In Moscow's Shadows

In Moscow's Shadows 228: Blood & Soil versus Bread & Butter

• Mark Galeotti • Episode 228

Share episode

Putin's latest marathon press conference/call-in show Itogi Goda ('Results of the Year'), once Direct Line, has become an annual ritual. 4.5 hours, 3M submitted questions, but what can we learn? Intransigence over Ukraine, attempts to talk up the economy, but a marked disconnect with a population that feels its social contract has been broken... and a president who felt just a little less grounded and focused than in the past. 

The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and similar situations.

You can also follow my blog, In Moscow's Shadows, and become one of the podcast's supporting Patrons and gain question-asking rights and access to exclusive extra materials including the (almost-) weekly Govorit Moskva news briefing right here. 

Support the show

MG:

So let's talk about the disconnect at Putin's marathon press conference. The disconnect between blood and soil, and bread and butter.

MG:

Hello, I'm Mark Galeotti, and welcome to my view of Russia in Moscow Shadows. This podcast, of varying length, frequency and format, yet always reassuringly low production values, is supported by generous and perspicacious patrons like you, and also by the Crisis Exercise Software Company Conducttr.

MG:

Now, first things first, I am recording this on Saturday, the 20th of December, even though it will drop as usual on Sunday morning. So if something extraordinary and dramatic has just happened and you're wondering why I'm not commenting on it, that's the reason why, though if it's that dramatic, I will probably produce something a little supplemental.

MG:

Now, the plan is also that there will be an In Moscow Shadows podcast next weekend after Christmas. But of course, for paying patrons, their twelve days of shadowy Christmas bonuses start on Tuesday the twenty third.

MG:

Anyway, as I said, I want to talk about Friday's epic, sort of epic, Direct Line, or actually as it's technically now known, Itogi Goda, Results of the Year. Four hours and twenty eight minutes, one hundred and three questions answered, sometimes kinda, out of the over three million that was submitted. We had threats against Europe, we had promises of attention to local concerns, we even had an on air proposal, not I should hasten to add, to Vladimir Putin. That's a moderately horrifying thought.

MG:

But nonetheless, this is an annual ritual, and as an annual ritual I end up watching the damn thing, and as an annual ritual I will inflict or bestow my findings on you guys. But overall I must say I found the latest iteration of this huge combination (it used to be two separate things, but they decided to combine it) press conference come phone in, email in program, probably the least interesting and lowest energy of the ones that I've watched, though I must also confess that Putin seemed in frustratingly good form and health.

MG:

It was hosted by, as usual, a man and a woman. The man Pavel Zarubin, who's apparently Putin's favourite journalist, or maybe I should say quote unquote journalist, because he's really an obsequious court chronicler, was I must say, especially irritating. And then we also had Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press spokesman, to marshal the journalists.

MG:

This is, of course, a theatrical ritual. It's very much the czar hears the petitions from his subjects, and in the process not only does some signalling to the country as well as to the foreign observers, but at the same time demonstrates his extraordinary command of all the facts and figures. Though it was quite interesting in this case, there were a few points when Putin sort of hesitated over numbers or didn't actually give give the specifics. I don't know if that's an attempt to be more naturalistic, because one presumes that he's carefully coached and or has an earbud feeding him the relevant data, or if someone behind the scenes stumbled, or if just simply his memory is not quite as elephantine as it used to be. But the point is exactly, it's about the monarch being willing to hear from his subjects and hoping that his subjects will tell him what's going on in the country. And in this respect, it's actually quite a necessary part of any autocratic and authoritarian system, because it does bypass the potential bottlenecks in the flow of information to the monarch's desk, which we know is a very crucial issue. Tsars had their Petitions Office to which anyone could write. In communist times it was letters to the Central Committee apparatus of the Communist Party that fulfilled this role. Indeed, part of, indeed, I'd say a substantial part of the whole driving force behind Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, which at the time people thought was rooted in the word glaza, eye, and meant sort of transparency, but in fact was rooted in the word golos, throat or voice, and actually meant speaking up, was precisely an opportunity for the public to tell Gorbachev what was going on, and in the process allow Gorbachev to have an information flow that was less dominated by a party apparatus that he increasingly came not to trust. So there is a long pedigree to this. And from this also, we get to learn something. In some ways we get to learn rather more than the monarch I would suggest these days. Including sometimes when precisely there was a failure of screenings. They had a big screen (two different word uses of the word screening there), big screen at the back of the studio on which there would regularly come up email or text, I don't know, but anyway, messages that had been sent in. And usually these were very specific and particular concerns or questions or whatever. At one point we got "not a direct line, but a circus" popping up very briefly before it was removed. So, you know, occasionally things do get through. But nonetheless, four and a half hours, by no means all of which was was at all useful or indeed interesting, but still there were things worth noting. So I'm going to just pick out a few of my impressions. I'm not going to pretend to try and cover everything in this, so be reassured that I won't be, for example, regaling you with all the details about the importance of not centrally fixing fish prices. Though, believe it or not, I will touch on it because there is a little bit of importance in that.

