It is hard to imagine that this was a state of the nation address President Vladimir Putin relished making.
His country is in bad shape — sanctions and low oil prices have thrown the ruble into a tailspin, the economy is headed for recession, he had to abandon the South Stream gas pipeline and, just hours before he was to speak, Islamist rebels mounted an attack in Chechnya. So, analysts wondered, would he stay with the hard line or inject a dose of realism?
Both, it turned out. Speaking to a loyal Russian elite in a gilded Kremlin hall on Thursday, Mr. Putin served up yet another hyperaggressive rant about the purportedly relentless efforts of the perfidious West, orchestrated by Washington, to dismantle, undermine, isolate, humiliate, contain and otherwise destroy Russia.
Far from giving any hint of a readiness to scale back the tensions over Ukraine, Mr. Putin actually equated Crimea’s importance for Russia to the Temple Mount’s importance for Jews.
Fulminating at the West and blaming it for all of Russia’s woes has kept Mr. Putin’s ratings high through the Ukraine crisis and has deflected any of the immediate blame for Russia’s growing problems onto “enemies,” so it was not surprising that Mr. Putin would stay with it.
But he could not escape the growing concern among many Russians about where their economy is headed. The ruble has plummeted; oil is trading far below the levels on which Russia’s budget was drawn up; and the government has acknowledged that the country is headed for a recession. The anxiety is palpable in Russian streets.
Mr. Putin’s response was a combination of bravado and carrots. The current tensions, he said, should help Russia overhaul its economy to become more self-sufficient. He promised to make doing business easier for small and middle-sized companies, and announced a four-year freeze on the tax rate. And he vowed not to ask questions of oligarchs who bring back any of the billions that have been fleeing abroad.
Some of these measures are reasonable and could be helpful, but the question is whether they will be enough for Mr. Putin to ride out the storm.
A majority of Russians were willing to surrender some freedom as long as they enjoyed prosperity, and to cheer Mr. Putin on as long as he seemed to be restoring Russian self-respect and power. But as prices increase and recession sets in, the bluster will become increasingly hollow.
Mr. Putin’s choice then will be to become even more belligerent and ruthless, at home and abroad — or to recognize that the solution is to stop lying about the West, and to start trying to resolve the Ukraine crisis and fix the real problems of Russia’s economy.
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