Poll: Russians trust Putin up to 80%

According to the daily report of the reference news network on April 23 in Moscow, the satellite news agency reported on April 23 that the results of a poll conducted by the Russian public opinion survey organization "All Russian Social Opinion Research Center" showed that 80.7% of Russians trusted Putin and 78.4% of Russian citizens were satisfied with his policy statement.

Data shows that during the period from April 11 to 17, Russians were 78.4% satisfied with Putin's governance and 80.7% trusted Putin in the same period. At the same time, 15.7% of the people expressed no confidence in Putin, and 13.7% of the people were dissatisfied with his administration.

The poll was conducted from April 11 to 17, and 1600 Russian citizens over the age of 18 participated.

According to the report of global figures on April 26, 2021, what are the implications behind Putin's taking the lead in "printing payslips"?

The 68 year old Putin "the Great Emperor" has always shown himself as a "tough guy".

Riding horses, hunting, judo, racing cars, playing ice hockey, it's easy for a tough guy to do what he can. Four months ago, in order to celebrate Epiphany Day, Putin took off his sheepskin coat and went into the cross shaped pool in the cold of nearly minus 20 degrees Celsius. He completed the baptism ceremony and surprised everyone with an "ice bath".

· In April 2021, Putin celebrated Epiphany Day with "ice bath".

This time, Putin, who is used to showing off his bare arms and muscles, used to use a pay slip to brush the screen again.

According to the President's 2020 income and expenditure and property declaration published on the Kremlin website, Putin's income in 2020 was 9994000 rubles (1 ruble is about 0.08 yuan), an increase of nearly 270000 rubles over 2019. Agence France Presse reported that this was far less than what the outside world had speculated.

After a busy year, the list of assets declared by Putin this time has not changed. His entire wealth includes: a 77 square meter small apartment and an 18 square meter garage in St. Petersburg; A 153.7 square meter residence and an 18 square meter garage in Moscow; There are also two "GAZ M21" vintage cars, a "Niwa" off-road vehicle and a car trailer.

From the salary slip and property list, compared with some western heads of state, Putin's financial resources seem slightly "shabby". Poor financial ability, no sideline income, Putin himself admitted: "I will not do business."

It is worth noting that this simple payslip and property declaration form not only shows that Putin is busy with state affairs and has no intention of doing sidelines, but also has been interpreted more deeply.

It is a routine operation

to publish the "payslip" and property declaration form of Russian civil servants, which is a tradition of the Kremlin.

In 1997, the Yeltsin government promulgated the Government Law of the Russian Federation, which stipulates that the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Ministers and Federal Ministers of the government are required to declare their personal property to the Russian tax authorities every year. On December 25, 2008, then President Medvedev signed the Anti Corruption Law of the Russian Federation, which clearly stated that not only public officials should declare their property, but also the property of public officials, their spouses and minor children should be made public.

According to the practice, the official websites of the Kremlin and the Russian government will publish the "payslips" and property declaration forms of officials every year. In the previous few years, Putin's entire income and wealth would be listed on the Internet on time.

In 2014, Putin's income was 7.654 million rubles. In the two years since then, the annual income has hardly changed, being 8.9 million rubles. In 2017, Putin's income doubled to 18.7 million rubles. The reason why his income soared that year was that he sold a 1500 square meter piece of land. In 2018, Putin's income stabilized again to 8.648 million rubles. In 2019, the income increased slightly to 9.726 million rubles.

On the eve of the 2018 Russian election, Putin also specially announced the total income of the past six years, totaling 38.5 million rubles, and his property list, including salary income, military subsidies and bank deposits. Russian media analyzed the composition of Putin's assets - all his properties are in Russia.

Putin has few assets and low income. The first reason is that he is really not interested in business, does not like to engage in sidelines, and does not like to study how to make money. Just three months ago, Putin said in an interview that he was not interested in business and had never done business. Speaking of his desired retirement life, he said that he was very interested in the field of wine making and hoped to work as a legal adviser in this field. But Putin stressed: "I do not want to establish an enterprise, but hope to engage in a career; not as a businessman, but as a legal expert."

The ambition to be a legal adviser originated from Putin's student days. In 1970, he studied law at St. Petersburg National University, and was a top student of law. After graduation, he first joined the "National Security Council of the Soviet Union" (KGB) and became a secret agent. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he came to Moscow and gradually entered the political arena.

· Putin's photos in his youth

The second reason for his low assets and income is that Putin is deeply aware of the serious damage caused to the country by the collusion between government and business and the oligarchy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and is determined to draw a clear line between government and business, and hopes to set an example.

In order to discredit Putin, the western media constantly hype "secrets" such as Putin's luxurious life, which some Russian opponents also relish. In October 2017, Navali, the leader of the Russian Anti Corruption Foundation, known as "Putin's number one opposition", released a video of "Putin's secret villa" on the Internet. However, before Putin responded, Russian netizens pointed out that the villa was a convalescent center opened by a company and had nothing to do with Putin. Then, the voice of public opinion was one-sided - netizens laughed at Navalyne for not achieving his goal of smearing Putin, but making mistakes and digging holes for himself.

According to statistics, Russians once trusted Putin as high as 85%. This is not only because of his effective "iron fist method", but also closely related to his clean image.

The president with the lowest salary

Compared with the leaders of other western countries, Putin's annual salary is "pitiful".

