A relaxed and confident Vladimir Putin reassured his people that Russia would survive the economic crisis as he fielded questions from the public in a live television talkshow on Thursday.
Russia's ruble, which tracked world oil prices downwards to lose nearly half its value in 2014, has rebounded to emerge as the best performing currency in the world's emerging markets this year. Russia's central bank has reduced interest rates from their post-sanctions peak and investors have been returning to the Moscow stock market.
Rattling off economic statistics with aplomb, Mr Putin did not make light of the problems facing Russia, but said that the country would pull out of the crisis within two years, and possibly even faster.
Facing down a call from Alexei Kudrin, a former Russian finance minister, for tougher budget cuts, Mr Putin struck a paternalistic note, saying that the Kremlin had to balance anti-crisis measures with the need to protect ordinary people from economic shocks.
“To carry out a competent economic policy, you have to use your head, of course, but if we want the people to trust us, we also have to have a heart. And we have to feel how the ordinary person lives,” he said.
Call-ins
The annual “direct-line” call-ins have been held almost every year since Mr Putin first became Russian president in 2000, providing citizens with a rare opportunity to engage with their leader. Russian state television broadcasts news of Mr Putin’s official activities almost every day, but he remains an isolated figure.
Wearing a dark suit and a black and white check tie, Mr Putin fielded questions beamed in by video from Russia’s far-flung regions and from the audience in the television studio. Many of the president’s interlocutors were concerned about domestic matters, such as pensions, healthcare, the price of milk and drastic cutbacks to Russia’s suburban train service. Some even appealed for help with personal issues, such as the woman whose friend’s husband refused to allow her to buy his wife a dog, or the four-year-old boy who wondered if he might ever have a chance to be Russian president.
The call-in lasted for three hours and 57 minutes, one hour less than the record set in 2013, but a marathon none the less.
Russia’s central bank forecasts that the economy, which was flagging even before oil prices dropped and the West imposed sanctions last year , will contract by up to 4 per cent in 2015. But positive economic news in recent weeks has boosted the Kremlin’s confidence that the crisis might not be as painful or prolonged as feared.
International issues
On international issues, Mr Putin avoided an aggressively confrontational tone, but accused the West of seeking to “contain” Russia and hold back the country’s development.
Even though Russia was standing by its commitments from the Minsk peace process in Ukraine, the US and the European Union were unlikely to lift economic sanctions, he said.
Western leaders have accused Russia of stoking the conflict in eastern Ukraine and of providing military help to pro-Moscow rebels.
Mr Putin repeated what he has said since the conflict erupted a year ago, that Russia has not sent soldiers to Donbass and Luhansk and was eager to establish co-operative relations with Ukraine. “We do not have a goal to restore our empire. We do not have imperial ambitions,” he said.