(EDM) President Vladimir Putin is not taking a summer vacation. He has instead maintained a busy schedule of meetings with government officials and regional governors. But his grip on the steering wheel of Russia’s foreign and domestic policy is far from steady. The heavily censored Russian TV footage still portrays him as strong and confident, yet Putin’s public statements increasingly sound odd—like his point about a “certain positive and noticeable warming-up in interactions between state structures and civil society” (Kremlin.ru, July 21). In reality, few civil society organizations likely appreciate the pressure on them from the special services. Indeed, last week (July 22), the think tank run by former Putin aide Andrei Illarionov was labeled a “foreign agent” (RBC, July 22). Andrei Piontkovsky, a well-known Russian commentator, was even less fortunate: on July 23, his Moscow flat was ransacked by the Federal Security Service (FSB) without any warrant (Moscow Echo, July 23). Such small matters are almost certainly below Putin’s station, but he has also been suspiciously absent from matters more definitely requiring presidential decisions. […]
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