The Daily - A Journey Through Putin’s Russia

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Russians go to the polls today in the first presidential election since their country invaded Ukraine two years ago.The war was expected to carry a steep cost for President Vladimir V. Putin. Valerie Hopkins, who covers Russia for The Times, explains why the opposite has happened.Guest: Valerie Hopkins, an international correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Mr. Putin, in pre-election messaging, was less strident on nuclear war.What to know about Russia’s 2024 presidential vote.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. Russians go to the polls today in the first presidential election since their country invaded Ukraine two years ago. The war was expected to carry a steep cost for Vladimir Putin. The war was expected to carry a steep cost for Vladimir Putin. But as my colleague Valerie Hopkins explains, the opposite has happened. Today, Valerie travels around Russia to understand how Putin has done it and how long that can last. It's Friday, March 15th. So, Valerie, the presidential elections in Russia are starting today.

And it's the first one since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine two years ago. And back then, you know, there was this idea that the war could potentially become ruinous for Vladimir Putin, both politically and economically. And here we are with Putin running for reelection two years later. So we come to you as our on-the-ground Russia expert to talk about where we are in the arc of President Putin's power. Well, Sabrina, these elections are set to run Friday to Sunday. 29 regions are voting online, and some of them have already started. And it's a big event for Putin, but you and I both know very well that elections aren't necessarily the best measure of the people's choice in Russia. Putin is running once again without any real genuine competition. Some of my friends in Moscow actually just refer to it as

the voting. The voting. Because it's not really an election. People are going to vote, but it's not truly a choice. Exactly. So Putin is expected to just glide to another six-year term, his fifth, and that puts him on a path to becoming the longest-serving leader in Russia since the Russian Revolution, more than 100 years ago. Incredible. And what's so remarkable is that this isn't just a story about an autocrat extending his reign. This is a leader with pretty sky-high polling numbers right now and seemingly broad support. So tell me about that. What is that support? I mean, Sabrina, you and I both know that opinion polls are to be taken with a grain of salt in Russia, especially in a time when repression has become very intense and is only getting

stronger by the month. But, you know, polls conducted by independent pollsters like the Levada Center, which use focus groups and really big sample sizes, show that Putin's approval rating is at 86 percent. Wow. The highest in nearly a decade. 86%. Yeah. And even the more general question, is Russia going in the right direction? That answer has really shocked me. It's 75%. Right now, it's the highest it's ever been since a pollster started asking the question in 1996. That is incredible. I mean, the highest number since the beginning of polling, basically.

Yes. Incredible. I mean, the highest number since the beginning of polling, basically. Yes. And, you know, for me, that's really so incongruous because remember, you and I were on the ground in Ukraine when the war started and Russia began being deluged with Western sanctions. You know, one company after another announced they were pulling out. it became clear that this war was going to last much longer and be far more deadly than anyone originally expected, I think, including Mr. Putin himself. And it seemed like Russia's future was a massive question mark. So looking at the polls now, it's kind of remarkable to see that Putin has managed to get past all of that. And so I really wanted to get out into the country and talk to some of the people behind these numbers to understand what it is that has kept their support for Vladimir Putin so high and how he's been able to defy the expectations that so many people had at the beginning of this

war. So where did you start? So a few months ago, I decided to go to the ninth largest city in Russia, Samara. It's a city on the Volga River. And I was interested in Samara because it's a pretty big industrial city. And I really wanted to see how ordinary people living there were feeling about the war and were experiencing all these changes to Russia's economic life. about the war and we're experiencing all these changes to Russia's economic life. I mean, again, this was one of the big questions hanging over the war. Would it crater the Russian economy? And it occurred to me that a really good place to get a feel for that is at the mall.

So I went to one downtown with a couple of my colleagues, and I was really interested to go and see what ordinary life is like for people who are doing some shopping or catching a film. Valerie, you are our Russian mall expert. Also our Russia expert, but our Russian mall expert. Continue. What did you see in this one? This mall was really interesting. You know, I saw a lot of activity.

interesting. You know, I saw a lot of activity. One thing I have to say I appreciate is that there's a group of young teenage boys who are playing with large size chess pieces, very Russian. There's no empty storefronts. They've all been replaced by new brands from different countries in the world, some of them Russian, some of them from the Middle East, the Gulf, etc. And let me tell you, Sabrina, that's really different from what I saw in malls, even in central Moscow at the end of 2022. Many Russian, especially young, hip, urban Russians, were devastated by the departures of Zara, H&M, McDonald's, Coca-Cola. And these were departures of Western companies because of the sanctions.

