After the richly-informed address to the Federal Assembly last year, the president found it difficult to impress his audience with new proposals of the same scale, but the government's sagging ratings and the growth of silent discontent over the increase in the retirement age and the decline in incomes required him to make new promises to improve the standard and quality of life. The new address is, in essence, a deepening and expansion of the provisions of the national projects, an addition to those who have reason to be disappointed in the state, but do not yet have the desire to protest. New promises are unlikely to evoke strong emotions in society, but, even if weak, they will at least be positive - unless the audience is basically tired of repeating the same correct words in the absence of noticeable changes in real life.

The social coloring of the message left the president no chance to go beyond his usual role: Vladimir Putin once again appeared as a caring ruler, handing out money and promises to the country and correcting the mistakes of arrogant bureaucrats who do not care about the people's welfare. Families with children, pensioners, residents of villages and remote regions, the poor, mortgage holders - the president recalled many vulnerable groups (but it will still be necessary to ask the government), which he had spoken about a year earlier. But, for example, pre-retirees, whose plans for life were significantly changed by the increase in the retirement age last year, hardly heard anything seriously encouraging.

The most important (but also not new) goal is poverty: a year ago, Putin ordered to reduce its level by half by 2024. Now he has specified: there will be no "communism", but there are plans to increase benefits for disabled children, payments for children will be extended to families whose income is below two subsistence minimums per person, and not one and a half, as now. In addition, Putin promised to reduce property taxes for large families and ease the burden of mortgages for them. The president also confirmed the state's plans to open new nurseries, which should also help mothers find work, and families with children overcome poverty. It is planned to allocate 292 billion rubles for all this in the coming years - not so much, considering that it was supposed to allocate 3.4 trillion rubles for demography over six years.

The goal of the support is clear – “saving the people” according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. However, it is unlikely that Putin will achieve natural population growth, an excess of births over deaths by 2023–2024, according to Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the HSE Institute of Demography. It will not be possible to fill the demographic hole with money: the small generation born in the 1990s and early 2000s will be of fertile age during this period, while the large generation born in the late 1940s and 1950s will die for natural reasons. Natural growth can be achieved only a little later, beyond the horizon of Putin’s presidential terms granted by the current Constitution.

Putin's New Scary and Comfortable Russia

Opinions / From the editors

Estimates of the cost of the president's promises vary from 100-120 billion rubles annually (estimate by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov) to more than 200 billion rubles (estimate by Secretary of the General Council of United Russia Andrei Turchak) - but we know where to find the money, Putin assured (no one has yet calculated how much the regions will lose, for example, from tax breaks for large families). According to the Finance Ministry, the budget will receive an additional 633.5 billion rubles in 2019 from the VAT rate increased last year alone. For the population, the funds promised by Putin (according to Siluanov's estimate) are 0.18-0.21% of their cash income at the end of 2018, according to economist Kirill Tremasov.

Affordable and high-quality medical care in every corner of the country. Modern schools and access to modern technologies in education. Rural development – attracting not only doctors, but also teachers. Fighting cancer and improving diagnostics. Supporting science and technological innovations. Environmental well-being and eliminating landfills. Most of these priorities of the 2019 address are not new (and the president emphasized this, repeatedly referring to his previous addresses). Yes, these are correct and pleasant words – in this sense, it is understandable why the president repeats them. But if what has been heard many times is not put into practice, in real life (and this also happens, the president admitted), then the old record can become boring, or even anger.

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Such self-repetitions and their disconnect with reality are especially noticeable in words about protecting business. This is a ritual of sorts: the president regularly addresses this topic in his messages and regularly acknowledges that his words remain just words. Yesterday, Putin repeated that "an honest business should not constantly be under an article <...> I have already spoken about this <...> The situation, unfortunately, has not changed much." It is symptomatic that on the same day, the Moscow City Court confirmed the extension of the arrest of the Magomedov brothers, who have been in pretrial detention for a year on a case of large-scale fraud – and this is also a message of sorts.

Family and pension message