Putin’s rot

This is Putin’s time. Next week, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Moscow, and the Kremlin has spared no expense to showcase Vladimir Putin’s new Russia as a vibrant, safe and strong nation. Half a million visitors will be welcomed — with the Russian press reporting that the notorious ‘Ultra’ hooligans have been officially warned to behave themselves or face the full wrath of the state. Despite four years of rock-bottom oil prices, Putin has nonetheless found the cash to build or refurbish a dozen new stadiums. Moscow has undergone a two-year city-wide facelift that has left it looking cleaner, fresher and more prosperous than any European capital I have seen. The political message is clear: international opprobrium over the Skripal case, the destruction of Aleppo and the annexation of Crimea mean nothing to Putin. He has made Russia great again.

You can see why most Russians, and plenty of Putin’s admirers in the West, believe it. The oil boom that coincided with Putin’s rule has brought unprecedented prosperity to his countrymen. Putin’s replacement of bandits by state-approved extortionists in uniform and his ruthless crackdown on opposition voices in Russia’s once-vigorous media and parliament have created a silence that sounds to many like stability.

But under the patriotic hype over grand multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects like a new bridge to Crimea and shiny stadiums, Russia is crumbling. According to the country’s own statistics agency, there were 68,100 schools in 2000; 41,100 now. When Putin came to power, there were 10,700 hospitals but now there are 5,400. The amount of living space declared unfit for habitation has more than doubled — keeping pace with the numbers of bureaucrats, which has swollen from fewer than 1.2 million at the start of the millennium to 2.2 million today. Despite years of high oil prices, Russia’s GDP remains in real terms smaller than it was in 1990.