Absolutely. And you would go to malls and it would just feel like a dead zone. Stores shuttered, dark hallways. You could see what was no longer available to you as a Russian consumer. And now all that has changed. But I don't know, there's also a lot of new stores like BeFree and GJ. Like, I don't know what that is. Oh, but that's a Russian brand, right? Of course, Zara and H&M have been replaced by stores that we in the States have never heard of, but you could still get a lot of the same goods.

It seemed like your average mall, teenagers walking around, drinking soda. Здравствуйте. А у вас есть этот добрый кола, но без калорий, да? One of the big questions I get from friends back home is, did you try the fake Coca-Cola? Dobry Cola, the new brand that has essentially taken over all of Coca-Cola's business inside of Russia.

So I've just bought a Dobry Cola. And for the uninitiated, Dobry Cola means? Good Cola. Right. Cool Cola. I mean, yeahbra cola means? Good cola. Right. Cool cola. I mean, yeah, I've seen various translations. Good cola, cool cola. Let's see if there's any difference whatsoever.

I don't think so. So what does good cola taste like? Pretty much like the real thing. Maybe like a normal knockoff Coke. Do you think there's any difference? A little bit. Really? I don't know if Coca-Cola like took their secret sauce when they left or not. But I don't mean to paint a picture of a mall full of only knockoffs, you know. I think frankly I was astonished by the amount of Western goods still available. There was still Chanel. All of the luxury

cosmetics and perfume are widely available in Russia. So really what you're seeing is a mall that has actually returned to some semblance of economic normal. Yeah. In the past two years, Russia has been able to really successfully reorient its economy. Consumers clearly still have the money to buy expensive Western products. So they're often paying a huge premium, importing them from China, from Kazakhstan, from Georgia, Armenia, and the neighboring countries through middlemen. Oh, let's talk to the Apple people. They're selling all the Apple products. Let's find out, like, how do we get them? Are they more expensive? This became really clear to me once I set foot into a shop selling Apple products.

So tell me about that shop. So it looked like an ordinary Apple store. They had all the MacBooks and MacBook Pros and accessories, iPhones. And in fact, when I first went in just to inquire about the price, the salesman that I talked to was really proud to say that it wasn't that much more expensive than the West and that actually they had gotten the latest iPhone model in stock three days only after it debuted in America. Interesting. So what did the guy say?

He kind of shrugged his shoulders about the economy, about the sanctions. He said, you know, we have no problems getting any of this stuff in. People are still able to buy it. And he told me that he actually felt very confident that Russia would be able to survive and maybe even thrive economically. He compared Russia to Iran, which has been under sanctions for decades. Not that it's the most economically successful country in the world.

His point was that other countries have figured out how to survive economic sanctions. And Russia is as well positioned as anyone to do that. I mean, he mentioned how resource-rich Russia is. It's one of the world's biggest oil producers. And that has already helped it to generate money to keep the economy afloat. So this is one of the keys to Putin's success, right? Keep the people happy with iPhones.

Have the stuff still come in. Make sure that they're not cut off from the world in terms of the stuff that they want. Exactly. Standing in this fake Apple store in the Samara Mall, the war felt really distant to this guy. You know, he's injured, so he couldn't be mobilized, although he does feel bad for some of his friends who are fighting. But he said the war is not really this immediate presence in his life and that his life really hasn't changed at all. And when I thought about it more, it wasn't all that surprising to me. I mean, here we were in a relatively big city,

and I knew that Russia had been drafting far more soldiers from rural areas around the country than they are from cities. I started to think I needed to go further afield to the more rural communities that are actually bearing the brunt of this war. So my team and I hopped in a car and we drove for hours along a potholed road all the way to a little village called Oatmeal. We'll be right back. So, Valerie, tell me about the town of Oatmeal. And is it actually called Oatmeal? Well, yes. I mean, in Russian, it's ovsyanka. It was a collective farm back in the days of the Soviet Union. In some of the open fields,

you can just see like the remains of collapsed infrastructure. But the village of Ovsyanka itself provides almost no jobs. Mostly people are working in subsistence agriculture or, you know, hunting for scrap metal, doing odd jobs here and there. I mean, the place is really impoverished. Every year, it seems like there's another suicide, which in a really small place takes its toll. It feels like a place with a lot of despair. So really kind of a classic post-Soviet, you know, economically depressed landscape, a place that had been this large functioning farm, this collective farm with the whole village employed in working it. And after the Soviet collapse, that just died. Right. I mean, this is a place that really hasn't seen any of the fruits of Putin's economic success story.

