Little time? At the end of the text there is a summary.

Vladimir Putin's press conferences are a fight. It's not just about getting a seat at the end of each year. This time around 1700 journalists, photographers and cameramen crowd into the large hall of the World Trade Congress Center on the Moskva River. It's about being able to ask the president a question at all.

The journalists tear up signs with inscriptions like "I'm not leaving unless I ask a question" or "Putin - Hecht", where the head of state is shirtless. They yell, "Here in the last row" of "Corruption !!!" to somehow get the President's attention at the big desk. In the end, 53 journalists manage in almost four hours.

Many of the Russian colleagues come from the regions: a woman from a Wolgorod Internet portal has disguised himself as a snowflake; another journalist waves a sign "Putin plus skis", she comes from Karachay-Cherkessia in the south of the European part, invites the head of state for skiing. Several times participants from the Vladivostok region are allowed to speak. There, the Kremlin was allowed to vote a second time on the weekend, after the candidate of the Communists in the first ballot was first ahead and suddenly lost votes overnight, which led to protests.

SERGEI CHIRIKOV / EPA-EFE / REX

Journalists at Putin press conference

Many journalists thank the president. What this has to do with journalistic work is the question. "Let's call the event a press conference," says Putin at the beginning. Press show hits it sooner.

Putin's holiday

Putin is in a good mood, jokes and smiles on this Thursday. Maybe it's the date: 20 December is the day of security services in Russia, and thus the domestic intelligence service FSB, Putin once headed.

Maybe it's because Putin seems happy with 2018. Although Russia is receiving ever-wrenching sanctions from the West, Moscow has expanded its influence internationally, not least because Donald Trump leaves Russia plenty of room with its America-First policy: in Afghanistan, where the Kremlin brought the Taliban to the negotiating table; in Africa, where Russia has agreed military and economic cooperation with various rulers, and especially in the Middle East. In Syria, nothing is decided without Putin.

REUTERS

Wladimir Putin

Visibly satisfied, Russian President Trumps welcomes a few-hour-old announcement that he wants to withdraw US troops from Syria. "Donald is right," Putin says as he talks about his American colleague who announced by tweet that the terrorist organization "Islamic State" is now defeated. Donald and Vladimir, leaders of two world powers, that's what it sounds like.

Mild President

While Putin was still displeased last year and kept making "tsssschhh" to exhort the journalists, he now says, "Dear colleagues, if we want to continue, they will not turn this event into an unauthorized protest." Lacher. Unaccepted protests exist in Russia only in the opposition, but not in President Putin.

"For the good of the country" is the title of Putin's this year's press conference. Anyone who has wondered what he plans to do after almost 20 years at the helm of Russia as prime minister and president sees between all the posters that are being swung back and forth, a mildly occurring head of state, who has committed himself to several roles:

  • the modernizer: Putin urgently invokes the "economic breakthrough" that Russia needs. His track record has gaps: 23 so-called national projects has been set up by the Kremlin to promote education, health, agriculture and housing in the country. According to the Court of Auditors, headed by the liberal economist Alexei Kudrin, 13 of these are not efficient. Why Russia has an economic growth of just over one percent, Putin can not quite explain. He generally stays. Says he is by and large satisfied with his government under Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. It sounds more like saying "everything will be alright" than a concrete plan.
  • the reformer: One can not argue that Putin is one who fundamentally turns his country around, also because he knows that such steps are not exactly popular. A majority of Russians still long for the "good old days" of the Soviet Union, in which the state cared about its citizens. But on the subject of pensions Putin is now changing: By the beginning of 2019 women and men have to work longer (up to 60 years and 65 years), which causes displeasure in view of the low life expectancy, especially in the regions and low pension increases. The criticism lets Putin rebound on Thursday. The population is shrinking, he must act for the good of the country, says Putin.
  • the Carinthian: Putin likes this role, he can present his citizens but quick successes: He promises a journalist from St. Petersburg help in the construction of an eleven million rubles expensive football ground for children; a man from the Leningrad region assistance in gas supply. Tubes are not where they should be.
  • the defender: For several minutes, Putin explains what the West is trying to stop Russia's development. If there had not been any sanctions after the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal, Putin says, the West would have thought up "something else" against Moscow. It is the image of a hostile Russia that he so often tries to make Putin slip into the role of the defender. That two agents of the Russian military intelligence service should be responsible for the attack, he mentions with no syllable. Russophobia also accuses Putin of "the Kyiv power days", which is campaigning ahead of the presidential elections in March. The Kremlin boss does not want to talk about Moscow financing and supporting the war in Donbass. Putin avoids a question from a Ukrainian journalist about how much the operation costs there by accusing Kiev of blocking the supply of Donbass.

ALEXEI DRUZHININ / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL / EPA-EFE / REX

Vladimir Putin and journalists

Critical questions are only possible in cans at Putin's press conferences and are commented by the Kremlin boss: "Do you want to provoke a scandal?", He asks the Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk. After all, he is allowed to speak almost every year under strict surveillance of the FSO, the security service of the president.

The investigative journalist of the Internet portal Insider, Roman Dobrochotow, on the other hand, despite accreditation not even let in the room. He had uncovered the identity of the GRU agents in the Skripal case.

Putin's press conferences are a struggle that not everyone can take part in.

In summary , the annual press conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin ran for four hours - and, as always, there was more to a press show. Opposition or even protest against the course of the Russian government was only in the legal framework. Instead, Putin was allowed to be a modernizer, reformer, carer and land defender.