TRAMPLED BY UNICORN HOOVES:

[I]ncreasingly, commentators in Russia have begun to suspect other motives, beginning with a need to distract attention from gaping holes in the federal budget and the painful, politically unpopular steps needed to close them.

"The serious part is not shown on television," Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, said. "The serious part is the battle of the budget."

Russians are facing rising utility rates, and a new fee for building maintenance is especially irksome. Government spending on health care might be slashed 33 percent.

Despite all the swagger the military budget will be cut by 6 percent annually for the next three years, after 15 years of increases.

"When we look at this rather grim-looking budget, it is basically spending for police and pensions and not much else," Ms. Schulmann said. [...]

For the first time since Mr. Putin's first tenure as president, which began in 2000, Russians are facing falling incomes. An October report from the Higher School of Economics calculated that real monthly income per capita fell to just under $500 per month, or roughly 87 percent of the income level in August 2014.

The backlog of unpaid wages has reached an astronomical $56 million, while the Center for Political and Economic Reforms says the number of strikes and rallies over labor disputes has doubled in the past three months.

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