MG:

So anyway, we've obviously got to start with the whole issue of the Ukraine war. And on the one hand, there was absolutely no sense of any give. He was very, very keen to present an upbeat line. "So far we do not see Ukraine's readiness for peace and territorial concessions," but at the same time, "the strategic initiative has completely passed into the hands of the Russian armed forces. The enemy is retreating on all fronts." And he gave a, let's be perfectly honest, a rather over-egged presentation of where Russia was. So, you know, one can fact-check the details, and there is a lot of, as I say, wishful thinking in the precise location of where he puts the front line. But nonetheless, the basic message he was trying to convey to the Russians is the war is going well.

MG:

And indeed, a hero of the Russian Federation, Naran Ochir-Goryaev, was trotted out. And again, it's interesting that they chose a non-Slav hero in this particular context, given the degree to which the composition of the forces fighting in Ukraine is disproportionately skewed towards non-Slavs, just simply because they come from more impoverished regions and were therefore more willing to volunteer. But anyway, Goryaev, sorry, Naran Ochir-Goryaev was trotted out precisely as an example, a hero, regularly in the spotlight, and who was able to say such lines as that when they were fighting at Siversk and advancing, "the Ukrainian armed forces, like the Nazis" (always the parallel to draw in the in today's Russia) "shot civilians who didn't want to leave with them." I haven't seen any evidence for what would indeed be a terrible war crime, but anyway, that's again the message that they wanted to convey. So Ukraine bad, but Ukraine losing. Ukraine not yet showing it's willing to make enough concessions, but at the same time, Russia, well, it's on the side of the Angels in its own way. Though I was struck by the fact that the most he could extend to concession-wise was that if the Ukrainians do indeed hold elections in wartime, well he would consider not bombing them on the day of the election itself. You're all heart, Vladimir Vladimirovich.

MG:

But for all that, he was also trying to present a cautiously upbeat message in the sense that there was progress, even though as far as he's concerned, "the ball is entirely in the court of our Western opponents, so to speak. Primarily the leaders of the Kyiv regime, and in this case their and above all their European sponsors" (remember it's the Europeans ho are the bad guys) "we are ready for both negotiations and a peaceful resolution to the conflict." But of course, this very much is part of, as far as he's concerned, a proxy war with Europe, and Europe remains hostile, and he several times raised that, and indeed was given an opportunity to respond to a honestly not really serious notion that had been floated in some corners in the West about a blockade of the Kaliningrad Exclave, which is out on the other side of the Baltic states. And he said that "an attempt to blockade the Kaliningrad region will escalate the conflict to an unprecedented level, potentially leading to a large-scale military conflict." Now, I don't think he's actually in that instance threatening war, because I don't think that even he believes that this is a likely Western policy. But on the other hand, it gives him a chance to bare his teeth in a relatively safe context and reassure the Russian people, and obviously particularly the residents of Kaliningrad, that Russia is not to be messed with. So there's a lot of this was very heavy-duty signalling.

MG:

And in this context, I think it's worth bringing up the question that was raised by the BBC, Steve Rosenberg, who is an excellent journalist and in some ways also performs a useful function for the Kremlin. I mean, people are often saying, How come Steve's still there? Now, in some cases, they say, well, it's because he's you know insufficiently anti-regime or whatever, which is nonsensical. I mean, I think the point is, Steve, on the one hand, and I know you notice the insouciant way, I just throw out "Steve", well, first name terms after all. Anyway, on the one hand, he knows how far he can tread, and yet when he can himself push. I mean, just think of his interview with Lukashenko, for example But also, his question here is important because the Russians do like to still have windows to the outside world. And you know, Rosenberg, see, I'm being more formal now, um, is a way of them actually being able to communicate and also demonstrate that we still have people, we're we're still willing to have journalists here, and in the process not have all of their journalists kicked out of the UK. But anyway, his question was actually for me unexpected. I mean I was expecting something interesting and pushing, but unexpectedly direct.

