In 2019, Putin Couldn’t Win Back Russia’s Love
It was a year in which the Russian leader increased his influence abroad while losing it at home.
Picture of discontent.
Photographer: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
No dictator rules without a nation’s acquiescence, but in Russia in 2019, President Vladimir Putin has found that acceptance increasingly reluctant. His reaction: an increasing reliance on the stick as the carrot harvest fails to come in.
Putin discovered in 2018 that the world could be easier for him to manipulate than his own country. As the geopolitical architecture he started creating with the 2014 Crimea annexation took shape, his popularity at home took a dive — thanks to a necessary but highly unpopular pension reform, including a steep increase in the retirement age . Protest activity spiked. By the end of last year, Putin had resolved to tear his eyes away from the world map and look toward the Russian heartland, where the pro-Kremlin United Russia party had suffered some painful electoral defeats.