Jolted by a mutiny, how Putin is working the crowds

Putin has long loathed populist retail politics, deriding the sort of baby kissing required of American politicians campaigning for office as frivolous and vulgar. But an aborted June 24 mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary tycoon, seems to have changed the calculation for Putin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with the heads of Russia's manufacturing enterprises on the development of industry, at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

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He worked a throng of screaming fans in Dagestan. He hoisted a young girl onto his hip in Kronstadt. He posed shoulder-to-shoulder with seven young siblings, shaking their father’s hand after a naval parade.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia is newly out and about, pressing the flesh of the Russian people, in a bid to demonstrate that his years of pandemic-induced isolation are over and that his public support remains strong despite the war in Ukraine and a failed mutiny against his government.

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His behavior is a noticeable change for the Russian president, who cultivated extreme seclusion during the pandemic, forcing visiting leaders to sit at the opposite end of giant oblong tables and requiring people to quarantine for up to two weeks to see him.

The isolation persisted until well after politicians elsewhere had dispensed with such precautions amid receding fears about COVID-19. And once Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin’s distance stood in stark contrast to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who made regular visits to front-line positions, crowded ceremonies and cramped hospital rooms.

Though many precautions remain in place, Putin is interacting with crowds in orchestrated appearances — portraying himself as in touch and in charge after the rebellion by the Wagner private militia suggested that he was neither.

Putin has long loathed populist retail politics, deriding the sort of baby kissing required of American politicians campaigning for office as frivolous and vulgar.

But an aborted June 24 mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary tycoon, seems to have changed the calculation for Putin.

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Days after Prigozhin’s uprising, Putin traveled to Derbent, a city in Russia’s southern Dagestan region, and appeared before a crowd screaming with delight — a boisterous encounter the likes of which Russia had not seen from its leader in years.

His spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, later said that Putin had gone against the “strong recommendations from experts” and made a “firm decision” to interact with the crowd, because “he couldn’t refuse these people and not greet them.”

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said the decision to work the crowd was almost certainly Putin’s personal choice — designed in part to send the message to Russia’s elite that he maintains the adoration of the nation’s public.