Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Guest post: Putin and the Sochi Potemkin village | beyondbrics

Guest post: Putin and the Sochi Potemkin village | beyondbrics:

"Vladimir Putin has been acclaimed by many as the man of 2013. He outmanoeuvred the west first on Syria and then on Ukraine. He has tried to show a softer side with recent high-profile pardons, from Khodorkovsky to Pussy Riot and Greenpeace campaigners. Now momentum is building up to the Sochi Winter Olympics, which will be presented as a show case for Russia and the Putin regime.

It will be interesting to see if he remains at his peak in 2014, post-Sochi.

There is a trail of countries that ran high-profile global sporting events and suffered the “Olympics effect” of post-event depression, especially having had to pick up a rather large tab – for example, most recently, Greece and South Africa."

'via Blog this'

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