And these small, depressed villages are the kind of places that have sent a lot of people to this war. So I arrived in Oatmeal and went straight to the house of the Kadyrov family, who had lost their son in the war. And I was really interested in how the family would make sense of their loss and of the war, and what they thought of Russia in that moment, and what they thought of Putin, who launched this war. And as we arrived, the family were waiting for his body to be brought by the local military officials. And as we sat cross-legged on the floor of their main room, as mourners kind of trickled in and out to pay their respects,

they told me about him. His name was Garipul S. Kadyrov. He was an ethnic Kazakh, like most of his relatives. But to his friends and family, he was known by his Russian nickname, Vitya. Where was he? What did he do? Well, he worked in the agricultural sector. He was a soft-spoken farmer. And shortly after Vladimir Putin announced a general mobilization, officials from the

military commissariat came to his house and told him he was going with them. And so, you know, his family said that though he didn't expect to be drafted, as soon as he was called up, he said it was his duty. And he went that very day to start his military training. And he went that very day to start his military training. But after just a few months into his tour of duty, he was killed in a part of Ukraine that had been a meat grinder for Russian soldiers.

Shortly after we arrived, a military convoy came carrying his body. His mother sobbed most of the day, and one of his sisters was wailing so much that she needed to take sedatives. And just witnessing the pain, it was immense. And then the whole village assembled for a formal ceremony for him with military honors. The head of the district government even came to speak he gave a patriotic speech about him dying for the sake of freedom

he said it is precisely thanks to guys like him that there are peaceful skies over our country. And by participating in the special military operation, which is what Russia calls the war, they are protecting our freedom, our lives, and the health of our children. So what did the family make of all of this? So what did the family make of all of this? Well, despite the fact that they had lost their son, their brother, in the war, despite the poverty and pain of this small village community, you hear them embracing certain elements of Putin's messaging around the war.

You know, many relatives repeated a lot of the shorthand that Putin has been using from the beginning. Saying that this was for the good of the motherland, you know. And that this has long been Russian territory. That most of Ukraine has always historically been a part of Russia. That Ukrainians and Russians are actually one ethnic group. One thing that really stuck out to me the most was the fervent belief that this is a war against the West. There was a strong conviction that the West had turned Ukraine against Russia,

and this was not a war of choice for Putin. This was not a war of choice for Putin. And so, you know, I don't think this was purely that they were taking Putin's propaganda wholesale, you know, but you could see a need to make sense of their loss and to understand the tragedy that befell their family. But there is another element in this too, you know, which is something the family didn't really speak about.

And that's the fact that, you know, men who often are not able to really provide very much for their families while they're alive know that if they do die, their family can get, you know, somewhere up to $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 in compensation payments after their death. Wow. So extremely meaningful for a family like Vitya's. Absolutely. You know, this is a place where presumably people are, you know,

living on maybe the equivalent of a hundred, a couple hundred dollars a month. So these salaries are an incredible boon. And in fact, you know, Putin in his most recent State of the Union speech last month actually talked about wanting to elevate the role of soldiers and veterans in society and give them more leadership roles and more opportunities. And, you know, this is widely perceived as an attempt by Putin to kind of re-engineer a new middle class comprised of people involved in the war effort. Wow. God. I mean, it's very dark, But it's also quite cunning of Putin, right? That there is an economic element to this war for the people who are dying. And that is something that can blunt any potential political opposition to it. So the people doing the dying are not going to be the people asking the questions, in part because this money is coming in, and he knows that. Yes. And I mean, Sabrina, I've spoken to other family members who have lost their sons and husbands in this war, and they all say that no amount of money can bring

back their son. But it does have an effect of making these families far less vocal and far less prone to uniting in some kind of a protest movement that could challenge Putin. But, you know, Sabrina, with all that being said, the longer I spent time in the Kadyrov house, the more I realized that there were so many layers to this family's grief. And that there were people present at the funeral who really aren't on the same page about this war. So tell me about those people. So tell me about those people. Vita was to spend one final night at home before being buried in a nearby cemetery. And as members of his family gathered around his coffin, they got into a debate, actually, about why he died.

You know, they're gathered around his casket. Nobody knows what was inside. The members of the family knew that the body had actually been decomposing for some time in the trench before the Russians were able to get it out. So, you know, many people were heartbroken that they couldn't wash the body, they couldn't see the body. And I think that drove one of the family members especially to start speaking out against the war. He called the war in Ukraine nonsense. And then he said, what, defending the motherland? From whom? He said that he thought the people who believed that this war was necessary had been in some kind of a stupor.

