Rethinking regional strategy
Regional elections outcomes in September 2018 came as an unpleasant surprise to the Kremlin after many years of tight control. All the federal entities that got to the second tour of the governors’ elections have either resulted in a loss for the Kremlin-backed candidate or the outcome is still unknown. Protest voting is a very strong driver of support for any candidate against the one who represents United Russia largely to a highly unpopular pension system reform.
Regional election outcomes prompted Kremlin to proactively start changing some regional governors in an attempt to prevent protest voting in the September 2019 regional elections. Most notably St. Petersburg governor Georgy Poltavchenko stepped down to be replaced by another Putin’s loyal Alexander Beglov as an interim governor. 11 months in office is a testing strategy allowing the Kremlin to replace the candidate after five or six months and still leave a new candidate enough time to gain some support in the city.
A Syrian missile shooting down a Russian military aircraft during an Israeli attack was used by Russia’s Defense Ministry as a pretext to change the way it cooperates with Tel Aviv and supply the Syrian army with modern long-range missile air defense systems. The move is likely to further destabilize situation in the region.
Russians spend a lot of time online, with over 75% of them using the Internet at least few times a week. Almost three quarters of young (18-24 years old) spend over hours online on a daily basis. Although older people are less frequent Internet users, the Internet is used by over half of people aged over 60 years.
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