Paul Goble
Staunton,
June 24 – Many commentators in both Russia and the West have suggested that the
World Cup has helped Russia to overcome much of the opprobrium it has suffered
as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, its meddling in elections in Western
countries and in general its disruptive behavior.
And
it is certainly true that the Kremlin has worked hard to reduce negative
stories in the Russian media and to obscure some of its latest unpopular
decisions like boosting the pension age with upbeat coverage of the World Cup (themoscowtimes.com/articles/russia-accused-of-using-world-cup-to-bury-bad-news-61966).
But
if all this has helped Russia, it hasn’t given Vladimir Putin the boost he hoped
for. Indeed, Sergey Goryashko and Elizaveta Fokh of the BBC’s Russian Service
say that Putin “hasn’t been able to distance himself from pension reform, and the
announcement of unpopular reforms during the World Cup hasn’t worked” (bbc.com/russian/features-44582082).
Instead,
they continue, Russian pollsters have found “the largest fall in the rating of
the president and the government since 2014,” when both got a boost within Russia
as a result of the Crimea is Ours euphoria.
They explain this development by negative popular reaction not only to
the proposed pension reform but also increases in the price of gas and in
taxes.
The choice of
timing for the announcement of the pension reform was a mistake, many Russian
analysts say. The Kremlin’s calculation that people would ignore it because of
the World Cup was transparent. And the Kremlin made it worse by trying to
suggest Putin had nothing to do with this decision, something that everyone
recognized was absurd on its face.
But most Russian analysts say, the
two BBC journalists continue, that the rating of Putin and the Russian
government will recover, especially if the two provide better justifications
for what they are doing and if they show a willingness to compromise and take
the feelings of the population into account.
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