As if trying to compensate for his recent “disappearance” in early March, President Vladimir Putin participated in a series of high-intensity meetings and public events last week. His domestic audiences included students and “heroes of labor”; instructions were issued to government ministers, members of the Security Council and even to the Russian Geographic Society. Indeed, the presidential activities completely dominated news coverage in the official TV channels. The main message of all these accentuated efforts at executing leadership was a plain demonstration of Putin’s undiminished capacity for his trademark “manual management” of micro-problems important to “ordinary Russians” (Ezhednevny Zhurnal, May …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation