The visible tension of the first days of the war has faded from Vladimir Putin after almost two years of his bloody invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin chief remains silent about the tens of thousands of deaths in his campaign.
And the 71-year-old has long since reinterpreted his attack on the neighboring country as a war against the West and NATO. With his “fight against the external enemy” he has won many Russians to his side. Putin, who has been in power for almost a quarter of a century, wants to make 2024 a year of triumph for himself.
“Peace will come when we have achieved our goals,” said Putin confidently at his big annual press conference in December. A victory for him would be Ukraine’s decision not to join NATO. After many defeats in the first year of the war, Putin now sees the initiative again in his army. Moscow reports conquests in Donbass – and rejoices that Western aid continues to crumble and Ukraine is running out of soldiers.
Putin recently said that the West’s plans to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia or isolate the country on the world stage had failed. The Kremlin leader, whom critics accuse of taking an increasingly totalitarian course, is confidently promoting a new world order that, in his view, is already emerging.
Sanctions failed to stop Putin’s war economy
Putin wants to achieve a new multipolar world – without US supremacy. His own freedom of travel is limited because the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against him for war crimes in Ukraine. But the Kremlin chief resonates with many people in the country as the builder of a new, strong Russia that is self-sufficient and sometimes threatens with its nuclear weapons.
Even Western experts admit that Moscow has so far withstood the pressure of sanctions from the EU, the USA and other countries better than many expected. The punitive measures were actually intended to deprive Putin of the economic basis for the invasion. But the raw materials power keeps its war economy going with the income from the oil and gas business with China and India. Quite a few countries are also helping Russia to circumvent sanctions and get sought-after goods into the country.
Russia can point to economic growth of over three percent this year. Even if economists criticize that these are merely artificial results of a high-speed war economy that burns state assets, Putin can announce positive news. But according to experts, the growth is not healthy. In addition, many Western companies have left the country.
Expert sees “fragile stability”
The Russian expert at the US think tank Carnegie, Andrei Kolesnikov, sees overall “fragile stability” in the country. Low unemployment is offset by an extreme shortage of skilled workers – many men have to fight in the war or have fled abroad with their families for fear of being deployed to the front. Wage and pension increases often evaporated due to the increased cost of living. Because many sought-after goods have to be purchased using hard Western currency, the value of the ruble remains persistently weak. Purchasing power is constantly decreasing.
Many Russians complain about poverty, fear and a lack of prospects. Despite everything, surveys show that most people trust Putin in particular to solve the many problems. The president had the constitution changed in 2020 specifically in order to be able to continue running in elections. The term of office is six years. He could run again in 2030 – and then rule until 2036.
As a former intelligence chief, Putin is considered a master of transfiguration. He emphasizes that Russia is now strengthening its defense power and thus its own sovereignty – after the “military special operation,” as Putin usually calls his war, revealed weaknesses.
War and fear as a means of maintaining power
Putin’s approval ratings are currently significantly higher than before the war, when many people complained about stagnation. “The basic motive for starting the special operation was to maintain power,” says Kolesnikov. According to him, the Kremlin chief could have won the election even without the invasion using the system of fear and authoritarianism.
There is no one in sight for the presidential election on March 17th who could pose a threat to the Kremlin chief. The political field has been cleared. Real opponents are not allowed to vote at all. No example shows this as well as Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Putin had his opponent imprisoned in the “Polar Wolf” penal camp in northern Siberia – more than 2,000 kilometers from the center of power – which is notorious for its harsh prison conditions.
Nevertheless, Navalny, who in 2020 blamed Putin for an assassination attempt on him using the chemical weapon Novichok, does not want to give up. He calls for a fight against the power apparatus, which is characterized by mafia-like and corrupt structures and is based on repression. Navalny’s team, which expects massive election fraud, launched the “Russia without Putin” campaign. Voters are encouraged to vote for any candidate – just not Putin.
Election without competition – as a referendum for Putin
The chances of success for this protest election are likely to be slim. On the one hand, some candidates themselves openly swear loyalty to Putin. On the other hand, to the dismay of many pro-Western Russians, the founder of the liberal opposition party Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, is not running for office this time. He is one of the few prominent opposition figures who are still free, who openly criticize Putin’s war and call for a ceasefire.
“It’s pointless to be an extra in this circus,” says Jawlinski about his decision. “There is a system of fear, people are already afraid of revealing their personal details just to collect support signatures before the election. This is not an election, but a referendum on Putin.”
There is war weariness in Russia too. The independent opinion research institute Lewada has recorded the growing desire for peace negotiations in surveys. But that is not in sight. Rather, there is a widespread fear that Putin – inspired by a high result in the vote – will significantly increase the stakes in his war against Ukraine – including with an unpopular further mobilization.
Kremlin expects Kiev to surrender in the war
The Kremlin has made it clear again and again that negotiations with Ukraine only take place on Russia’s terms. This would amount to a surrender by Kiev. Putin openly admits that his aim is to collect historical Russian territories – to protect the Russian language and culture. In front of the military at the end of the year, he also emphasized that he had no interest in western Ukraine, the former Polish territories that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin once gave to Kiev after the Second World War.
However, Putin has recently repeatedly said that the Black Sea metropolis of Odessa in the south of Ukraine is a “Russian city”. Putin said that Russia was only interested in “its” former territories. Russia, Putin explained, had long been the guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Because of their desire to join NATO and the anti-Russian nationalism in Kiev’s leadership, this is over once and for all.
After a phase of weakness and defeats, Putin with new strength
At the turn of the year, the assessments of Putin’s long-term rule were piling up – next August it will be 25 years since he took power as head of government under the weakened President Boris Yeltsin and, a little later, took over his post in the Kremlin. The prevailing tenor is that after a phase of weakness caused by military defeats, Putin has now regained his composure and found new strength.
After the failed uprising of the Wagner private army against Moscow’s military leadership and the fatal plane crash of the mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who fell out of favor in the Kremlin, peace has largely returned to the country. The political scientist Tatjana Stanovaya noted that Putin did not make any big promises or hand out election gifts at his annual press conference this time. “The Russian leader doesn’t feel like he has to fight for the people’s sympathies – the people are also on his side,” she said.
Others speak of the Russians’ “learned followership” under the thumb of communism during the Soviet era, from which Putin continues to benefit today. A commentator for the US newspaper “Wall Street Journal”, whose correspondent Evan Gershkovich is in custody in Russia for alleged espionage, recently “without joy” even named Putin the “geopolitical winner” of the year. Putin has strengthened his position with the “cruel advantage of strategic endurance” and autocratic rule.
