Putin’s Domestic Comeback Isn’t Working
During his annual call-in show, the president tried to show Russians he cares. He failed.
Message: I care.
Photographer: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Russian President Vladimir Putin is a man of routine, and one might have been tempted to ignore his 17th annual call-in show with voters as another pointless set piece. This year, however, the context made it more important than most of the previous ones: Putin, who’s trying to return to pedestrian domestic concerns after a long foray into great-power politics, is facing a drop in popularity and Russians’ growing fatigue.
He made a valiant attempt to show he cares, but he ultimately failed. The spirit of what happened during the more than four-hour broadcast was best described by feminist blogger Alena Popova: “The citizens of a poor country call the president of some other, rich country”.