Singapore advocates "high salary to maintain integrity", and the salaries of government civil servants are very high. In 2012, Singapore made a pay cut for civil servants. Premier Lee Hsien Loong's annual salary decreased by 36% to 1.7 million US dollars (one US dollar is about 6.4 yuan). But even so, he is still one of the world's highest paid national leaders, whose salary is about 17 times Putin's annual salary.

· Li Xianlong and his wife He Jing

According to Article 3 of the United States Code, at present, the annual salary of the President of the United States is 400000 dollars, which is more than three times that of Putin. In addition, the income of American politicians is not limited to wages. They also publish books, give speeches and do consulting work.

For example, according to American media reports, when Obama first entered the White House in 2009, his assets were only 1.3 million dollars; By 2015, the year before Obama left office, his net assets had reached 70 million dollars. As for Trump, the former President of the United States, who was originally a businessman, his income is naturally not the same level as Putin's.

· As early as 2004, Obama published his memoir My Father's Dream; In 2006, he wrote the book "Fearless Hope"; In 2010, Obama published a children's book "Praise You: A Letter to Daughters" as his father. The Daily Mail reported that from 2005 to 2016, the three books brought him $15.6 million.

In 2014, Forbes magazine reported that Poloshenko, the then President of Ukraine, who was a "candy tycoon", had assets of up to 1.3 billion US dollars, leaving Putin far behind.

· The former President of Ukraine Poloshenko

, compared with his "peers", Putin's salary is "miserable". Even compared with other domestic officials, Putin's income is not high.

In 2019, the highest income in the Russian government system was Denis Mantulov, Minister of Industry and Trade, 586 million rubles; The second is Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernishenko, 432.3 million rubles; Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev ranked third, and his revenue in 2019 dropped from 538 million rubles in 2018 to 180 million rubles; In the fourth place was the Minister of Agriculture, Dmitry Patrushev, whose income in 2019 was nearly 157 million rubles; Maksut Shadayev, Minister of Communications and Mass Media, ranked fifth, with an income of 9.07 million rubles in 2019.

· Denis Mantorov, Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia. In 2019, its income was 586 million rubles, ranking first among Russian officials.

In fact, in recent years, the income of Russian civil servants has been growing. According to Russian media, civil servants are one of the highest paid jobs in Russia, and one third of young Russians want to become civil servants. In order to improve the government's incorruptibility index, Putin "acts with grace and authority" to civil servants, raising their salaries while "hitting hard" to fight against corruption.

His salary is "the bottom", but Putin did not forget to warn young people who want to be civil servants: "If you want to make money, go to business. If you want to continue to be civil servants, please live honestly on a national salary."

The governance strategy of the Russian government

It can be seen that a low salary and clean government is both Putin's personal choice and the governance strategy of the Russian government.

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin carried out privatization reform, and the entire Russian economic system collapsed, and the society fell into chaos. The brutal growth of the gang and some Russian officials in the same boat. They use various means to acquire national wealth such as companies and land at a low price.

According to Putin's Biography, from 1993 to 1996, in St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia, 40% of private enterprises, 60% of state-owned enterprises and 50% of banks were controlled by criminal organizations.

Under the turbulence, deformed economies created oligopoly groups parasitic on the state. In the 1990s, seven oligarchs were born in Russia. They illegally stole state property and even began to manipulate state politics.

In 2000, the first thing Putin did after taking office was to eliminate oligarchs. At first, the seven oligarchs did not pay attention to this newly arrived and unstable president. Putin declared war on the oligarch, first solved the problem of the Kremlin, and then put Gusinski, the "media tycoon", in prison.

· The remaining oligarchs of Gusinski

, one of the seven Russian oligarchs, immediately panicked: Berezov, who smelled danger, fled to London, England, and wrote to Putin many times to apologize; Khodor, the richest man of Russia who illegally stole Yukos Oil Company, was arrested at the airport of Siberia; Other oligarchs are scattered like birds and beasts, either bankrupt or fleeing for refuge. Putin, the "tough guy", won a beautiful battle with the seven oligarchs.

The second important thing after Putin took office is to improve the law and crack down on corruption. Corruption is another major problem left over from the Soviet period, which became more and more serious in the oligopoly era of power and money collusion. After Putin took office as President, he took the lead in attacking the then Defense Minister Serdyukov. Agriculture Minister Sklennik, former Deputy Minister of Regional Development of Russia Panov and other high-level officials fell down one after another. One after another, the massive anti-corruption live TV broadcast shocked the entire Russia and made Putin the focus of the global media again.

· Former Minister of Defense of Russia Serdyukov, who was defeated by corruption.

In 2008, Medvedev, then President of Russia, established the National Anti Corruption Commission, which is directly led by the President. In 2012, Putin listed the "National Plan against Corruption" as the focus of his governance direction, which opened the prelude to a new round of high-profile anti-corruption. In December 2013, Putin set up another "direct" institution besides the National Anti Corruption Commission - the Anti Corruption Affairs Bureau of the President of Russia. Obviously, Putin has incorporated anti-corruption into the national strategic level.

However, the Russian anti-corruption campaign has been going on for 20 years, but the results have not been satisfactory. The corruption problem is still a headache for the "tough guy" Putin.

Putin grew up under the Soviet system and witnessed the collusion between power and money after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so he became more disgusted with seeking personal wealth through private rights. After taking office as President, he did not want to study how to make money, took the lead in publishing wages and property, striving to be the "poorest president", and also used this to send a signal to the Russian people that he was determined and confident to build a cleaner and more transparent Russian officialdom.

Editor in charge: Zhang Yu