Putin to Give Annual News Conference in Russia on Thursday

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will keep his year-end data conference on Thursday, resuming an annual customized at an important second for the battle his forces are waging in Ukraine.

The December data conference has traditionally been a wide-ranging marathon that offers reporters a unusual — albeit stage-managed — chance to pose doubtlessly robust questions. Mr. Putin finds himself in so much higher kind than a 12 months earlier, when he skipped the annual ritual amid setbacks in Ukraine.

Proper right here’s a check out the themes Mr. Putin is predicted to cope with.

• Mr. Putin is nearing the third 12 months of his invasion of Ukraine prepared of relative vitality. Bolstered by dense defenses, Russian forces have fended off Ukraine’s counteroffensive this 12 months and are literally attacking in quite a lot of areas alongside the doorway line. Russia’s navy manufacturing is ramping up, and the navy — no matter very extreme casualties — has been able to regain its footing with out resorting, to date, to a model new wave of mobilization.

  Additional broadly, the deadlock over navy assist for Ukraine inside the U.S. Congress is making Mr. Putin’s long-term wager that his nation will outlast adversaries appear further affordable. Most neutral navy analysts think about that with out further American offers, Russia might start to expand useful properties subsequent 12 months.

• Mr. Putin has made the resilience of his nation’s wartime monetary system a critical talking stage in newest public speeches. No matter a flurry of worldwide sanctions, the Russian monetary system has regained its prewar dimension and is predicted to develop by about 3 p.c this 12 months, as a serious improve in navy spending stimulates manufacturing, whereas labor shortages drive wages to rise.

  Nonetheless file state spending has come at a worth: Inflation has climbed sharply as a result of the spring, extreme charges of curiosity are stifling private funding, firms are struggling to look out workers and the monetary system is turning into further relying on unstable oil revenues. Nonetheless for now, Mr. Putin seems snug to tout sturdy headline figures, which help his broad narrative that the worst monetary outcomes of the battle are over.

• The knowledge conference might be going to supply Mr. Putin with many foils for one amongst his favorite themes: presenting his worldwide adversaries as hypocritical and decadent. .

  Mr. Putin may additionally look to make use of the West’s social divisions, presenting himself as a champion of socially conservative causes that resonate with many citizens world broad.

• Mr. Putin has largely succeeded in resigning the Russian public to the battle and to a protracted standoff with the West. Organized resistance to the battle is waning amid escalating repression, and Mr. Putin has simply currently cracked down on the ultranationalist minority that had criticized his battle approach.

  Whether or not or not Mr. Putin can keep public apathy into subsequent 12 months is uncertain. Even when American help to Ukraine wanes, most analysts think about Mr. Putin’s forces are unlikely to understand a decisive breakthrough with out one different wave of mobilization, which is perhaps deeply unpopular.

• With Russia’s political system beneath his company administration, Mr. Putin is extensively anticipated to win another six-year term as president inside the election in March. Inside the absence of an actual rivals amongst candidates, the vote will nearly undoubtedly flip proper right into a referendum about Mr. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, and he’ll perhaps use the consequence in order so as to add a veneer of legitimacy to the battle and to trumpet Russians’ approval of his actions.

  If he had been re-elected and served out one different time interval, by 2030 Mr. Putin would turn into the longest-serving Russian chief as a result of the Empress Catherine the Good inside the 18th century, surpassing all the Soviet rulers, along with Stalin.

Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.