Russians view their president, Vladimir Putin, in a special way, the way they see the leader from the Kremlin can be more difficult to understand for people who have lived in a democratic society all their lives.

In his analysis on his Twitter page, Volodymyr Tretyak, a researcher at the Vienna University of Technology who specializes in media and computer science, says that Putin has come to present himself in Russia almost as a god or a saint.

Tretyak, who became famous after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine on February 24 thanks to his translations in the Russian press, begins by reminding that the Russian leader always publicly denies any personal relationships with other people.

Since his famous divorce in 2013, he has not officially had a partner, and all his children have different names. Putin always avoids questions about them, and the Russian media presents him as always lonely, suggesting that the president is fully involved in his position.

The way he is presented by the Russian press creates the impression that he is performing a “holy mission” for Russia.

Vladimir Putin is never guilty

Secondly, the Russian president is completely out of the ordinary life of Russians, he is almost never presented in a casual context. He does not give television interviews that are broadcast in the evening, like, for example, American presidents, and he does not interfere in the shows of Kremlin propagandists, like Volodymyr Solovyov or Olga Skabeeva.

The exception to this is his once-a-year Kremlin press conference, during which Putin lays out his views on everything from global geopolitical events to Russia’s wheat harvest to the price of borscht.

In his rare interviews with the Russian press, he usually appears in the luxurious surroundings of the Kremlin. He has also never been seen riding a bicycle in public or doing other things common for European leaders.

But the most important thing: in the minds of Russians, Putin is never guilty of anything.

Tretyak says that he watched reports from Russian television and bloggers in poor places, but even here people do not blame the president for their situation. The researcher gives an example of a report made in the Kamchatka region of the Far East of Russia.

The elderly person interviewed for the material lives in a communal apartment without having his own home. But he praises the Russian president.

“I like Putin. He restored the army,” he says. Stary also declares that he is satisfied with the occupation of Crimea, although, as Tretyak points out, he is unlikely to ever visit the peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Instead, the old man blames the local authorities for his miserable life, which is a common thing in Russia. People blame politicians for all kinds of things, but Putin is rarely held responsible for their problems.

Even critics of the “special operation” do not dare to attack the Kremlin leader

As an example, Tretyak cites a video published by the ex-commander of the separatists in Donbas, Igor Girkin, in which the former colonel and politician is his guest.

He asks “who dared to tell our president that we have 2,000 modern drones?”, referring to last year’s marathon press conference when Putin said so. As the war in Ukraine showed, this turned out to be false.

The former colonel seems to believe that the president of Russia cannot spread false information. And even if he does, someone other than Vladimir Putin will be responsible.

Tretyak also recalls the numerous statements of Igor Girkin, who later became one of Russia’s most famous military bloggers, in which he criticized the military command in Moscow in an extremely harsh manner.

He went so far as to say that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu only knows how to chop firewood and raise reindeer, referring to his birthplace in Siberia, and that he should be traded for Iran’s Defense Minister because he managed to equip Tehran’s armed forces thousands of modern drones, despite US sanctions.

But Tretyak notes that Girkin has never spoken negatively about Putin, which may explain the fact that he is given so much freedom to criticize the development of the “special forces operation”.

In Russia, the people owe Putin, not the other way around

The researcher also says that other groups in Russia also do not believe that Putin is responsible for the problems facing the country, which is ironic given that he is considered as all-powerful as the tsars of old.

Putin himself recently compared his policy with that of Peter the Great.

“The Germans lived under a dictatorship for about 41 years, and the Russians suffered under it for centuries. There were periods of weight loss, but they were short. And this enormous humility could also explain the large number of dictatorships in the post-Soviet space,” says Volodymyr Tretyak.

He also says that the big difference between democratic systems and Russia’s would be that Russians feel that they are beholden to their president, not the other way around.

“The president does not work for the people, but the people work for the president. Of course, people do not question the president’s decision, the president demands responsibility from the people,” Tretyak explains.

“It’s like 1984 or any dystopian book. That’s how bad everything is,” he emphasizes.

Tretiak also mentions people in the West who say that “both sides are bad”, “the US bombed Iraq”, “America wants to start World War III”, etc.

“They don’t understand what Russia is,” concludes a researcher from Austria.

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