‘I think it’s very difficult,’ Putin tells woman living below Russia’s poverty line

On a visit to St. Petersburg on Wednesday, after laying flowers at a monument to the late Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, Vladimir Putin spoke to a group of local residents. One woman asked him how he thinks she lives on a salary of 10,800 rubles ($170) a month. “I think it’s very difficult,” the president said. When the woman asked Putin how he thinks her disabled friend lives on 3,800 rubles ($60) a month, he acknowledged that it’s impossible to survive on such little money.

When the woman also complained about the high cost of utilities, saying this costs her 4,000 rubles (about $62) a month, Putin responded that he’s seen “collapsed houses” in other countries that are crumbling because of rent-control laws and eviction prohibitions.

• In the first quarter of 2020, the poverty line and minimum wage in Russia has been set at 12,130 rubles ($190) a month. According to Russia’s Federal State Statistic Service, 19 million Russians (about 13 percent of the country) currently live below the poverty line.