He was one of the few people in the family who was willing to say, actually, we attacked Ukraine, not the other way around, you know? Amazing. A vast and huge country. I mean, the biggest one territorially in the world. Like, why do we need new territories? And this idea of a greater, unified Russia encompassing Ukrainian land wasn't really landing for him. I mean, these are very brave questions, right? I mean, these are very brave questions, right? You know, saying this also to you sitting there, an American reporter, like this is the thing Putin has really been focused on. The people not say things like the Russian government is really policing all kind of dissenting voices on this war. And the extent of repression in Russia now is so strong that even whispering about them can get you in huge trouble, can land you in jail, can land you with a fine. You know, with my colleague Anton Tranovsky and other members of our bureau, we've been reporting on the way that, you know, people have been fined for anti-war scribbles on a bathroom wall or a simple, you know, request to a DJ to play a song by a Ukrainian musician, not to mention

people who take the risk of standing in the street with an anti-war slogan. Right. Boosting the economy and paying off soldiers is one thing, but repression is really the foundation of what Putin has been up to here. Absolutely. I mean, that's what holds this whole system together, right? You know, there are a lot of people in Russia who share anti-war views and who are fed up with more than two decades of Putin in power, but they have very little recourse to do anything to change the situation at this point. We've been reminded of that in the past few weeks in the aftermath of the death of Alexei Navalny, the biggest and most important opposition politician and dissident in post-Soviet Russia. You know, his supporters have shown up to memorials,

to his funeral, but everywhere you turn, you're reminded of the repression that still keeps all of them in check. I went to some of the memorials and watched as riot police stood on checking people's IDs and encouraging people not to linger. While I was there, I talked to a 17-year-old student who said he had been too scared to put down flowers because of possible consequences. And, you know, he's right to worry. I mean, hundreds of people have been arrested across Russia for the simple act of laying down flowers or publicly mourning Mr. Navalny. Wow. So even in this moment where the opposition may have been galvanized to some degree in the lead up to Election Day, we're still reminded of the hold that Putin has on Russia.

a tight grip on things. Repression is still central to how he's doing that. But he's also worked extremely hard to keep people happy, right, in malls with their iPhones, keeping the economy going, and also paying out those bonuses to soldiers' families in these very poor areas. And at this moment, heading into his re-election, that's all basically working. moment heading into his reelection, that's all basically working. That's true, Sabrina. But these are a lot of plates he's spinning, you know, trying to keep the economy afloat while paying huge salaries to military personnel and, you know, revamping the entire military industry. The Kremlin has dipped into reserves to make these financial payments. The economy has changed so much

and no one knows how it will be affected in the long run. The oil price could change. And on top of that, the kernel of dissent remains despite this inertia of repression. Interesting. So, you know, he's of of course, very much in control, but it's tenuous, right? I mean, for it to work,

Putin really needs to keep his eyes on all of these areas at once. Absolutely, Sabrina. I mean, it's a precarious balance. And, you know, traveling across this vast country, I've seen the tremendous power and reach of Putin. Even if these elections are not legitimate, he's still on the cusp of becoming one of the longest serving leaders in Russia's history. And that is a testament to his tremendous staying power. But you also do see the cracks and the tension here.

And so the question is whether these cracks begin to widen or whether Putin will prevail, as he has, over yet another tumultuous period in Russia's history. Valerie, thank you. Thank you, Sabrina. Alexei Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has called on Russians who oppose Putin to show up at the polls at noon on Sunday as a sign of collective protest. Earlier this week, Navalny's top aide, Leonid Volkov, who was helping lead that call to action, was beaten and sprayed with tear gas near his home in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Just hours before the attack, Volkov had given an interview in which he expressed concern for the safety of Navalny's supporters, saying, quote, the key risk is that we will all be killed. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. A jury in Michigan found James Crumbly guilty of involuntary manslaughter, holding him partially responsible for failing to prevent his son from carrying out the state's deadliest school shooting in 2021. from carrying out the state's deadliest school shooting in 2021.

Crumbly's wife was convicted of similar charges in a separate trial last month. The couple's parenting skills had come under intense scrutiny, as had their son's access to a handgun that his father had bought. Now, two separate juries have taken the unusual step of holding parents criminally responsible for their child's crimes. And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a speech on the Senate floor, calling him a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East and calling for new leadership in Israel. As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me

the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th. Schumer's speech was the sharpest critique yet from a senior American elected official. He was effectively urging Israelis to replace Netanyahu, who is under indictment in Israel for bribery and fraud. I believe in his heart he has his highest priority is the security of Israel. However, I also believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way. Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, said that he believed that Netanyahu had chosen himself

and his ambition as a politician over his country. Schumer also said that Netanyahu had allowed too many civilian deaths in Gaza, which he argued had reduced support for Israel around the world. Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Mary Wilson, and Shannon Lin, with help from Summer Tamad. It was edited by Brendan Klinkenberg and Michael Benoit. Fact-checked by Susan Lee Thank you. that's it for the daily i'm sabrina tavernisi see you on monday