War in Ukraine: Vladimir Putin skips end-of-year press conference to avoid questions about conflict

Russian President Vladimir Putin he won’t be offering his traditional big annual press conference end of the year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov reported on Monday.

“Yes, there won’t be one before the New Year,” Peskov replied when asked if the Russian president’s annual press conference will not take place in the rest of 2022.

At the same time, the spokesman indicated that the presidency believes Putin will have the opportunity to speak with journalists covering the Kremlin, “as he does regularly, including during his trips abroad.”

Putin often uses this ritual to polish his image, answering a wide range of questions about domestic and foreign policy demonstrate your mastery of the details and giving the appearance of opening even if the event is well organised.

But this year, with its troops retreating into Ukraine, it may be impossible to avoid embarrassing questions about the mistakes of the Russian military, even in a highly choreographed event.

“While applications are almost certainly screened in advance, the cancellation is likely due to growing concerns about the prevalence of anti-war sentiment in Russiawrote the British Ministry of Defense in a commentary on Twitter.

“Kremlin officials are almost certainly extremely sensitive to the possibility that any event Putin attends could escalate into an unauthorized discussion of a ‘special military operation,'” he said, using Moscow’s term for war.

Some of his previous performances have reached last more than four and a half hoursduring which he was sometimes confronted with some stinging questions, but usually used them to mock the West or disparage his domestic opponents.

In 2022 Putin also canceled another annual appointment, a television program in which he answers questions from the public to strengthen his image as father of the country.

And so far this year, he has yet to deliver the speech. annual televised state of the nation address to Parliamenta constitutional obligation. No date has been set for Putin’s speech.

The Kremlin has muzzled any criticism of its invasion of Ukraine, shutting down independent media outlets and criminalizing the dissemination of any information that differs from the official point of view, including calling for war campaign.

But he has faced increasingly heated criticism from Russian extremists, who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and called for intensified attacks on Ukraine.

According to political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, the decision not to hold the press conference was probably due to Putin “It has nothing to say from a strategy point of view.

The background of 2021

“Russia does not threaten anyone‘ the Russian president said at his big 2021 press conference on December 23 last year, responding to a question from a Western journalist about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On that occasion, two months into the Russian military campaign in Ukraine that he ordered, Putin stressed that the threat is the United States, which has deployed missiles near the Russian border, as the Soviet Union did with Cuba in 1962.

The Russian president’s annual press conferences, to which more than a thousand journalists are accredited, they usually last several hours and are broadcast live on television.

The second news announced on Tuesday by the spokesman for the Russian presidency is that this year, marked by the military campaign in Ukraine, not even the traditional New Year’s reception will be held in the Kremlin.

Source: EFE and AP