Julia Ioffe: I Can’t Remember a Better Stretch of Time Putin Has Had

EXCERPT:

IOFFE: "Actually, on the first day of the World Cup Putin’s government announced that it would be raising the retirement age, which of course, you know, cuts deeply into the foundation of his kind of populist support, which is just kind of government giveaways to, you know, high pensions, big salaries for bureaucrats. So his approval rating actually has taken a nosedive, a bigger hit than we’ve seen in years. That said, on the international stage, you know, this isn’t getting much coverage inside Russia -- on the international stage it is hard to think of a better stretch Putin has had in a long time. He has gotten away with pretty much everything. He has Trump doing kind of the dirty work for him at the — you know, during the NATO summit I ran into an old source from Moscow and I asked him, how do people see Donald Trump in Moscow? And he said, they see him as a total idiot who happens to be a really useful battering ram going after the American elites and NATO. So he's kind of doing our work for us. And you know, coming off of a successful World Cup where he kind of bestowed victory on these players on such a big sporting event, I can’t remember a better stretch of time Putin has had."