What did Putin do in a year

In his 19th year as president, Vladimir Putin began to hold more meetings, speak less on the phone, and radically changed his social circle. Kommersant again analyzed the President’s schedule: where did he go, who did he meet, who did he call, what did he talk about, how did he spend his free time, and what Russians think about all this.

290 working days

From May 7, 2022 to May 7, 2023, Vladimir Putin, according to the official schedule on the website Kremlin.ruwas 290 business days, or 79.4% from the possible workload in the calendar year. The most stressful for the president was the first year of the fourth presidential term since 314 working days (86%).

According to the schedule for the past year, Vladimir Putin had 75 weekend – for 19 more than a year earlier. If in his last presidential term the president worked least of all in September, then in the current one, on the contrary, September was the busiest month for: in 28 working days, Vladimir Putin accomplished 83 cases (almost three a day). Wherein for the first time in recent years, there was no traditional vacation in the president’s schedule, which he usually spent in Siberia.

673 cases

On the whole, Vladimir Putin made 673 cases, on average 2.3 business per day. For comparison: in the first year of the current presidential term, he had 994 cases (3.2 cases per day), in the second – 925 (3 cases per day), in the third due to the pandemic, the number of cases decreased to 737 (2.4 cases per day), on the fourth – began to grow (822 cases, 2.6 cases per day).

Starting in 2020, most of the meetings took place without physical contact, and telephone conversations topped the list of tasks, however, this has changed over the past year, and meetings, 82% of which took place in person, returned to the first place in the list of cases.

During the year, the number of various ceremonies increased, in half of which Vladimir Putin participated via video link. The President also began to visit various institutions, ceremonial events and concerts more often. The number of negotiations, congratulations, appeals and interactions with the media has halved. For a year Vladimir Putin gave only one interview – to the Rossiya-1 TV channel in June 2022, it was about a special operation in Ukraine and Western sanctions.

President also continued to writeby writing article to the Chinese newspaper “People’s Daily”: “Russia and China are a partnership looking to the future.”

222 meetings

A third of the president’s classes over the past year were meetings. Most often (65%), Vladimir Putin met with Russian citizens, in most cases these were working meetings with governors who reported to the president on the socio-economic situation in their regions.

From foreign leaders Vladimir Putin mainly met with the leaders of the CIS countries, most often – with the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko (eight one-on-one meetings). Six meetings were held with representatives of China, four of them with Chinese President Xi Jinping. There were no personal contacts with the heads of European countries during the year.

8 trips abroad

Vladimir Putin began to travel more often than a year earlier. In a year he made 32 trips within the country, including in March visited Mariupol, in April – the Kherson region and the LPR, 7 once flew to the CIS countries for various meetings, such as the CSTO summit in Yerevan and the Russia-Central Asia summit in Astana. The President also attended a meeting in Tehran of the heads of states-guarantors of the Astana Process for Assistance to the Syrian Settlement. By comparison, the 2021/22 schedule showed only 3 trips abroad (to Geneva, New Delhi, Beijing), a year earlier — none.

The geography of Vladimir Putin’s trips abroad has shifted towards the near abroad.

415 official appearances

Since May 7, 2022, texts have been published on the Kremlin website 415 Presidential speeches (a year earlier – 438). To read them at an average speed 160 words per minute, it will take about 50 hours (495 thousand words). For comparison: in the first term, the transcripts of Vladimir Putin contained an average of 243 thousand words, in the second – 307 thousand By his third term, the president had become more verbose, and his collection of speeches per year, on average, included 429.5 thousand words

The most mentioned country in speeches was and still is Russia. In a year China rose in the list of the most mentioned from 9th to 3rd place, Türkiye – from the 10th to the 6th. Also in the top 10 Iran, and Azerbaijan dropped out of the ranking.

115 phone calls

Compared to the previous year of his presidency, the number of telephone calls made by Vladimir Putin has decreased by 1.8 times. Then he spoke on the phone 212 once, now 115.

An analysis of Vladimir Putin’s telephone circle showed that the president began to communicate more often with the leaders of the CIS countries and the Middle East, but almost tripled the number of telephone contacts with representatives of the West. So, with French President Emmanuel Macron, the most enterprising interlocutor of last year (22 calls), Vladimir Putin spoke only three times this time.

Most often, Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone with the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan (13 times each) and the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev (12 times). For comparison: during the first term, the main interlocutors of the President of the Russian Federation were the heads of Ukraine Leonid KuchmaUSA George W. Bush and France Jacques Chirac.

76 appearances

During the year, the number of secular and cultural events in which Vladimir Putin participated has increased. Most often, these were various opening ceremonies and launches (18), as well as gala evenings and concerts (13). Thus, the President personally visited concert dedicated to the 1160th anniversary of the birth of Russian statehood in Veliky Novgorod, concert on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazi troops in the Battle of Stalingrad in Volgograd and rally-concert “People’s Choice. Together forever” in Moscow, which took place after the signing of agreements on the admission of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions into Russia. The president did not participate in the traditional gala match of the Night Hockey League in Sochi this year.

The voice of the people

According to VTsIOM, after a big jump in February 2022, the trust rating for Vladimir Putin changed slightly and, on average, remained at the level 77%. A decrease by several percentage points was noted in November 2022, which was associated with rumors about a new wave of partial mobilization and the withdrawal of units of the RF Armed Forces from the right bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region.

The approval rating for the president’s work reached its highest in 2015, shortly after the start of the Russian operation in Syria, it was close to 90%. the lowest (60.8%) Vladimir Putin’s rating was in January 2014, during the protests in Kyiv, after which there was a change of power in Ukraine.

The upward trend was outlined in February 2014, after the successful Olympics in Sochi. In March-April of the same year, against the background of the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the conflict in Donbass, the rating shot up, exceeding in May 85%.

Read previous issues here: Year 2021/22; Year 2020/21; Year 2019/20; Year 2017/18; Year 2016/17; Year 2015/16; Year 2014/15; Year 2013/14; Year 2012/13; Year 2011/12; Year 2010/11; Year 2009/10; Year 2008/09; Year 2007/08; Year 2006/07; Year 2005/06; Year 2004/05; Years 2000–2004; Years 2000–2003.

The study used only official information posted on the website www.kremlin.ru. We would appreciate any clarifications that can be sent by e-mail to [email protected].

Author-compiler: Andrey Egupets