A Study in Isolation: Putin Went Outside of Russia 22 Times in 2019 but Only Nine Times in 2022, ‘Vyorstka’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 1 – Almost everyone now is given to observing that Vladimir Putin retreated to his bunker because of the covid pandemic and has remained there because of his expanded war in Ukraine, but such conclusions are seldom based on an exact count of his travel and speeches.

            Now, the new Vyorstka outlet has come up with the numbers that provide confirmation of that view and underscore how isolated Putin has become not only with the outside world but even with the residents of the country he currently rules (verstka.media/putin-stal-menshe-ezdit-2022/).

            In 2022, the news portal says, Putin travelled out of Moscow only 24 times, down from 62 in 2019. Of these, only nine were to places beyond the borders of the Russian Federation, while three years ago, 22 were and “almost half of these were to countries of Europe,” countries to which he no longer goes or whose leaders no longer come to Moscow.

            And of the nine foreign visits this year, the news portal says, only two – to China for the Olympics and to Iran – were to countries beyond the borders of the former Soviet space. The others were primarily to Central Asian countries and most recently to Belarus.

            The last European leader to visit Putin in Moscow was the German chancellor who came ten days before Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine. Since then, there haven’t been any exchanges of visits between Putin and the leaders of the West, although he has spoken by telephone with the French president 19 times and the German chancellor 12.

            Putin has also isolated himself within Russia. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of trips he has made to locations within the Russian Federation outside of Moscow fell from 40 to 15 and the number of public speeches inside Russia fell from 55 to 21, all trends which show little sign of ending in 2023.