Vladimir Putin will not hold a year-end press conference for the first time in at least a decade, in what Kremlin-watchers view as a break with protocol due to his war in Ukraine.
The marathon press-conferences are traditionally an occasion for the Russian president to burnish his image, a campy spectacle that allows Putin to play the populist on national television each December.
On Monday, the Kremlin announced it would not be holding the press-conference this year. There would also be no new year reception at the Kremlin, officials said, possibly a decision influenced by the reluctance to celebrate because Russia’s war in Ukraine has not gone to plan.
In previous years, Putin has dedicated much of the event to answering softball questions from adoring local journalists, including some dressed in costume, while batting away any awkward questions from foreign media, allowing his administration to boast about its transparency.
Putin has become far more remote since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and now the destructive war against Ukraine, which has led the Kremlin into international isolation and brought a near-total crackdown on dissenting voices at home.
Putin has disappeared from public for days at a time, sometimes leading to jokes that the Russian leader is hiding in a “bunker”. And his administration is facing tough questions about its strategy for the war, military retreats, mass mobilisation, and reported mistreatment of Russian recruits both on the front and in training.
Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of the R.Politik political analysis firm, wrote that Putin was likely to regard the event as a waste of time this year.
“I don’t think that Putin has nothing to say, especially as he’s said so much recently,” she said. “More likely he has a psychological unwillingness to ‘explain himself’, to answer boring and routine questions, to waste time on preparations, play the role of the kind father and so forth.
“For the foreign audience, he can say everything he deems necessary, he’ll find an occasion,” she continued. “As to the domestic audience, he doesn’t see the point. Let his subordinates handle it.”