Surge in Putin Patriotism Masks Pain of Sanctions

[Purveyor]

By Olga Tanas Aug 20, 2014 8:00 AM ET

Russians are backing Vladimir Putin as he confronts the U.S. and Europe over Ukraine, even if their wallets tell a different story.

Putin’s popularity is soaring, along with consumer confidence and a gauge for “social comfort.” Another set of data reveals an abrupt change in a country that reveled in consumerism after the collapse of communism. Car sales are plunging, tour operators are going bankrupt and disposable incomes are stalling.

A new generation of Russians who have grown up since the fall of communism is finding patriotic pride in making do with less. While Putin’s ratings are still on the rise, analysts and researchers in Moscow say the deteriorating economic data highlight the risk of letting politics trump prosperity.

Waging Financial War

“Pride and patriotism have awakened in Russians, as was the case in the USSR, and that’s why they are willing to sacrifice some part of their wellbeing,” said Dilyara Ibragimova, a lecturer on economic sociology at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “I think that’s temporary, because the continued growth of prices will hit their pocketbooks and affect their attitude.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-19/surge-in-putin-patriotism-masks-pain-of-sanctions.html

[newthinking]

1. Sanctions will not work in this case

Russians are used to having to suffer through hard times and they have cultural mechanisms to help each other through them.

The depression they sufferred after the fall of the USSR would have been far more personally devastating had it happened here.

Talk to slavic people about that period and they recognize it as a terrible time but at the same time indicate that they expect life to have regular periods of such suffering.

The effect of the sanctions will be far less serious, and especially given that Russians are united against what they see as an unfair situation, my prediction is they will buckle down and work through it.

That is not a defense, just my understanding and experience with the cultures in that part of the world.