PUTIN’S POPULARITY SWELLS IN RUSSIA,
Popularity swells in polls as West condemns actions
MOSCOW Russian President Vla- dimir Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s breakaway republic of Crimea has stunned the international community.
Yet in Russia, strong support for his actions suggest a political calculation to what he is doing that no amount of sanctions or threats of isolation will overturn: bolstering popularity back home.
“He’s doing it to strengthen his position back home,” said Alexei Malashenko, a security expert at Moscow’s Carnegie Center. “It’s effective, it rallies the people around him, and it’s normal behavior.”
A recent poll by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research showed that more than 90% of Russians supported unification with the Crimean Republic, while 86% believe that Crimea, which was transferred to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, is part of Russian territory.
The mood in Moscow on Tuesday was supportive of the annexation. Russian flags were draped outside windows, and strangers congratulated one another on what they called a “holiday.”
Markets opened up Tuesday in anticipation of Putin’s address. Russia’s MICEX index closed with a gain of more than 4%, heartened in part by Putin’s remarks easing fears of further annexation of Ukrainian territory.
Putin’s approval rating has skyrocketed since the Russian parliament gave him approval to send troops to Ukraine. It jumped by nearly 10 percentage points in less than a month to 71.6%, the highest in three years, according to the All-Russian Center.
Putin called Khrushchev’s decision to give Crimea to Ukraine unlawful and said that “within a totalitarian state, no one asked what the people think.”
Putin justified his move by noting that Western powers had agreed to back the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, which was formally recognized in 2008. Yet unlike Ukraine, which held a vote on a constitution that included Crimeans, Kosovo had been forced into a union with Serbia.
In a 40-minute speech televised from the Kremlin’s whiteand-gold St. George hall, Putin said he was righting a wrong by accepting the results of the Crimea referendum Sunday that called for annexation by Russia.
“Something that we thought was incredible became reality,” he said. “The (Soviet Union) broke down. The events were so quick most citizens could not realize the traumatic effects of what was happening,” he said, referring to Ukraine’s declaration of independence as the Soviet Union was dissolving in 1991.
Russia “will of course be facing foreign confrontation” he said, referring to threats from the West of financial sanctions. “But we have to decide for ourselves, are we to protect our national interest or just carry on giving them away forever?”
The United States has imposed economic sanctions and travel restrictions on seven Russian officials, including close Putin aides, and four Ukrainian officials, including deposed president Viktor Yanukovych, who was forced out by a vote of the Ukrainian parliament after 80 people were shot to death during protests over his pro-Russian stance in the capital, Kiev. The European Union has taken similar measures.
Putin’s aim is control over Ukraine. “It’s about spheres of interest,” said Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies. “And if another power comes close to that sphere of interest, it’s interpreted as aggression.”
Putin interpreted Yanukovych’s ouster as a coup and as a direct threat to Russia’s interests, prompting him to annex Crimea, Makarkin said.
That doesn’t mean he will try to annex other parts of Ukraine. “Based on his remarks, he doesn’t want to do that,” Makarkin said.
Putin said Tuesday that he doesn’t want to split Ukraine into pro-Russian and pro-Western states. Still, two weeks earlier, Putin had also said that Russia had no intention to annex Crimea.
“I don’t know what he will do next. He’s not a predictable politician,” Malashenko said.
Putin did not expect the proWestern demonstrations in Ukraine to topple Yanukovych, Malashenko said. Annexing Crimea “couldn’t have occurred to him six months ago.”
In the past, Putin cared what Western leaders thought of him but is now more indifferent.
“The Crimea decision was a chance to show that Russia can take decisive action internationally, and to teach America a lesson that it has its own interests that it is willing to defend,” Makarkin said.
Because of the Crimea dispute, Russia’s membership in the Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrial nations was suspended.
Presidential aide Vladislav Surkov laughed off the sanctions on him. Surkov told the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily newspaper. “I don’t have foreign accounts. ... I don’t need a visa to access their work, so I’m not losing anything.”