MG:

"I have a question about the future, about the future of Russia, he asked. What future are you planning? What are you building for your country and your people? So far, so neutral. Aha, but we move on. In this future, will any public disagreement with the official line be punishable by law as it is now? Will the search for enemies, both external and internal, intensify? And in this future, will mobile internet shutdowns be increasingly common across the country? Will there be a new special military op will there be new special military operations or will Russia take a different path? I remember you once said that our future is in our hands, that is in the hands of everyone. But practically all power in Russia is in your hands, which means to a large extent the future is in your hands too. So what will it be like? What lies ahead? A continuation of what we see now?"

MG:

I mean, go Steve. So on the one hand, Putin did one has to recognise it, he was willing to let that happen. I was interested that obviously Peskov called on Rosenberg directly. He was willing to let this happen, and he did give a lengthy answer. Which reminds us, you know, of this reason why he's allowed to stay there, because it is a chance for Putin to use this as an opportunity to recite his usual grievances, which is precisely what he did. You know, more or less. I mean, on the question of clamping down on critical he pivoted that straight to the the foreign agents law and claimed, well, we didn't come up with one first, the Americans have got one first, and theirs is even worse, which is A questionable, but B, you know, a bit of rather shabby whataboutism.

MG:

But anyway, on terms of his grievances, "you said there will be new special military operations. There won't be any if you" ( obviously he means the West), "treat us with respect and respect our interests, just as we've always tried to respect yours." Well, there's an interesting and worrying corollary there. If he's saying, if Putin is saying there won't be any more special military operations if you respect our interests, the implication is don't respect our interests and there may well be. Now, it's worth stressing, I don't think for a moment that he was implying some kind of attack on the West specifically. But nonetheless, the idea that he may well be willing to engage in more, as he sees it, proxy conflicts is definitely there on the table.

MG:

Continues. "Unless you cheat us, like you did with NATO's eastward expansion, you said there wouldn't be any NATO expansion eastward, not even a single inch. That's a direct quote. So what? As they say, they screwed us. They simply ignored our security interests." Well, that's a bit of a yes and no if if we're fact checking it. There was no formal commitment to not expanding NATO eastward. And also all such expansions happened not because NATO decided it would push eastward, but because various countries wanted to be in the club, they wanted to be under the umbrella of protection of NATO and were willing to spend a lot of time and political effort to reach the conditions that would allow them to join. On the other hand, I think it is fair to say that the West, and particularly this means the Americans, were certainly willing to let both Gorbachev and Yeltsin get the impression that there wasn't going to be any eastward expansion, and not really do anything to correct that impression. So, yes, there was no formal commitment. I think though it was handled very badly. Of course it isn't, nor am I saying that NATO should not have expanded eastward. But I'm just saying we have to recognise that there is a small element of, if not truth, at least justification in Putin's plaints here, though of course he then, you know, frankly takes it way, way too far.

MG:

"You created, well, not you personally, of course, but Western politicians created the current situation with their own hands and continue to escalate the situation. They constantly talk about preparing for war with Russia. So are we planning to attack Europe or something? What kind of nonsense is this? This is being done for domestic political purposes. It's being done to create the image of an enemy. They're creating an enemy image, in this case Russia, to cover up for the mistakes that have been systematically committed by many Western governments over a number of years, both in the economic and social spheres." Well look, I, as you know from previous podcasts, I do agree that the threat of war is largely being talked up, in some cases by people who genuinely believe in it, in other cases by people who I think are willing to just simply go with it for political reasons. But not those political reasons, Vladimir Vladimirovich. It's not actually as if an enemy figure helps distract from domestic problems. In some ways, actually one could argue that it aggravates them, because if you talk it up, that means you're going to have to spend money on that, and that means you're going to have to tax more, borrow more, spend less elsewhere. No, I mean I think the the political intent is precisely to get people to be willing to accept the costs of armament, and actually presenting this as a piece of caution in the long term and a part of putting on muscle mass into Europe so that it doesn't have to depend so much on the United States, isn't as politically viable as just quickly saying that my god, there's a threat any day now. The Russians are gonna be rebuilding their military with an aim to coming in attacking us. I think there there is the belief that that that works. I think it's a mistake, but never mind.

