01 'Putin Generation'

Putin, now in his fourth (and newly-extended six-year) term in power, has seen his approval ratings remain reasonably high — no more so than when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 when his rating rose to the mid-80% range — and continued to be high despite the international sanctions that followed.

In the last few months, the sheen has again started to come off Putin’s ratings — among older people, in particular — following widely unpopular pension reform and the raising of the retirement age to 65 years from 60 for men and to 60 years from 55 for women. As of July 2019, Putin’s approval rating stood at 68%, according to the independent Levada Center pollster.

Putin has said that he will not run for president in 2024 when the next election is held although many experts say that remains to be seen. Nonetheless, it has got people thinking about a “post-Putin” Russia and which political direction younger people, in particular, will take.

“The younger generation is a very important dimension in Russian politics,” Ulrich Schmid, professor of Russian Culture and Society at St. Gallen University in Switzerland, told CNBC.

“This is the so-called ‘Putin Generation,’ the young generation that cannot be scared off by pointing to the awful situation in the 1990s, because this has been the main political strategy by the political engineers in the Kremlin. Those who were born in (the) ‘90s don’t remember the demise of the Soviet Union, they don’t remember the economic hardships,” Schmid said.

“They still are very much rooted in Western European culture and traditions, especially when it comes to mass and popular culture,” he added.