In the United States, a 74 percent approval rating is almost unprecedentedly popular; In Russia, it’s a crisis. According to The Wall Street Journal the slipping Russian economy is diminishing the once-bulletproof approval ratings of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (now at 74 percent) and President Dmitri Medvedev (now at 69 percent). The Russian is economy is projected to shrink by 2.2 percent this year, as opposed to the 8 percent growth that has been standard in recent years. In the wake of the grim news, the Kremlin announced that it would slash its budget for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
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