For Putin, World Cup shows Russia cannot be caged by hostile West
Vladimir Putin is struggling to get a summit with Donald Trump, has little hope of ending Western sanctions, and is seen in much of the West as a pariah. So hosting the World Cup this month is a welcome moment in the global limelight.
In the Russian president’s eyes, it sends a message of defiance to the world and his own people which fits his favored storyline: Russia is succeeding despite Western efforts to hold it back.
“For Putin, hosting the World Cup speaks to the failure of sanctions and the failure of Western efforts to isolate him,” said Professor Sergei Medvedev, of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, referring to Western sanctions first imposed on Russia after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
“Despite all that, (his mindset is) we still have Crimea, we are pursuing our agenda, and yet look everyone has come to the World Cup”, Medvedev said.
Putin does not want Russians to think their country is isolated because that could undermine his narrative of Russia as an influential great power with a seat at the top table of global affairs.
Thirty-two teams will compete in the June 14 to July 15 tournament, being hosted in Russia for the first time in World Cup history, at an official cost of 683 billion rubles ($11 billion).
A senior Russian government official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the tournament was the latest in a series of events which showed Western attempts to isolate Russia were breaking down.
“If this is isolation, then we are enjoying it,” the official quipped.
Polls show Putin’s message that Russia is on the up despite a hostile West plays well with voters. It is amplified by government officials who have spent months complaining of a shadowy Western plot to discredit Russia’s World Cup.
“The stronger the anti-Russian campaign ahead of the World Cup is, the more people will be genuinely amazed when they see there is no barbed wire at the stadiums,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova told reporters last month.
A suggestion by British foreign minister Boris Johnson in March that Putin would use the World Cup to bolster Russia’s image as Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany was seen as proof the West wanted to spoil Russia’s moment.
Zakharova said Johnson was “poisoned with hatred”.
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