On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted an eight-year-old girl in the Kremlin and had her join him in an unusual phone call to his finance minister to request a budget grant for her home region.
The Kremlin published a video of Putin greeting the girl, Raisat Akipova, the latest in a string of appearances since a short-armed mutiny last month that appears to portray him as caring, concerned, and in control.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov first seemed perplexed by the phone call and did not respond to the girl’s greeting, but immediately agreed to the additional cash for her home region in southern Russia.
“Excellent!” Putin responded, before assuring the girl, “We’ve got 5 billion roubles for Dagestan” – a sum equal to $55.6 million.
During the talk, Putin laughed with Raisat and made a similar call to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. When pushed by the president, the girl, who was clutching a bouquet of flowers, thanked Siluanov.
The visit followed Putin’s visit to Dagestan last week during which he mingled with a sizable throng.
The Kremlin cited this as proof of the president’s astounding popularity in Russian society, just days after the brief mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group spurred him to warn of the prospect of civil war in Russia.
Putin told Raisat that he had invited her and her parents to Moscow because he had been upset by seeing a photo of her in tears after failing to get to see him on his Dagestan trip.
Also read: Saudi Arabia And Kuwait Claim Ownership Of Gas Field Sought By Iran
The Supreme Court has also paused the Allahabad High Court’s order for a survey of…
The Yogi Adityanath administration has launched a tree-planting campaign to make Prayagraj environmentally sustainable for…
Singh noted that, over seven years, police encounters have killed 197 criminals and injured 6,329.…
The Election Commission of India endorsed the appointment of Sanjay Kumar Verma as the new…
Devotees at Mathura's Banke Bihari temple gathered to collect water dripping from a sculpted elephant,…
A nine-judge SC bench ruled that the State cannot indiscriminately seize private property for redistribution…