Should we ignore Putin's criticism of the West?

Not much happens in Russian families without the say so of the babushka. Russia’s high divorce-rate, and a situation where fathers are often absent and the mother out at work, makes it normal for grandmothers – who often hold the family purse-strings – to raise children themselves.

This doesn’t, of course, mean that the younger and older generation see eye to eye: babushka tends not to use the internet or understand modern technology, and might hold conservative opinions radically different from the grandchild’s. Yet there is often a spirit, in the political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann’s words, of ‘hopeless obedience’ to her.

Something similar is at play in the way many Russians view Putin. You might not like Russia’s political class and groan at their opinions but they are going nowhere. You have to humour them and give at least the appearance of complying. Putin, in fact, rather than being Father of the Nation, is – as Schulmann puts it – more like the great ‘All-Russian Babushka’.