Just months before marking a quarter century as Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin will put his hand on a copy of the constitution on Tuesday and begin another six-year term as president with extraordinary power.
Since becoming acting president on the last day of 1999, Putin has turned Russia into a monolith: crushing the political opposition, expelling journalists with aspirations of independence, and fostering a growing devotion to conservative “traditional values” that It leaves many members of society on the margins.
His influence is so dominant that other officials could only submissively step aside when he launched a war in Ukraine despite expectations that the invasion would mean international isolation and harsh economic sanctions, as well as cost Russia a heavy price in blood. of his soldiers.
With that kind of power, what Putin might do in his next term is a daunting question both at home and abroad.
The war in Ukraine, where Russia is making costly and progressive advances on the battlefield, is the main concern, and has shown no signs of changing course.
“The war in Ukraine is crucial to his current political project, and I see nothing to suggest that will change. And that affects everything else,” said Brian Taylor, a Syracuse University professor and author of “The Code of Putinism,” in an interview with The Associated Press.
“It affects who is in those positions, it affects what resources are available and it affects the economy, it affects the level of repression internally,” he said.
In his State of the Union address in February, Putin promised to achieve Moscow’s goals in Ukraine and do everything necessary to “defend our sovereignty and the security of our citizens.” He stated that the Russian army has “gained enormous combat experience” and “firmly maintains the initiative and undertakes offensives in a number of places.”
That will have a high cost that could monopolize the money available for the large national projects and reforms in education, welfare and the fight against poverty that Putin detailed during much of his two-hour speech.
Taylor suggested that these projects were included in the speech for appearances’ sake rather than to indicate a real intention to carry them out.
Putin “sees himself in the grand historical terms of the Russian lands, putting Ukraine back where it belongs, those kinds of ideas. And I think that trumps any more socioeconomic type of program,” Taylor said.
European countries fear that if the war ends with anything short of total defeat for either side, such as Russia keeping some of the territory it has already captured, Putin could be emboldened to make more military incursions into the Baltics or elsewhere. Poland.
“Putin may have big ambitions and try to follow up a costly success in Ukraine with a new attack elsewhere,” Harvard international relations professor Stephen Walt noted in Foreign Policy magazine. “But it is also perfectly possible that his ambitions go no further than what Russia has gained, at enormous cost, and that he has no need or desire to risk more.”
However, Walt noted, “Russia will not be in a position to launch new wars of aggression when the war in Ukraine finally ends.”
That rational concern might not prevail, others noted. Maksim Samorukov of the Carnegie Center for Russia and Eurasia said that “given Putin’s whims and delusions, Moscow is likely to make counterproductive blunders.”
In a commentary in Foreign Affairs, Samorukov suggested that Putin’s age could affect his judgment.
“At 71 years old (…) being aware of your own mortality undoubtedly affects your decision-making. A growing sense that he has limited time undoubtedly contributed to his fateful decision to invade Ukraine,” he stated.
Overall, Putin could begin his new mandate with a weaker grip on power than it seems.
“(Russia’s) vulnerabilities are hidden in plain sight. “Now more than ever, the Kremlin makes decisions in a personalistic and arbitrary manner that lacks the most basic controls,” Samorukov added.
Putin is certain to continue his hostility toward the West, which he said in his State of the Union address “would like to do to Russia what it did in many other regions of the world, including Ukraine: bring discord to our home, weaken it from inside”.
Putin’s resistance to the West manifests itself not only as indignation at its support for Ukraine, but in what he sees as an undermining of Russian moral strength.
Russia banned the so-called LGBTQ+ “movement” last year, calling it extremist, in what authorities described as a fight for traditional values, such as those defended by the Russian Orthodox Church in the face of Western influence. The courts also vetoed gender transition.
“I would expect the role of the Russian Orthodox Church to remain quite visible,” Taylor said. She also mentioned the outbreak of outrage on social media following a party hosted by TV presenter Anastasia Ivleeva, where guests were asked to come “almost naked”.
“Other actors in the system understand that Putin likes these things (…) There were people interested in taking advantage of things like that,” he said.
Although the opposition and independent media have practically disappeared in the face of Putin’s repressive measures, there is still room for more initiatives to control the Russian information space, such as advancing his plans to establish a “sovereign internet.”
The inauguration took place two days after Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, commemorating the capture of Berlin by the Red Army in World War II and the immense hardships of the war, in which the USSR lost about 20 million people.
The defeat of Nazi Germany is a centerpiece of modern Russian identity and to Putin’s justification for the war in Ukraine, which he frames as a comparable struggle.
