February 2023 marks one year since the beginning of the special military operation (February 24, 2022). February 21, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual address to the Federal Assembly. The head of state noted: “This is not only a time of challenges but also a time of opportunities… And our future depends on the way we realize these opportunities. We must put an end – and I want to emphasize this – to all interagency conflicts, red tape, grievances, doublespeak, or any other nonsense. Everything we do must contribute to achieving our goals and delivering results. This is what we must strive to achieve”… And here the President is certainly right, since the principle of “everything must contribute to achieving our goals and delivering results” is hindered by the activities and managerial decisions of individual representatives of bureaucracy who are unable or unwilling to comply with the new conditions in which the country found itself after the start of the special military operation. In the article, we carry on analyzing the situation in Russia, key steps taken by the President in the face of increasing threats to national security, trends in public opinion and individual facts of real life that contradict the dominant national-patriotic trend of social sentiment and the tasks set by the President after February 24, 2022. The information base for our research includes assessments by experts from various fields, results of monitoring sociological surveys, and public speeches of the head of state since 2000. One of our main conclusions is that the future of Russia, the real formation of a new Social Contract, which is possible only after Russia’s victory in the special military operation and which consists in building a sovereign social state based on traditional spiritual and moral values and the principle of social justice, should begin with the mobilization of elites, elimination of “contradictions, formalities and other nonsense”; and the head of state can and should be the initiator of this process
Keywords
public opinion, President of the Russian Federation, special military operation, new Social Contract, 2024 presidential election