Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief spokesman, Dmitry “the watch” Peskov, is very upset: Government statistics show that life isn’t great for Russians. In turn, Peskov says he has “struggled” to understand the data, and he’s demanding a report on it. You can be sure he won’t acknowledge any responsibility Putin has in letting or making things get so bad.
Russian government statistics are supposed to make the government look good rather than bad: There’s a long tradition of cooking the books to keep leaders happy, going back past Joseph Stalin to the tsars and their Potemkin villages. But here, someone seems to have dropped the ball. The data now show that 49 percent of Russian households cannot afford even one basic annual vacation, 52.9 percent cannot afford “sudden unexpected expenses,” and 35 percent cannot afford two pairs of shoes.
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These are indictments of a government that regards foreign brinkmanship as more important than furnishing the basics at home.
The challenge for Peskov and Putin is that, rather than choosing to grapple with this problem, they remain committed to an economic system built on cronyism and corruption. That means the economic reforms necessary to boost accountability, foreign investment, and job creation will not be forthcoming. Peskov the spokesman will continue wearing watches worth more than $600,000 and shoes worth more than twice the average Russian monthly wage and taking extravagant Mediterranean vacations. Oh, and Russians will continue to suffer.
Did Peskov pay for these luxuries with his limited civil servant salary? Of course not. Russian cronyism has allowed Putin to hide more than $70 billion in slush funds under his friends’ names. Peskov has earned his rewards by being Putin’s guy.
And that’s why Peskov is ultimately so upset with the statistics. They prove that Russia still labors under a system that enriches the corrupt powerful while keeping the people in poverty.
