From Republic.ru, Dec. 22, 2025, https://republicmag.io/posts/116862. Condensed text:
. . . These days, watching Vladimir Putin’s Direct Line shows (they have now been renamed Results of the Year) is akin to Kremlinology – a kind of “science” in Soviet times when Western political analysts speculated about moods in the Politburo based on the positioning of its members on the mausoleum during demonstrations. No one had other reliable sources inside or outside the country, anyway.
Which is pretty much how things are now. Some say that the Direct Line shows lost their meaning a long time ago and transformed into a ritual. But, first of all, a ritual is actually a fundamental concept in any conservative society, and this is his – the president’s – contribution to the creation of Russian traditional values. Peter the Great came up with the New Year’s tree, [Leonid] Brezhnev with the New Year’s greetings on TV, and Putin with the multihour appearance before the people. Second of all, observers can, to the extent of their own fascination, draw conclusions about presidential moods from various slips, hints and omissions.
To the joy of commentators, it’s never clear if the words uttered by the president mean anything, or if they mean nothing at all. For example, near the end of the four-hour vigil, Putin said in response to a question from a schoolgirl who is studying to be a journalist that by the time [she becomes one] – that is, in some sort of foreseeable future – he intends to “retire” (although the student actually asked him not to go anywhere). So what does this mean? Did the tired president let the cat out of the bag, or not? Can we really start asking about his successor again? After all, he was recently planning to live an active life past the age of 100.
Or, for example, when he was speaking about peace talks, Putin did not once mention Vladimir Zelensky’s illegitimacy, which has been all over the news recently.1 And what does that mean? Did he change his mind, or not? Although, on the other hand, he stubbornly continued to call Zelensky the “ringleader of the Kiev regime,” and ringleaders probably aren’t ever legitimate. It turns out that the only thing standing between a “ringleader” and a president is an election. But it won’t be easy to hold an election – the Kremlin is insisting that Ukrainians currently living in Russia take part in it, but who knows how to make that happen –
However, it is ironic that Putin agreed that “it’s time to stop” the endless televised political freak shows about Ukraine. It appears they’ve started asking inconvenient questions and blabbing too much about peace talks.
Overall, skipping ahead, Vladimir Putin didn’t announce any news about Ukraine. Just as they did one year, two years, and three years ago, the troops are inexorably advancing, the Kiev regime is on the brink of collapse, and Moscow is not abandoning its initial claims. A year ago, everyone was expecting progress in the peace process because of Donald Trump’s victory in the US [presidential] election, and they’re still waiting. There are, of course, problems: Some people didn’t get what they were supposed to, some weren’t paid enough, documents were lost, there’s a shortage of heavy drones. But it’s not hard to answer such questions – the authorities are working on it.
Some things are naturally less ambiguous. It has become clear that Vladimir Putin’s fascination with demographic matters has taken on the nature of an assiduous farmer’s obsession. He reduced almost every third question to calls to procreate, procreate, procreate regardless of anything, and at one point even went so far as to recommend following the famous Caucasus custom of marrying off children at a fairly young age. “This really is correct. We should follow their example. It’s very sound,” he said with a straight face.
In fact, Putin said this in response to the question of a Yekaterinburg student about how he and his fiancée could have even one baby if he couldn’t even afford a mortgage on a one-bedroom apartment. And [Putin] referred to [Chechen President] Ramzan Kadyrov, apparently forgetting that “Allah gives” Kadyrov money, and his children, no matter how many there are, do not want for anything.
But for our part, we remember how our former children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov once said that you don’t have to be a prude, it’s just that there are places in the Caucasus where women are already “wizened at 27and look like they’re about 50 to us,” so marriages between 50-year-old men and 17-year-old girls should be approved there. At the time, 10 years ago, this seemed like some kind of awkward joke, but it turns out that no, it’s a trend. And, most importantly, none of them seems to recognize the connection between wrinkles and early marriages. In theory, the next logical step should be polygamy.
That means it’s time to stop being prudes. Even Vladimir Putin himself admitted that he is in love! But no one bothered to pursue the topic, because everything was clear – he is in love with Russia, what else? And why are you actually fixated on those apartments and prices when the president has “an empty refrigerator and one [bottle of] ryazhenka [a fermented milk drink – Trans.]” and no comfort whatsoever in his Kremlin lodgings? And yet he’s happy with everything – he’s not asking for any mortgages.