MG:

Then he goes on -- I'm spending a lot of time on this, but don't worry, I'm not going to do this for all of his various talking points. "But I want to end on a different note. We are ready to work with you, with the UK, with Europe as a whole, and with the United States, but on an equal footing, with mutual respect. Continues. I recall a conversation I had in 1993 when the former Chancellor of Germany, Mr. Kohl, spoke. He said that Europe's future, if it wants to remain an independent centre of civilization, must necessarily be with Russia. We naturally complement each other. We will work together and develop. If this doesn't happen, Europe will gradually disappear."

MG:

I could almost talk about civilizational erasure. I mean it's worth just dwelling on this for a moment, because on the one hand, Putin is presenting the Europeans as the source of all his ills, the hidden hand behind Ukrainian resistance, etc. But on the other hand, he does also express this kind of perhaps Europhilia is putting it a little bit too strongly, but again, that sense that Russia naturally fits with Europe, that Russia is a European country, and it's the other European countries which have taken a wrong turn. But if only they come back to Russia, then everything will be fine. I mean, this is a such a central element of Russian political culture, the Russian geopolitical imagination where they think they fit, so that even as he demonizes the Europeans, he also hankers after some new rapprochement.

MG:

It's also worth noting on the issue of NATO, he in a separate response told a Serbian journalist "and this movement of military infrastructure toward our borders has undoubtedly raised and continues to raise our legitimate concerns." Now, military infrastructure. The reason I pick up on that is we've got to realise that although at the moment the issue of NATO membership would seem to be such a crucial element of the peace negotiations, with Zelensky now saying that he's willing to, for the moment at least, waive Ukraine's quest to join the alliance. First of all, that that wasn't going to happen anyway. But secondly, if one goes back to Putin's addresses before the invasion, it wasn't membership of NATO that he was raising as the particular threat that Russia needed to be concerned about. It was the expansion of NATO military infrastructure into Ukraine. In other words, the presence of bases, the presence of missile systems and the like. So Ukraine could be a threat to Russia, working hand in glove with NATO, even while it wasn't a member of the alliance. And I think this is one of the reasons why it is possible that Putin could accept the kind of security guarantees, the sort of NATO-like Article 5 or whatever, ones that are being talked about, because they can be provided to Ukraine without the necessity or the right to have other NATO forces on Ukrainian soil in peacetime. So there is, I think, a narrow and winding path to at least an agreement on that particular issue. I mean, I'm still not convinced that the peace talks will succeed because of the other security guarantees, and also because of Putin's continued demand for Donetsk. But nonetheless, that's one of the reasons why that particular issue could be neutralized.

MG:

But okay, so this has been very much about geopolitics, and clearly this is what Putin wanted to talk about, and he would default back to whenever possible, and often give, frankly, longer answers in response to questions that leant on this. But for me, it's not really what the interesting or important part of the overall process is. So let's take a break, and then let me pivot from blood and iron on to bread and butter issues.

MG:

Just the usual mid-episode reminder that you're listening to the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counterterrorism, civil affairs and the like. But you can also support the podcast yourself by going to patreon.com slash In Moscow Shadows. And remember that patrons get a variety of additional perks depending on their tier, as well as knowing that they're supporting this peerless source on all things Russian. And you can also follow me on Twitter at Mark Galeotti or on Facebook, Mark Galeotti on Russia. Now back to the episode.

MG:

So if I'm going to move on to issues of the economy, I mean clearly there is a political, geopolitical dimension to that as well. Zarubin said that "I think that all our television viewers and those in the audience understand that war is a heavy burden on the economy, and that European piglets, as you called them the other day" (yes, it was referring to a rather unfortunate and undiplomatic statement of Putin's) "continue to do everything they can to, as they say, destroy the Russian economy." Well, it's worth saying not many people talk about destroying the Russian economy, but anyway.

MG:

So talking about the economy, as ever Putin defaulted to presenting a whole bevy of statistics. He admitted that past in the past year Russia had only experienced 1% GDP growth, but that over the last three years it was 9.7%. Although it is, of course, worth noting the degree to which a fair amount of that was because of defense production. And when your GDP is based on creating stuff that you're almost immediately going to destroy, whether it's a tank that gets hit by an enemy drone or one of your drones that's about to slam into an enemy target, it's a bit of a sort of wasted, empty, it's almost empty calories, shall we say, in the economy. But nonetheless, 9.7% over three years, whereas he compared it to 3.1% for the Eurozone, which is acceptable.

