'Real Man' Running
On The Interpreter, the website of Australia's Lowy Institute Think Tank, American Foreign Policy Council senior fellow Stephen Blank slams the election as a "sham and a travesty." He argues that since Putin is unable to transform Russia's economy without hurting his own position, the Kremlin leader plays "the role of exponent and embodiment of traditional masculine and Russian values."
Says Blank:
Such farcical stunts as having a 65-year-old Putin play ice hockey and do well against professionals, or be seen taking a public plunge into freezing waters as he carries out an Orthodox rite of Epiphany, are public relations gambits designed to reassure the older, less urban, less educated, and certainly less sophisticated sections of the electorate that their ruler not only remains a vigorous “real man” but also a representative of classic Russian and Christian values.
Channel One plans to air The Putin Interviews between February 12 and 15, by the way.
- By Mike Eckel
Russian Polling Station Posters
Election officials have unveiled the official posters that will be displayed at Russian voting sites around the country next month, showing photographs and short biographies of all eight candidates.
Yabloko Alleges Airing Of Oliver Stone's Putin Interview Is Unfair
Channel One is planning to show the Oliver Stone interview with Putin this week.
Yabloko says it has appealed to the Election Commission asking it to prevent the showing of the film.
- By Mike Eckel
Putin Is Running As Independent. What Does That Mean For The United Russia Party?
Unlike in the last presidential election, in 2012, Putin is running without any party affiliation.
That’s left many political observers wondering what it might mean for the ruling party, United Russia, whose lawmakers dominate the national parliament as well as many regional legislatures.
In A New Role For United Russia, the Carnegie Moscow Center's Andrei Pertsev says that despite Putin’s distancing himself from it, the party is still trying to ride his coattails.
He talks about the "intriguing role" in this election of Andrei Turkchak, the son of an old Putin acquaintance and the "head of United Russia, who in just a few months has revamped the ruling party."
Pertsev argues:
There is little the presidential administration can do to bring United Russia back under its full control as the key figures in the party are now either neutral or have been brought in by Turchak.
Turchak has waded into the "race...to become the informal headquarters that will contribute most to Putin’s victory and high voter turnout," Pertsev says.
He concludes:
Turchak’s stance is an indication of how there are now different autonomous forces in Russian domestic politics, whose leaders have their own personal access to the main stakeholder, Vladimir Putin. Each structure has its own bargaining power and can form coalitions with others under the umbrella of a “Domestic Policy Corporation.” In this new corporate setup, the influence of each subsidiary will depend on Putin’s assessment of its contribution to his campaign. Meanwhile, the subsidiaries will continue to break away from the grip of a once-unified domestic policy holding and try to take over their counterparts.
Yavlinsky calls on Putin to comment on dead Russians in Syria
Yabloko presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky has issued a statement calling on election rival and incumbent President Vladimir Putin to report publicly about "the actions of Russian troops in Syria at present and the number of deaths of Russian citizens regardless of their military status."
"I also think it is essential to account publicly on interactions with the United States, since the danger of an accidental or intentional direct military engagement between Russia and the United States is growing," the statement said.
He called on Putin to explain why Russian "in general are participating in ground operations in Syria despite statements by the president and defense minister about the withdrawal of Russian forces from that country and the end of Syria's civil war."
Earlier, Russian and international media reported that an unspecified number of Russian mercenaries fighting in Syria had been killed during an attack by U.S.-led coalition forces overnight on February 7. Unconfirmed reports suggested "dozens" of Russians had been killed.
We reported about the so-called Vagner paramilitary formation that has fought in Ukraine and Syria in December 2016.
- By Carl Schreck
Russian Election 'Circus'
Russian investigative journalist Ilya Barabanov, formerly of the opposition-minded magazine The New Times, needles authorities after spotting a poster for the March 18 presidential election next to an advertisement for a circus: "It looks like everyone in the regions understands everything about the March spectacle."
'Putinomics'
In Putin Isn’t a Genius. He’s Leonid Brezhnev, Chris Miller argues in Foreign Policy that Vladimir Putin has "deployed a three-pronged economic strategy that has allowed him to retain power":
First, maintain macroeconomic stability at all costs, pursuing low budget deficits, low debt levels, and low inflation even at the expense of growth. Second, use the social safety net to buy support from politically powerful groups — above all, pensioners — rather than to invest in the future. Third, tolerate private business only in "nonstrategic" sectors, leaving the state in control of spheres, such as energy or media, where business and politics intersect.
But Putin's strategy also makes "a return to rapid growth...unlikely," Miller argues.
Russia today is lagging steadily behind economically advanced countries — and Russia’s president is doing nothing about it. Putin recently overtook Leonid Brezhnev as Russia’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin. His economic record, coupling stability with stagnation, looks increasingly like Brezhnev’s too.
- By Carl Schreck
Grudinin Says He's Not 'A Kremlin Project'
The respected Latvia-based Russian news site Meduza on February 12 published a lengthy interview with Communist Party presidential candidate and strawberry tycoon Pavel Grudinin.
A few takeaways:
-- Grudinin claims that he was surprised himself that he became the candidate for the Communists, whose veteran leader, Gennady Zyuganov, had run on the party's ticket in every presidential ballot but one since 1996.
-- On why he's running if he thinks that federal election officials manipulate results: "Let's say there is a young woman, and she lies to you. But you're thinking all of the time that the next young woman will be honest." (In this metaphor, he says the young woman represents the elections, not election officials.)
-- Grudinin says Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's legacy in Russia is complicated and likens it to Mao's in China, adding: "No one can dispute that Stalin was a monumental person, and thanks to his iron will the country won the war."
-- On business success in contemporary Russia: "It's 40 percent PR, 40 percent state support, and only 20 percent success on the market."
-- On billionaire businessman Mikhail Prokhorov's 2012 presidential campaign, widely seen as a a Kremlin-approved bid aimed at giving a non-threatening liberal alternative for voters (something Prokhorov denies): "That was undoubtedly a Kremlin project. Don't confuse me with a person who was absolutely a Kremlin project. I am completely different....I even find it a little insulting that we're compared."
For a deeper dive on Grudinin, see this big February 11 piece in Novaya Gazeta.