Apparently innocent documentation reveals Putin’s crisis

News in brief: Vladimir Putin met with a group of citizens spontaneously and tried to project a light atmosphere. This was only the second time he has done so in recent months. A comprehensive analysis revealed: precisely when Russia is in crisis, Vladimir Putin tries to project closeness to the people. Among other things, he did this after the Yevgeny Prigozhin mutiny and after Ukraine captured territories in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin went out on Thursday in an unusual manner to meet citizens during his visit to Saint Petersburg. In fact, this is such an unusual event that it is one of the few times that Vladimir Putin has gone out to meet citizens in an apparently spontaneous manner since the war in Ukraine began more than four and a half years ago. Not only is this an exceptional event, but it may indicate that Vladimir Putin understands that he is in an exceptional crisis.

According to an analysis by the Agentstvo channel, an independent news channel identified with the Russian opposition, this is the second time in about a month and a half that Vladimir Putin has stopped his motorcade and gone out to talk to people who were waiting for him. According to the commentary published, the frequency of these public appearances is reminiscent of Vladimir Putin's conduct during periods when the Kremlin was dealing with major crises.

After his visit to the Admiralty building in Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Putin stopped the motorcade, got out of the car without his jacket, and approached the crowd waiting at the site. The meeting was particularly short. According to the video published by Kremlin correspondent Pavel Zarubin, Vladimir Putin was outside his vehicle for only about 40 seconds before continuing on his way, while trying to project a light and informal atmosphere.

The last time Vladimir Putin went out to meet citizens on the street was in June, during a visit to the city of Kazan. Before that, he did so in July 2025, also during a visit to Saint Petersburg as part of the Russian Navy Day events. The report also raised another point: the video documenting the meeting with the citizens was published only about two hours after it took place.

The first reports appeared at 20:33, while the video was uploaded to Telegram only at 22:33. According to the publication, this delay caused the event to receive almost no coverage in many media outlets.

According to the analysis published on the opposition channel, since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has almost never had the habit of going out spontaneously to meet citizens. The first time was in September 2022 during a visit to the Kaliningrad exclave. Later, in March 2023, he met with residents of occupied Mariupol during a night visit to the city.

However, according to the report, the increase in the frequency of meetings began precisely after the mutiny of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in June 2023. A few days after the mutiny, Vladimir Putin went out to meet citizens in Derbent. A month later, he did so in Kronstadt. Another month later, in the Kursk region, and on September 1 he also arrived to residents in the Tver region.

Also in 2024, it is claimed, Vladimir Putin appeared in public after events that were perceived as major crises. Six days after the mysterious death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin stopped near one of the villages in Chuvashia and spoke with residents who had been waiting for his motorcade for hours. On March 5, he went out again to meet citizens, this time in Stavropol.

Another meeting took place on March 27 in the city of Torzhok, just five days after the severe terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow, in which 144 people were murdered. During the summer of 2024, Vladimir Putin went out three more times to meet citizens.

According to the report, one of the appearances took place after the double terrorist attack in Dagestan, which is considered the largest in the republic in the last 12 years, while another appearance took place about two weeks after the start of the Ukrainian army's invasion of the Kursk region, an event that was perceived as a particularly severe crisis.

The current wave of spontaneous appearances by Vladimir Putin is also taking place against the backdrop of a series of crises related to the war in Ukraine. Recently, it is evident that Ukraine has greatly escalated attacks deep inside Russian territory, with extensive drone strikes in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as well as on a series of oil refineries across Russia.

Among other things, Ukraine recently managed to hit a series of huge warehouses of the Russian delivery company Wildberries (the Russian Amazon), and actually managed to stop the Russian army from advancing on most combat sectors on the battlefield. At the same time, Ukraine managed to impose a kind of aerial siege on the Crimean Peninsula, which is under Russian control, while preventing Russia from transferring basic supplies and fuel there, and a severe shortage was recorded in the area.

Due to damage to energy infrastructure in Russia, a real fuel crisis was recorded, and citizens are forced to wait for long hours in line at gas stations in large parts of the country. Beyond all this, it is likely that what bothers Vladimir Putin most of all is the fact that even he, the strong and almost all-powerful ruler of Russia, is suffering from a dramatic support crisis.

In official polls in Russia conducted in recent months, he received about 62%, a low for recent years, since the war in Ukraine began.