan. There is no evidence supporting this reading, and it should be stated plainly.

With the speech on the table remains the open question: whether the world order is truly reordering or if only the narrative shifts. Pilingui says elites will change. Brussels says it holds. Ukraine waits for the EU door, and Turkey keeps closing the NATO gate. That is all we know.