Moscow Times: Kremlin directs state companies to find positive news spots for Putin
The presidential administration has ordered state-owned companies and the heads of regional administrations to prepare an agenda of positive news stories and events in which Vladimir Putin can take part, sources close to the Kremlin and company spokespeople told The Moscow Times.
The newspaper writes that such an agenda is, according to the Kremlin, supposed to improve the president’s image and help state propaganda, which is losing its television audience:
Russians’ social well-being is declining, anxiety is growing, and fatigue from a protracted war has already accumulated. In these conditions, citizens should see the president as clearly associated with something positive, being a “herald of good news,” as two unrelated sources explained the Kremlin’s logic.
As the Moscow Times sources point out, a similar “good news incubator” for the president has basically already been launched. Putin attended, via video call, the opening of a turkey breeding center and a highway renovation, and he congratulated employees of Rosatom and Rostekh on company anniversaries.
In early December, Putin skipped a large yearly press conference, and he may also not deliver a 2022 address to the Federal Assembly. The cancellation of such public events, in which Putin was supposed to participate, is associated with the Russian army’s military failures in Ukraine.
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