MG:

He talks about low growth, though, as not being a problem so much as a deliberate strategy, as part of the plan to tackle inflation. And the goal is to bring this below 6% by the end of the year. And indeed, it is apparently set to hit 5.7 or 5.8%. Now that's still relatively high, you know, not Weimar Germany level, but still uncomfortably high. But it does suggest that there's some degree of macroeconomic control taking place.

MG:

He continues, "we've managed to maintain a good pace of real wage growth. It's not as high as last year, but I still think it's a good real wage, meaning after adjusting for inflation, it will grow by 4.5%. So that's 4.5% ahead of inflation." And he's presenting it as a good thing. Now, I don't know how far that is because he is even more economically illiterate than me, which let's be clear is saying something, or whether it's just simply a populist turn to the people trying to say, hey, look, you've got more money in your pocket thanks to our policies. Because the fact of the matter is this is bad. Labour productivity growth, he recognised, was only 1.1%. So in other words, people are only producing 1.1% more, but they're being paid 4.5% more. That's okay, fine, great for the individual. But in terms of an economic index, that's actually not very healthy in the context of fairly stagnant growth that isn't going to get any better.

MG:

And to a large degree, that's because of the crunch on the labour market. Now, again, he presents this as a good thing. He says the unemployment rate last year was at a historically low 2.5%. And this year, it's even lower at 2.2%. Well, why is that? Well, for a start, because 1.1 to 1.3 million of your people are dead and wounded as a result of the war in Ukraine. It's the fact that I think by his own figures, I think he said 700,000 Russians are operating within the special military operation. And what you've therefore got is a squeeze on the labour market. And everyone's having to compete with both the for those people willing to take that chance, going to fight in the war, or if not, the defense industrial complex, which has dramatically increased not just its production, but also therefore its labour needs. And so everyone is having to basically fight for a limited pool of laborers, and that's driving the overall wage level up. Now, 2.2%, that's pretty much fractional unemployment. In other words, the unemployment you're always going to have, because there are some people who won't work, can't work, or in between jobs or whatever else. And the fact that economies are not entirely rational things, people make choices, but also people may be living in places elsewhere from where the work is. And in a huge country like this, actually mobility may well be an issue. But this is a problem. This is actually one of the issues with the Russian economy, not one of the benefits.

MG:

That said, he did note that the central bank's international reserves are also growing. They're at $741.5 billion equivalent, which is a useful reminder to those people who say that any day now we can expect to see the Russian economy in collapse. And the federal budget deficit, well, he's saying it's 2.6%, and that next year they're anticipating it's going to be just 1.6%, which he says is "a very good figure, considering that our national debt remains very low, one of the lowest among developed economies, about 17.7%, and shouldn't rise above 20% over the next three years." Well, let's see. I'm not entirely convinced that the budget deficit is as manageable as that. But again, I'm not an economist.

MG:

We also need to see whether or not some of his promises and claims actually come about. I mean, for example, he was asked about the increases in tax, particularly 2% on VAT, that bring it up to 22%. And he said, no, no, no, these shouldn't be permanent, these are just a temporary measure necessary to balance the budget. My experience is that politicians, whether they are in democracies or whether they're in authoritarianisms, are much, much quicker to put taxes on than they are to take any off. So that's something we'll we'll have to watch.

MG:

But it he was also, I think, interesting that we got a sense of his continued commitment to the free market. Obviously there's a lot of focus at the moment on mobilization of resources and increased defence industrial production. But in fact, he's still pushing back against this idea that really Russia should become some kind of state-controlled economy like the old Soviet Union. Let's be honest, he saw the Soviet Union and he wasn't one of the nomenklatura elite class in his childhood and early years. So he got to see it in all its miseries. And I think it's one of the reasons why he still thinks the free market, where possible, is better. But of course, the more onerous the burdens of war, the more he will necessarily have to shift towards a more of a command structure. And this is where that mention of fish prices emerged. I mean, his response to the question about isn't it time that fish prices were regulated was really a lengthy ode to the power of the market, acknowledging that certain prices, like medicines, would need to be controlled, but elsewhere actually saying that the market was the most efficient means.

