Russia 2018: Kremlin Countdown

Candidates React To Airline Tragedy

The candidates are responding to the crash of a Saratov Airlines passenger jet outside Moscow that killed all 71 passengers and crew on board on February 11.

President Putin postponed a trip to Sochi that was scheduled for February 12, and his spokesman said Putin “offers his profound condolences to those who lost their relatives in the crash."

Veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky placed a candle at the airport in Saratov, where the crew on the Saratov Airlines flight started their trip, and expressed “loving memory to all who died” in the crash.

Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin also expressed condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the victims of the “terrible accident” in brief remarks at the beginning of a Feburary 12 press conference.

The self-described “against-all” candidate, Ksenia Sobchak, wrote on her Instagram account that “we all mourn together with the relatives and friends of those who died,” adding that the crash was a “terrible tragedy.

Nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky, meanwhile, reportedly called for the creation of a civilian aviation ministry, saying “only in this way can this crucial industry for Russia be cleaned up.”

Academic Talks About Anti-Putin Vest, Draws 'Nazi Germany' Comparison

Our Russian Service interviewed the chemist who was detained and fined 500 rubles (under $9) after he greeted a Putin visit to Novosibirsk with a brightly colored vest with the messages "Putin Is Russia's Misfortune" and "Putin - Bad President" on it.

"I can no longer be silent and listen to all these lies from the television," Igor Prosanov tells RFE/RL's Russian Service. "I wanted to declare my dissent, and not only my own. I am standing in the name of many people. Many people support me in my disagreement with the policies of our president."

He adds: "First of all, I think that under [Putin's] leadership, our country is cultivating aggression. Practically the same thing is happening here that happened in Nazi Germany. I am afraid that this will end very badly for the country. Of course, there are also other problems, such as the robbery of the people, wages below the poverty level."

It's an extensive interview with the 52-year-old professor at Novosibirsk University.

Prosanov also says he was also detained in late January when he turned up to support Aleksei Navalny's "voter strike."

"I have been at many protests. I was detained at Navalny's demonstration [in favor of an election boycott on January 28]. I have two administrative charges against me for that. The first one was already heard and I was fined 10,000 rubles. Now I am awaiting the second hearing."

Opposition Snowdrifts

Moscow is still digging out after a major snowstorm earlier this month that dumped an estimated 72 million cubic meters of snow on the capital.

Although the authorities have been working around the clock to clean up the mess, some Muscovites think they need additional motivation. At least one decorated the drifts and ice-covered sidewalks in their neighborhood with the name of opposition politician and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny.

"We think they'll take the snow away any minute now," a local posted on Twitter.

Kremlin Pushing Referendums -- But Not Everywhere

Turnout is all the talk in March 18 Russian presidential ballot: The Kremlin is seen as trying to boost turnout to show President Putin’s guaranteed reelection has broad legitimacy, while opposition leader Aleksei Navalny is seeking to depress turnout with calls for a boycott.

In numerous regions, authorities are arranging various referendums coinciding with the election in what’s seen as a bid to drive more people to the polls.

This is not so easy, however, in two Moscow districts where opposition candidates surprisingly captured almost all the local council seats last year.

The municipal deputies’ efforts to organize referendums in those districts have been shot down by local courts after prosecutors challenged the moves, Kommersant reported on February 12.

Kommersant cites respected political analyst Aleksandr Kynev as saying that authorities aren’t interested in referendums in “protest” districts of the Russian capital that could lead to “undesirable results in the presidential election.”

Weird Polling

Sociologists in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk have been conducting a survey that has locals scratching their heads, the website Znak.com reported on February 12

A local research firm called Monitor has been asking residents questions like: "Are you aware that the West might influence the results of the [presidential] election if the voter turnout is low?" and "The active participation of Russians in the upcoming presidential election would be a blow to the authority of the United States. Do you agree?"

According to Monitor Director Aleksei Shirinkin, the project is a national survey. "By the reaction we got, we have seen that these questions really are topical and people are worried about this," he was quoted as saying.

Earlier, another part of the same project also raised eyebrows in Chelyabinsk. Locals reported receiving robocalls from a number in Moscow asking them if they would like to take a survey about the election. The questions then reportedly tried to create a connection between the turnout in the Russian ballot and the Western sanctions against Russia.

Apparently Monitor's findings are already available and have been helpfully summarized on a leaflet that some Chelyabinsk residents have reported receiving.

According to the leaflet, which is titled without subtlety "Honest Survey," 42.8 percent of Chelyabinsk residents "know that America is threatening to introduce new sanctions before the Russian presidential election," while 77.2 percent know that the West can influence the election if turnout is low and 74.6 percent agree that active participation in the election would be a blow to U.S. authority.

Pro-Kremlin Pollster Claims Low Support For Boycott

The Kremlin-friendly Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) polling agency has released a poll claiming that only 4 percent of Russians plan to boycott the March 18 presidential election.

Opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who has been barred from running for president because of a felony embezzlement conviction that he says was politically motivated. Analysts believe the Kremlin is worried that low turnout would further taint an already heavily stage-managed election that is all but certain to award President Putin with a fourth term in the Kremlin.

According to the FOM findings, 61 percent of Russians said neither they nor any of their friends plan to boycott the election. Twenty-four percent said someone they know is planning to boycott. More than half, said they view the idea of a boycott "negatively" and only 5 percent said they see it "positively."

The FOM survey said 55 percent of respondents plan to vote, while another 14 percent said they most likely will vote, and 10 percent will probably vote.

The most respected independent polling agency in Russia, Levada Center, has said it will not do any election polling after it was forced to register as a "foreign agent" under a Russian law that critics say was intended to solidify the Kremlin's control over civil society.

Sign Of The Times? Putin Billboards 'Under Guard' By Off-Duty Police

A police sergeant in western Siberia says he and fellow officers have been ordered to use their own vehicles to guard President Vladimir Putin's billboards in an unprecedented operation to ward off "the protest-oriented population."

Adding to photos and eyewitness evidence from around Russia of such round-the-clock police surveillance, the officer says none of the other seven candidates' billboards is getting such treatment ahead of the March 18 election, which is expected to award Putin a fourth term in the Kremlin.

Last week, two campaign banners featuring enormous portraits of Putin in the Siberian city of Tomsk were defaced by vandals with paintball guns. One of the Putin images was left with a smear of blood-red paint dripping down from between his eyes.

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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.

'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.

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."