Vladimir Putin

• They failed to stop Putin and Putinism, and now have only themselves to blame.
• In Russia, a common narrative has also emerged, on which acceptance of the war rests – even if there isn’t outright support.
• The frame is that the west is against Russia and determined to cut it off from Europe.
• Putin may not have needed to start the war, but as the current situation offers no way out, Russia has to plough on.

Wanted: a credible opposition narrative

• The Russian opposition in Europe has been largely unsuccessful in offering a credible alternative.
• Others, like Garry Kasparov, believe change should come through a Ukrainian military victory.
• It’s hard to expect many Russians to wish to see their own army defeated, even if they oppose the war.
• Unless the opposition comes up with ideas that offer hope, it risks being confined to an insular and aggrieved group, focusing on their own squabbles, as the interest in the war in the west wanes.

Don’t isolate ordinary Russians

• Russians I have met believe it is too risky to speak Russian in public in the west and that they would be hated if they were to travel.
• Physically isolated from Europe, and cut off from academic and scientific collaboration, Russians feel persecuted as a nation.
• Though sympathies exist in Asia and elsewhere, Russia is a European country and Russians are European people.
• In time, the war will end, and Russians and Ukrainians will find their ways of dealing with each other.

• Victory Day, which commemorates the defeat of Nazism in Europe is the most important holiday in Russia.
• That year, the Victory Day parade was held on the Red Square in Moscow for first time since 1945.
• May 9 became a day of public celebrations, family outings, concerts and fireworks – all broadcast on national television.
• Victory Day was the only major public holiday that made the transition to post-Soviet Russia.
• In the Putin era – especially after the 2014 occupation of Crimea – Victory Day foregrounds readiness to fight to protect the motherland and the value of self-sacrifice.

March of the Immortals

• They could have contributed in any capacity – armed forces fighters and service personnel, partisans, home-front workers, and more.
• The following year, Immortal Regiment marches were organised in many Russian cities, as well as in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Israel.
• Sensing a successful popular initiative, the state moved in and took over organisation of the Immortal Regiment and its publicity.

Controlling the message

• Russian official media explain the scaling down of celebrations in pragmatic terms, citing potential “provocations” and “terrorist attacks”.
• But the real reason probably has to do with controlling the official narrative of the war.
• So the message of Victory Day celebrations must be carefully controlled and curated.
• The last thing the Kremlin wants is for large numbers of people to turn up holding pictures of their loved ones killed in Ukraine.

• BERLIN, Jan. 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- An analysis of social media posts around the war in Ukraine conducted by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) suggests that Ukrainians feel ready to cope with prolonged heating and electricity shortages caused by ongoing Russian airstrikes.
• While analysing conversations around nuclear strikes on social media, DRI found that the conversation on the topic is much more negative on Twitter than on Telegram.
• By combing through social media messages on specific topics and analysing influential accounts and channels, DRI undertook a quantitative and qualitative analysis to publish a series of reports.
• These cover how Ukrainians perceive allies, the Russian mobilisation effort, the nuclear threat and the Russian airstrikes, among other topics.

• Given that inflation had already been high for some time, this triggered a further monetary policy adjustment.
• But beyond February any unconditional guidance – that is, guidance unrelated to the economic outlook – would depart from our data-driven approach.
• But don’t you think that the ECB should provide markets with guidance on the next moves?
• Today we are fighting too-high inflation, and to do so we can bring rates as high as we deem appropriate to reach our target.
• Also, there is too much uncertainty in the economy to unconditionally pre-commit to a specific policy course.
• We should provide clarity on, and be guided by, our reaction function, which is rooted in our price stability mandate and consists of two main elements.
• The first is the economic and inflation outlook: we will react to medium-term inflation remaining above our target.
• It will be the economy, of course, and how its evolution will affect the two elements of our reaction function.
• Depending on this assessment, we may decide that more or less tightening is needed compared to what we envisaged in December.
• We should thus not be surprised that investors adjust their expectations of future rates as new data emerge.
• But we need to make our own reading of these data clear to them.
• But for 2024 and 2025 you have revised your inflation projections up, above your 2% target.
• But it will then stay at around 3.4% in 2024 and will reach 2% only in the third quarter of 2025.
• It may instead reflect a different allocation of the Putin “tax” between wages and profits, allowing a one-off catch-up in wages.
• This may be absorbed by firm mark-ups after their recent increase or through a fall in other input costs such as energy.
• As with cash, we want to ensure that everybody in the euro area has easy access to the digital euro.
• For all the enthusiasm I have for the project, no decision has been made yet on whether the digital euro will be issued.
• We want to offer a public good to citizens, which will coexist with other means of payment including cash.