President Vladimir Putin has ditched his annual marathon news conference following a series of battlefield setbacks in Ukraine -- a tacit acknowledgment that the Russian leader's war has gone badly wrong.
Putin typically uses the year-end ritual to polish his image, answering a wide range of questions on domestic and foreign policy to demonstrate his grip on details and give the semblance of openness even though the event is tightly stage-managed.
Some of his previous performances lasted for more than 4 1/2 hours, during which he has sometimes faced some pointed questions, but used them to mock the West or denigrate his domestic opponents. The Kremlin has muzzled any criticism of its invasion of Ukraine from the liberal anti-war camp, shutting independent media outlets and criminalizing the spread of any information that differs from the official view -- including calling the campaign a war. But it has faced an increasingly vocal criticism from Russian hardliners, who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and called for ramping up strikes on Ukraine.
Putin and his officials hoped to rout the Ukrainian military in a few days, but a fierce Ukrainian resistance -- bolstered by Western weapons -- quickly derailed those plans. After a botched attempt to quickly capture the Ukrainian capital, the Russian troops pulled back from areas around Kyiv in March.
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