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Eastern Europe
June 22, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
The news was also deliberately buried as the of- ficial announcement was made on the same day as the World Cup tournament kicked off with a stunning and very unexpected 5:0 victory for the Russian national team against Saudi Arabia.
The decision was a bold one and long overdue. But it is also the first time that Putin has directly increased the burden on the population since he took office 17 years ago. The bedrock of his sky high popularity has been the low flat taxes on in- come that he has refused to increase. The implicit promise in Putin’s social contract has been: “stay
out of politics and I will deliver on prosperity.”
Russia watchers will be following this story close- ly to see if there are more protests following the increase in retirement ages. In 47 of Russia’s 81 regions average life expectancies are less than 65 years old, reports RFE/RL.
Protests of any sort have been banned for the du- ration of the World Cup and there are reports on social media the Kremlin has ordered a blackout on reporting on crimes until the end of July.