The Economist: As Russia’s economy shrinks, Putin softens his tone
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to deliver his annual state of the nation address at the Kremlin in Moscow on Dec. 3.
Russia's political system is often called a "power vertical", with authority concentrated in the man at the top. So Vladimir Putin's yearly presidential address carries a special weight. The address "is not a conversation with the people," writes Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think-tank, but a set of coded ideological guidelines for the Russian elite. This year's speech on December 3rd was curiously subdued, a departure from the confrontational course Putin has charted since returning to Russia's presidency in 2012.