MG:

But economy in some ways gave way to the issue of demographics. Now that was one of the really big themes of the overall event. The birth rate in Russia, Putin said, is 1.4%, and we need to achieve 2%. So there is this big drive towards bigger families, having families earlier and the like. And so he was talking about maternal care, benefits, extending the hours of kindergartens, support for mortgages for young married couples, all that kind of thing. And also the fact that, well, giving birth, it's not just about the financial inducements, it's also enriching for the soul and such like. We always get a kind of key video guest, in other words, a sort of person who keeps getting brought up. I mean, in the past we've had, for example, veterans of the special military operation, including some people being, you know, beamed in in a televisual rather than Star Trek sense from the Special Military Operation Zone. This time it was mothers. It was mothers with larger families. And we we had several of those coming in and talking about how important they were and the like. So lots of emphasis on get out there and breed.

MG:

But this is where the disconnect really starts to creep in. I mean, he claims, for example, "we will be fully successful in fulfilling our social obligations to the population." But so many of the personal questions, in other words, not coming from the hand-picked journalists, but coming from the members of the public or appearing on screen or whatever, were actually about failures to do that, and indeed past failures. You know, we had, for example, the widow of a veteran who had died and it was over a year later, and she still hadn't got her widow's benefits and such like. We had all kinds of similar stories inevitably coming up. Putin kept getting asked about these bread and butter issues by members of the public.

MG:

And there was also a point where they actually had an interesting innovation this time, well, I say innovation, I didn't remember it from last year, in which they would flash up in a corner of the screen the main themes of the questions from different people from different regions were asking. So not the actual questions, but just obviously they they'd been lumped into various categories. And almost invariably, as a sort of a common theme, a common thread, were the issues they were pensions, healthcare, transport infrastructure, and support for family and children. There was a bit of variation maybe in terms of the order in which these were between different regions, and sometimes there were other specific points being brought up, but those four broad categories appear in pretty much every single regional issue. These are, after all, the questions on which people don't feel the state is delivering.

MG:

And what could Putin answer? Well, obviously, you know, he had given his big economy spiel about how everything's going to be fine and don't worry, there's there's lots of money in the budget and the like. But essentially, what everything, all of his various responses boiled down to either one, we will look into this, or we are looking into this, or this is really an issue for the federal government. As if he is not the federal government, we can go back to Steve Rosenberg's point. You know, all power ultimately is in his hands. The things he doesn't decide are the things that he doesn't want to decide, that he can't be bothered with. And yes, a lot of these issues are things he can't be bothered with unless it's forced to his attention. So this idea of, well, yes, uh, this ministry or that really needs to address this, which he did several times, it's a cop-out. It's essentially throwing your underlings onto the grenade to save yourself. But they also, again, I would say demonstrates some of the weaknesses in Putin's position. In the past, we had quite often cases in which he would actually say off his own bat, Well, this is going to be dealt with. This is what we're going to do. And he would commit government resources, because it's all about government resources, to dealing with a problem. We didn't have that as a theme this time round.

MG:

And the fact that people keep raising these issues is a reminder that they keep hearkening back to an old social contract. One that I think Putin himself has decided to tear up, but isn't going to come clean and tell the Russian people it. The old social contract, after all, was you leave me in power, you let me run things, and in return, no matter what else I'm doing, I will ensure that your quality of life improves. And for a long time Putin delivered, and Russians were essentially happy with this. Now, in different ways, one could argue really since 2012, but certainly since 2022, that social contract has been very, very visibly and evidently broken. And the new kind of social contract is we are a besieged, beleaguered fortress. Things will get better such as his promise about taxes being reduced again. Things will get better, but only after we've won. And that means everyone must accept the burdens and responsibilities of victory. Now that's what he's trying to basically foist on the Russian people, and the Russian people at the moment don't seem especially enthused by that, if they notice in some ways that at all.

MG:

So this is where I think the big disconnect is. Putin wanted to talk big picture geopolitical issues, the grand destiny of the Russian state. The Russians wanted to talk about why is my pension not being paid on time, and why can't we get the medicines we need at the local pharmacies? That is ultimately, I think, going to be something of an Achilles heel. If there are going to be protests, and I don't see it happening imminently, but you know, and someday, if there are going to be protests, it's not going to be driven by politics, in my opinion, it's going to be driven by economic issues, which then get politicized. But at the moment, well, what can Putin say? Oh, it's the federal government's job, or we'll look into it.

