PUTIN, 2005: 

“Negotiating with Obama is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon knocks over all the pieces, shits on the board and then struts around like it won the game.”

RUSSIAN JOKE, 2015:

Heard the one about Vladimir Putin?

The oil price and the ruble’s value against the dollar? They will all hit 63 next year.

The conservative media went mad when Putin invaded Ukraine .. Ben Shapiro, one of the more poisonous hate talkers on Seattle radio, said “the Obama administration continues to wonder just what the benighted dictator is thinking. Understanding that the best strategy for countering military action is undoubtedly faculty lounge-style condescension, the Obama administration has responded with its full array of resources: scorn, sneering, and bemusement.” Shapiro ranted on, “Meanwhile, the Obama administration has pushed hard against the development of new energy resources in the United States.  The good news for Putin is that Obama(‘s energy policy) is counter-revolutionary. ”

Now the joke is Russia is a bit sour.  Putin’s government is digging itself into a recession with the ruble devalued by 40%, prices rising, and GDP falling … all arising from  international sanctions and dropping oil prices under the pressure of Obama’s US energy policy.

Meanwhile, Putin seems sure to run for another six-year term in 2018.

from Bloomberg Business Week: 

“We are becoming poorer, our savings vanish, prices grow, however we see an opposite effect to the one that is wanted by people who wish to see Putin knocked down,” said Olga Kryshatanovskaya, a sociologist studying the elite at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The jokes just underline their determination to stand till the end, she said.

…..

A friend of Putin who spoke on condition of anonymity said sanctions won’t work because the U.S. and European Union don’t understand the Russian mentality. The country endured the Leningrad siege for more than two years during World War II and will survive this too, he said.

“The West is wrong in its understanding of the motivation Putin and his inner circle have,” said Evgeniy Minchenko, head of the International Institute of Political Expertise in Moscow. “They think Putin is a businessman, that money is the most important thing for him and that by pressing him and his allies financially they will break them.”

“People think it’s not patriotic of them to feel or recognize that they are suffering,” said Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada Center. “This shows a mental focus to resist external pressure and ignore sanctions. This mood in public can last not for months, but for years.”

According to the friend of Putin who evoked the Leningrad siege, the toughest thing for a lot of Russia’s elite is not being able to travel. Though there’s enough to do in Russia without having to go to other places, he said.

Meanwhile, quietly, the chess game goes on.