But, still, it seems this is the start of the process of mythmaking about the ascetic demagogue who left only his pipe and boots after he died. If you don’t start it yourself, no one will. For the second time in a brief period, Putin recounted how he drives around Moscow from time to time without flashing lights, as a regular mortal, peeks in on different neighborhoods and even sits in Moscow traffic jams along with everyone else. It’s naturally very hard to believe this (if the presidential limousine had even once stopped in a Moscow traffic jam, social media would have been overflowing with photographs) – but in about 20 years, legends will probably emerge about the president strolling incognito around the city and solving the problems of simple people. There are many such stories about Russian emperors, for example. You’ll see: They will even find people who met Putin in all sorts of places and were gifted watches or diamond-encrusted snuffboxes by him. . . .
In general, though, it cannot be said that Putin was spared tough questions about everyday problems like the sky-high cost of housing and cars or about telephone scammers. In other words, about the things that actually worry citizens. Thus, the president has been informed of all these problems. It’s classic dramaturgy: Someone complains to the president, so the president either instructs the government to work it out or proposes waiting for better times, when taxes fall, lots of cheap domestic cars appear, and the Internet, which is constantly being shut down, starts working again. As for the diabetics who can’t monitor their glucose levels without the Internet – well, what are you going to do? Let people switch to domestic services, whichever ones they can find.
We have achieved digital sovereignty, Putin bragged, complete digital sovereignty, just like in America. It’s the Internet that we (or, rather, you) don’t have, but there is digital sovereignty, which is much more important. As the bard [i.e., late Soviet singer and songwriter Aleksandr Bashlachov – Trans.] said: “We may have nothing, but it’s ours!” The economy is growing, there’s no unemployment, housing is being built. Everything is in order, at least at the macro level. No roads? We’ll build them! And railroads, too! Fish from the Far East? We’ll ship it over! Funding for subsidized medicines has ended? We’ll fix that! Small businesses are failing because of taxes? We’ll correct that!
Just not right now. The budget is growing – it’s just not enough. But right now, you just have to procreate and not think about anything.
However, Putin did admit that exorbitant vehicle recycling fees have no relation to recycling whatsoever but only to “the Finance Ministry’s attempt to receive additional revenue to achieve the noble goal of technological development.” And, naturally, you cannot object to the true nobility with which this complex goal is being achieved. It’s just unclear why this fee is still called a recycling fee and why it has only been imposed on vehicles. It’s not as if other industries are not in need of development.
And that’s not all the news. Television viewers, for example, learned that Russia strictly observes human rights – be quiet, you sceptics! This emerged from a response to the question of why many esoteric people, fortunetellers and occultists are still operating with impunity in the country, while Russians’ expenses on the services of various charlatans are rising in earnest, already reaching 2.5 trillion rubles a year. It turns out that a battle must be waged against charlatans, but carefully, so as not to violate their human rights. I mean, it’s not like they’re foreign agents.
After all, it can’t be ruled out that some sorcerers will conjure up something bad if anyone messes with them. On the other hand, the right of Russians to seek help from a fortuneteller also probably cannot be violated – although that is not a constitutional right, but more a traditional one. They may, in fact, ask sorcerers for help with getting pregnant – and no amount of assistance is too much in this matter. And, in general, it’s probably better not to ban an industry with this kind of revenue, but, on the contrary, invest the revenue in the needs of technological development.
There were no audacious, provocative or unusual questions this time around. No prize-giving, either. But there weren’t any of the traditional jabs at governors, either. This time around, the president and citizens looked each other in the eye and became convinced that everything in Russia is following its normal course. The president learned that the people still honor him and won’t replace him with anyone, while the people learned that the president is full of vim and vigor and legally competent.
On the bright side, this year journalists were allowed to flourish homemade signs in the hall – this has been banned in the past. And that, my friends, is as good as a thaw!
1This refers to assertions that Zelensky is not the legitimate president since his term of office ended in May 2024 under martial law, when elections cannot be held under Ukrainian legislation; see Vol. 76, No. 21, pp. 8-10. – Trans.