MG:

Of course, all that said, I mean there there was a lot of ritual about this event. Um, the journalists trying to catch the attention of Peskov, or indeed Putin, some of them waving these sort of printed cards, they were told they couldn't be bigger than A4, some of them actually with scrappy handwritten ones, a couple of women in traditional Russian Kokoshniks, sort of these big headdresses, again, just to be eye-catching and such like. We had the usual invitations to Putin from everywhere, whether it was a film screening in Yakutia to the hundredth anniversary of the oil town of Ukhta in the Komi Republic. I'm sure he's so looking forward to both of those. Very much a thing for local journalists. I can't help but think that this is one of the kind of things which are being done for the local audience, that really you want to show them that you are bringing to the attention of the monarch, your town and your region and so forth.

MG:

We had the usual little recent innovation, genuflection to new media. In this case, rather than being a mill blogger, it was a tech blogger who had a question about the Max messaging app that really was actually looking for reassurance that other messaging apps would not all be banned. And again, whether we believe him or not, certainly Putin gave a fairly moderate and again free market type response, saying that actually competition is good, and although Max has all sorts of great features, yeah, and many not so great ones, but he didn't mention that. Nonetheless, it was important that other apps like Telegram still be allowed to function.

MG:

But I must admit, there wasn't this same tempo of very, very local petitions that were meant to be precisely the opportunity for the monarch to say that he would fix it. We saw things come coming up on the big video board. You know, this particular region or neighbourhood of Moscow region, the roads need asphalting and such like. But frankly Putin wasn't wasn't interested in getting involved in any of that. It's boring. It's beneath his attention. It costs money. He can't be bothered.

MG:

That said, four and a half hours, nonetheless, they needed to find some ways of spicing it up. I presume that it's the hand of Peskov behind this. There's always some little bits of excitement thrown in, or what's intended to be excitement thrown in just to sort of catch the eye and also maybe hit hit the news stories. We had Kristina Smirnova from Tyumen Time TV channel, for example, asking whether or not the unusual object spied in space, 31/ Atlas, now bearing down towards the Earth, whether it really is actually an alien vessel. Putin tried, God love him, to be whimsical, and let me be honest, I really don't think he knows how to do whimsical. "I'll tell you, but this must remain strictly between us. This is a classified information. It's our secret weapon, but we will only use it as a last resort because we are against placing weapons in space in general." So funny. "But seriously, it's a comet."

MG:

And then we had Kirill Bazhanov from Yekaterinburg Television asking on camera his girlfriend Olena to marry him. "And since all this happened here, Vladimir Vladimirovic, we'll be very happy to see you at the wedding." Yeah, you see, another another thing that he's invited to that I suspect he wouldn't want to be. And then later we heard, courtesy of Tass, that she had said yes. Ah, a little happy ending. But even so, I mean it's worth noting that that Bazhanov has sort of started his interjection with with that request. But he then went on talking about how he couldn't afford kids and an apartment given his age and his salary. I mean this is a guy who's in employment, and how the state could help.

MG:

So even amidst the attempts at something lighter in human interest and a little bit soap opery, there was still, again, an appeal to a social contract that had been broken. And very bizarrely, and this is something I'll be coming on to a little bit more in a moment, Putin, in my opinion, dramatically missed a clear opportunity just to score an easy little bit of human interest win. He actually replied by seemingly, I mean this is the only way I can read it, calling for arranged marriages. He said "In the Caucasus, among the peoples of the Caucasus, there's a very good tradition. They marry off their children at a fairly early age. It's truly the right thing to do. We should follow their example. How do I know? Ramzan Kadyrov has a large family, many children, and they marry at a fairly early age. He told me we have this tradition in the Caucasus as a whole. It's really great."

