President Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday forged himself as a wartime chief in full management of his invasion and his nation, his confidence on show in a stage-managed, four-hour information convention that underscored the Russian chief’s obvious dedication to outlast Ukraine and the West.
Mr. Putin stated his vaguely outlined targets of the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine — the identical unfounded justifications that he used to launch the invasion practically two years in the past — had not modified. He reiterated that he was open to peace talks, however provided no trace of a willingness to compromise. And he boasted that Ukraine’s Western backing was working dry, an indication of how the deadlock in Washington over extra funding for Kyiv had buoyed the temper within the Kremlin.
“Peace will come when we achieve our goals,” Mr. Putin stated. Referring to Western navy support to Ukraine, he added: “They’re getting everything as freebies. But these freebies can run out at some point, and it looks like they’re already starting to run out.”
For the primary time, Mr. Putin commented on Russia’s arrest final March of Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for The Wall Avenue Journal, who stays in pretrial detention in Moscow on espionage expenses that he, his employer and the U.S. authorities have vehemently denied. Analysts have stated that Mr. Gershkovich’s finest hope of being launched is thru a prisoner change with the US or one other Western nation.
“We want to make a deal, but it should be mutually acceptable to both sides,” Mr. Putin stated on the information convention, referring to Mr. Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a former Marine and company government. Mr. Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence in Russia on espionage expenses that the US has referred to as politically motivated.
The Russian chief’s look got here simply hours after a Moscow courtroom upheld the detention of Mr. Gershkovich with a ruling that can go away the journalist — who has been held for 260 days — in custody till not less than the top of January. The State Division stated final week that Russia had rejected a “substantial offer” that might have freed him and Mr. Whelan
“It’s not that we’re refusing to return them; we didn’t refuse,” the Russian chief stated, including, “There is contact and dialogue with our American partners on this.”
Mr. Putin spoke on Thursday from a place of relative power. Russian forces fended off Ukraine’s counteroffensive this yr and are actually attacking in a number of areas alongside the entrance line. Army manufacturing in Russia is ramping up, and Western sanctions have didn’t cripple the financial system.
On the similar time, Ukraine faces among the steepest challenges of the warfare, deadlocked on the battlefield and urgently in search of to shore up Western assist. Simply this week, President Volodymyr Zelensky got here away from Washington empty-handed as he sought to influence Congress to cross a substantive support bundle.
Ukraine did obtain a glimmer of fine information on Thursday when the European Union agreed to formally open talks for Kyiv to join the bloc. Accession might take years, however any try by Ukraine to maneuver nearer to the West has at all times irritated Mr. Putin, together with a possible trade deal that Russia pressured Kyiv to abandon in 2013.
Mr. Putin spoke at a nationally televised occasion close to the Kremlin that featured two staples of the two-plus a long time of his rule: his year-end information convention, at which tons of of journalists attempt to get the president’s consideration by hollering and holding up indicators; and his annual call-in present, through which hundreds of normal Russians write in, lots of them making an attempt to get him to intervene to resolve native issues.
Final yr, Mr. Putin held neither occasion, an indication that he had little excellent news to report after the disastrous starting of his invasion of Ukraine. This yr, the Kremlin for the primary time mixed the 2 in order that Thursday’s spectacle grew to become a head-spinning telecast that alternated between questions from journalists within the corridor and thoroughly chosen notes and movies despatched in by the general public.
All through the occasion, Mr. Putin sought to seem assured and in command. Subsequent spring’s rubber-stamp presidential election, which is predicted to grant him one other six-year time period, went largely unmentioned, suggesting that the president noticed no want for even perfunctory campaigning. One journalist from the Russian Far East expressed assist for Mr. Putin’s candidacy, telling the Russian chief that “you’re in power as long as I can remember myself.”
Queried about issues, Mr. Putin largely brushed them off, even when it got here to the skyrocketing value of eggs. He responded to a query about it with a deadpan, off-color joke earlier than apologizing for his authorities’s lack of ability to return to grips with the issue. And when a navy correspondent requested concerning the scarcity of drones on the entrance line, Mr. Putin shot again, “You can’t not see that it’s getting better.”
Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Middle, wrote: “Putin isn’t interested in currying favor or buttering people up. He believes that the people are with him, and therefore he allows himself to behave very reservedly.”
The occasion’s stagecraft highlighted the warfare in Ukraine, which the Kremlin nonetheless describes as “the special military operation.” The primary 90 minutes featured a wounded soldier, two navy bloggers and three video questions from Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia. Not like the warfare’s early months, when Russian officers sought to cover its actuality from the general public, the Kremlin now evidently sees it as a successful message.
However Mr. Putin additionally tried to guarantee Russians that the invasion wouldn’t carry new upheaval into their lives. He stated he noticed no want for one more navy draft as a result of, he claimed, some 500,000 folks had signed up for navy service voluntarily.
“Why do we need mobilization?” Mr. Putin stated. “Today, there’s no need for it.”
This system, fastidiously curated to convey a veneer of openness, happened in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor, an unlimited former market corridor one block from Purple Sq.. It was decked out with giant video screens on which questions from throughout Russia and occupied Ukrainian territory have been displayed for 20 or so seconds at a time. Most of them went unanswered.
As time ticked on, folks within the viewers started yelling out the names of their cities — “Omsk!” “Ufa!” — and their information shops within the hope of posing their questions. Within the background, a relentless ticker of movies and questions — paying homage to the blue background with white font of “Jeopardy!” — have been broadcast on 4 screens on the wall.
At one level, Mr. Putin gave the ground to 2 younger males from Luhansk and Donetsk, Ukrainian territories that Russia illegally annexed final yr. Their feedback highlighted the propagandistic nature of the occasion.
“We came without questions; we have nothing to complain about,” stated the questioner from Luhansk. “We came to say thank you to you for making us part of Russia.”
However all through the dialogue, many questions from the occupied territories have been displayed on the massive screens.
“In Mariupol after liberation many of the old elevators in high buildings have been shut off. When will there be new ones? I live on the eighth floor and I’m 80 years old,” one individual wrote in.
Many questions centered on fundamental quality-of-life points, subjects that peculiar Russians have been dealing with each day: inflation, an absence of infrastructure and rising vitality costs in cities the place temperatures attain minus 22 Fahrenheit.
The session represents a possibility for normal Russians to take their hyperlocal points to the president. Mr. Putin signed a invoice in 2004 eliminating direct election of regional governors. Many individuals understand the native and regional authorities as corrupt, however consider within the president.
That was definitely how Mr. Putin behaved, quite than as somebody in search of assist for re-election. He didn’t make many marketing campaign guarantees and was very assured in his responses, blaming folks’s issues on native and regional governments, calling them “technical issues.”
Mr. Putin has held energy in Russia, both as president or prime minister, since 1999. If he wins as anticipated in March and serves the time period to completion, he would develop into the longest- serving Russian chief since Empress Catherine the Nice within the 18th century,
Mr. Putin didn’t handle the huge inequality in Russia, however the questions scrolling behind him have been a reminder that there have been some individuals who anticipated extra.
Within the ticker of questions was this one: “Why is your reality so divergent from our existence?” One other questioner, utilizing Mr. Putin’s patronymic as an indication of respect, wrote: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, please tell us, when are we going to live better?”
Anatoly Kurmanaev contributed reporting from Berlin, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia.
