A televised report shows approximately 100 men, women and children waiting behind police barricades for Putin’s arriving motorcade. As he got out of the limousine, the crowd began to applaud, according to The Moscow Times.
Surrounded by bodyguards, Putin signed a book brought by an elderly woman with his photo on the cover and kissed a 10-year-old boy.
“I’ve been waiting for you for 20 years,” a woman’s voice was heard during the live broadcast.
Faced with the aftermath of the terrorist attack, the Russian president resorted to the time-tested damage control tactic of holding an impromptu meeting with ordinary citizens far from Moscow.
“The terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall, the queues of people who want to sign Boris Nadezhdin’s candidacy and the mountain of flowers on the grave of Alexei Navalny – all these things put Putin at a disadvantage,” a government official told The Moscow Times. remain anonymous as they are not authorized to communicate with the media.
“The purpose of the visit is to show that the Russian people love Putin,” he said.
As reported by the local news portal “Pervyj Tverskoj”, the crowd waited for V. Putin’s arrival for more than one hour. Among the crowd were muscular men in civilian clothes, probably security guards.
Later, V. Putin visited the museum of ethnography and held a meeting, during which he received a gift and talked about “true patriotism”.
Although the motorcade of the Russian leader arrived in Torzhok in the evening, preparations for the visit began at least a day before.
Officials covered dilapidated buildings in the city center with tarps and removed speed bumps, Pervyj Tverskoj reports.
More than 20 policemen were on duty on the main street of the town.
The pre-arranged cheers in Torzhok came after thousands of Russians laid flowers in memory of opposition leader Navalny, Putin’s staunchest critic, who died in the colony in February, and just days after a terrorist attack in Moscow, although its victims had not yet been buried. .
At the Museum of Ethnography, V. Putin suddenly announced to the gathering that the visit was supposedly planned earlier, but it had to be postponed due to the attack in Moscow.
When events occur that can cause public anger, the Russian leader often visits a region of Russia and holds such a staged meeting with civilians. This is one of the Kremlin’s ways of presenting the country’s leader in a favorable light.
When it became clear that the Russian armed forces suffered huge losses in Ukraine, did not capture Kyiv and were forced to retreat from Kherson, in 2022. in December, the Kremlin organized a meeting between V. Putin and soldiers’ mothers, who did not criticize the president.
Six months after the Wagner mutiny, which caused Russia’s biggest domestic security crisis in decades, Putin visited Dagestan, where he was also greeted by a crowd that cheered him on and showed his love.
Tags: Put disadvantageous position Putin resorted timetested tactics