MG:

Now, if Putin is genuinely bringing up the practices of Chechnya as a great example for the rest of the country to follow, let's just note a couple of things. Russian federal law very clearly states that the minimum age for marriage is eighteen. In Chechnya it's often sixteen with parental consent. Polygamy is banned under federal law, but often practiced in Chechnya. And indeed in Chechnya, child marriages often involve coercion. But if the bride flees Chechnya, well, technically speaking, they are the victim of a crime. They're a victim of statutory rape, but they will frequently then be pursued either by the husband's family or their own family to be dragged back, or indeed Chechen law enforcement. And in some cases, we have had some very encouraging instance where the local police have stood up to the Chechens, even involving sometimes at gunpoint, having to basically stand them down and really put the the runaway bride in what we would think of as witness protection equivalent. But in other cases, and frankly I think it's in most cases, instead they just quietly turn a blind eye as the poor victim is dragged back to Chechnya, whether it's to be locked in that marriage or punished even more severely. Really, Vladimir Vladimirovic, this is what you're advocating?

MG:

I think the answer is clearly not. But again, it's this thing where he just seems to go into a ramble, and I've noticed this more often, about something that in some cases is not really very connected to the subject at hand. And of course, he doesn't really have to think about what other people are going to respond because he knows that no one is actually going to tell him, Are you insane? That said, on hearing that she had said yes to this uh on-camera proposal, he did say he would arrange a whip round for the wedding. But as I say, this was a strangely self-indulgent performance at times.

MG:

Look, in general terms, he seemed to be in good form for a 73-year-old doing a four and a half hour gig with no bathroom break. Respect for that. I mean I had to have a bathroom break during it, though in part I was just simply escaping for a while. But he did seem less focused, a little more prone to odd non sequiturs.

MG:

For example, he was asked in this what was meant to be a quick fire last stage of questions what he would put in a time capsule to be opened in a hundred years. Now look, arguably that's an easy lob, that you could easily just come up with some sort of nice little crowd pleasing answer, especially as this wouldn't have come as a surprise to him. These are all carefully gamed out in advance. Instead what we had is this amazing lengthy, waffly answer about a letter to the future saying... actually no, I do just have to read it to you, so let me go and uh get it. Okay, I have the text now.

MG:

"We who lived in Russia in the endless flow of time in the twentieth and twenty first centuries, gratefully accepted everything accomplished by our predecessors, our ancestors. We lived like everyone else, everywhere and always with our current concerns, but we did not stand still. We moved forward, fought, struggled, and did our best to solve the problems our time presented us with. We thought about the future, we thought about you. And if you now hold our message in your hands, it means that you too feel part of our shared endless flow of time. It means that you too sense and understand the connection between the ages. This is very important. We congratulate you on this. It means that when we worked, fought, and thought about you, our lives were not in vain. And we have achieved much. We wish you good fortune, that you are always happy, and that your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are as proud of you as we are of our fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers. Full stop."

MG:

And yes, he did include the full stop. I mean I'm thinking what are you on? I mean seriously, where on earth does this come from? That is your answer, your carefully considered answer to the simple question of what would you stick in a time capsule? I mean, for God's sake, that's the kind of thing which primary school students get asked. But again, who's gonna tell him no? Who's gonna tell him, oh, shut the hell up? No one, and in some ways that's the problem.

MG:

So overall, yes, this was a generally rather dull event. And Putin seems physically in decent form, and indeed, look, most of the time, you know, he's got the facts and figures, he's able to argue a case. I'm not going to try and suggest that he's already on the cusp of senility or anything like that. But I did feel he was less sharp or just simply more self-indulgent than we've seen in the past, which may or may not be an index of the future. But this is one of the few times we have four and a half hours of unedited, extended opportunities to see him. It's one of the reasons why I do watch this damn tedium fest.

MG:

But in terms of the overall message, clearly, the war still goes on, he's not changing course there, he's not changing course on the economy until he gets the deal he wants. Because he really does believe that if he doesn't get it this time round, then he'll be able to impose this deal or a worse deal in six months, twelve months, or whatever time.

MG:

Well, that hasn't left me feeling particularly inspired. I but I hope it's been of some value to you. A reminder the the podcast should be on next weekend. But in the meantime, whether you celebrate it or not, a very happy Christmas to you.

MG:

Well, that's the end of another episode of the In Moscow Shadow Podcast. Just as a reminder, beyond this, you can follow my blog, also called In Moscow Shadows. Follow me on Twitter at Mark Galeotti or Facebook, Mark Galeotti on Russia. This podcast is made possible by generous and enlightened patrons, and you too can be one. Just go along to my Patreon page, that's patreon.com slash In Moscow Shadows, and decide which tier you want to join, getting access to exclusive materials and other perks. However, whether or not you contribute, thank you very much indeed for listening. Until next time, keep well.