Televised address to governors

President announces emergency federalization

Vladimir Putin addressed the nation for the second time in eight days to say that the heads of regions have the authority to act in accordance with the current situation, without waiting for instructions from the Kremlin. This is the dramatic outcome of twenty years of building a “vertical of power” and a “strong hand”: the result of this policy was the paralysis of the management system in the context of a pandemic. The president actually had to address the governors via television in order to urge them to take responsibility for themselves. Along the way, Putin retroactively justified the actions of those regions that have already declared “self-isolation” of citizens and are developing police measures to enforce it – first of all, we are talking about Moscow.

In parallel with the president's address, the governor of the Arkhangelsk region, Igor Orlov, and the head of the Komi Republic, Sergei Gaplikov, resigned - it is obvious that not all representatives of the governor's corps rely on the new powers transferred on television by the president.

And at the same time, the State Duma announced the possible unification of the Arkhangelsk region and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug -

federalization can be effectively combined with the redrawing of territories.

In the meantime, protests continue in Shiyes (Arkhangelsk region), and a pass regime has been introduced in Syktyvkar (Komi) due to the high number of people infected with coronavirus.

Initially, the need for a new emergency message was explained either by the introduction of an emergency in the country, or by the president's reaction to the catastrophic situation in the economy:

oil prices are at 1999 levels and millions of people are at risk of losing their jobs.

However, Putin did not introduce an emergency and talk about new obligations of the state to support citizens and businesses. From the point of view of ordinary people, the most important thesis of his second address concerns the extension of "non-working days" (now not days off) until April 30th. The actual quarantine regime could thus last up to five weeks, and the economic losses from such a policy could be record-breaking. The ruble continued to fall immediately after the announcement of new periods of "rest", which, however, may be reduced for certain regions. This time, the President did not explain how to use the "holidays" to be able to pay the bills after them. He only assured once again that salaries would be paid to those who have them.

The rejection of the emergency situation, the regime of which actually implies “self-isolation”, is associated with distrust of the security forces - in the current conditions it is shared by citizens, the bureaucracy, and, it seems, even individual figures in the Kremlin.

Perhaps the unwillingness to be under the complete power of the security forces now is the main unifying idea for the Russian Federation.

President Putin's repeated appeal is unlikely to reassure the citizens: emergency live broadcasts began to appear too often. After the first broadcast, it could be assumed that the president would address the nation once again after the peak of the epidemic was passed to announce a return to normal life. This would allow him to get a rating increase on the eve of voting for amendments to the Constitution and at the start of a new election campaign for the Duma. The need to make a special reminder that the heads of regions have the right to act speaks of the growing political crisis in the country.

It is already clear that the epidemic has played against the Kremlin's long-term plans for the transit of power. Unfortunately, it hits the interests of ordinary people even more strongly in the real conditions of the Russian economy and the level of competence of the domestic bureaucracy.