Christopher Read explains why, despite Vladimir Putin’s brutal tactics and corrupt regime, the Russian president maintains favorable numbers:
Putin gained immense popularity in 2009 by publicly taking to task one of the richest Russian-based oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska, for shortcomings in his aluminium-smelting factory in Leningrad province. Putin’s style has certainly been authoritarian, but to see oligarchs as human rights victims is to stretch the definition.
Other elements of his popularity have been a more assertive international stance in which Russia shows independence in the face of American and western opposition — currently manifesting in the crisis in Syria, one of Russia’s oldest allies — and a relatively successful economic policy which saw a period of growth, falling unemployment and rise in real wages, sometimes achieved by increasing state intervention in the economy, including the re-nationalization of factories and industries.
Obviously, none of this was popular in the West, since they curtailed Western influence over the country, limited business opportunities and, supposedly, revived Soviet-era ghosts. The response of the Russian population, apart from its oligarchs and intellectuals, has been much more favorable and, even though they are slipping, Putin’s poll ratings remain very high.
The Dish 