Putin is not a dummy and he's not on the ropes. It's time to pay attention
What is Putin really capable of and what can we do about it?
There’s a special place in the pantheon of useful idiots for Tucker Carlson, America’s right-wing poster boy. Days before Aleksei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most effective critic, died in a Siberian gulag, Carlson gave Putin free rein in a two-hour interview.
It was a masterclass in how not to speak truth to power. Caught in Putin’s spell, Carlson allowed the man in the Kremlin to rehash his laboured view about Ukraine being part of Russia. In a rambling history lesson - that included the suggestion that Poland provoked Hitler into starting WWII (sound familiar?) - Putin walked all over a fawning Carlson.
There’s a lesson here but it’s not necessarily the obvious one. The reaction to Navalny’s death has ranged from outrage and horror (though not surprise) to suggestions that, if Putin felt the need to get rid of him now, it’s because he is weak.
Yet a careful study of what we know about the former KGB agent in charge of Russia suggests the opposite. Which, if you favour this take, poses the question: what is Putin really capable of? Is Ukraine his first stop on the way to Vilnius or perhaps Warsaw? And what can or should we do to stop him?
Putin is big on context, and context is all-important here. His world view is rooted firmly in what he sees as the country’s historic, indeed divine mission as a world power.
His role is to place it back up there after the humiliating downfall of the Soviet empire just over three decades ago. This is not a façade. Whatever else drives him ( greed or the taste of power) Putin’s grievance against the West and its intentions towards a weakened Russia are real enough - and shared by many Russians. ( I recommend The Wizard of the Kremlin)
The invasion of Ukraine two years ago this month may, as many have suggested, have been a strategic error. It has, after all, had precisely the opposite effect to the one intended: Ukraine stymied an all-out assault; Russian losses have been huge; it faces a painful economic embargo; the West, especially Europe, has rallied round while NATO, far from receding, is pushing closer to Russia’s border.
But Putin plays a long game. His unchallenged grip on power is the result of a patient, methodical and ruthless approach. He understands power, how and when to wield it. He plays elections like a balalaika.
Ukraine may be a misstep in his long road to a reincarnated Russian dominion. But there’s little sign yet that it’s a stumble that will lead to his fall.
One of the themes that runs through many post-Soviet narratives is that, in the end, the free market will eventually do for Putin and his quarter-century quasi-dictatorship. That money will trump power and that wealth will usher in democracy. This too has proved premature – as it has in China.
In the early months of the Ukraine war it was suggested that Russian oligarchs, faced with seemingly fatal economic sanctions, would topple Putin. This fundamentally misunderstands what Putin has built.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Putin has reshaped Russia into what its proponents like to call a ‘sovereign democracy’. Yes we’re a democracy but no you can’t question that - least of all if you’re Russian. Power, including crucially, power over property and state assets, are held in the interests of the people. It’s capitalism by diktat.
In this, Putin’s battle to control the oligarchs has been crucial. He understands the need for a free market to replace the USSR’s moribund economy. But, ultimately, it must be beholden to the interests of the state, more precisely its leader.
Putin perceived the potential threat early on when his then friend and Kremlin power broker Boris Berezovsky fatally misjudged their relationship and criticised him openly. Beresovsky was stripped of his assets. He was found hanged in his Berkshire home where he lived in self-imposed exile in 2013. Putin does not take prisoners. He has his opponents but many Russians prefer the smack of firm government to the chaos of democracy.
Since the imposition of sanctions, the Russian economy is apparently rebounding. The IMF reports that it grew faster than any other G7 economy in 2023 and is heading that way this year. This feat has been achieved by finding ways around the western oil embargo, for example, by creating a phantom fleet of oil tankers generating colossal oil revenues.
This in turn has allowed the regime to pivot production onto a war footing: $300 billion of Russian assets may be frozen in western banks but the war dividend’s boost to the economy is filling the gap.
The fact that Navalny was killed ahead of next month’s presidential elections when Putin will coast to a fifth term in a predictable landslide victory is unlikely to be a coincidence. He will ride out the outrage abroad and there is now no one remotely popular enough to challenge him at home. All opposition, perhaps all hope, is crushed.
The outcome of November’s US presidential elections should Donald Trump run and win could presage a weakening of support for Ukraine and even NATO. We just don’t know.
So to repeat the question: what do we think Putin is capable of and what should we in the west do about it?
Putin is, by definition, a populist so perhaps if you’re a populist in the US or Europe you feel a certain kinship.
Perhaps like Carlson and his mentor Trump or Marine le Pen (“Putin is looking after the interests of his own country and defending its identity) or Victor Orban, or some on the Right in the UK you think you can do business with Putin. Perhaps you sympathise with his views on immigration, abortion, gender rights and liberal democracy which, he told the FT in 2019, was ‘obsolete’.
Or perhaps you just believe that Putin is hanging on by a thread and that someone will come along sooner or later (another Yevgeny Prighozin) and unseat him.
Well, good luck with all that. Â
In his essay on the meaning of the 18th century movement we call the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason, Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, described what we’d call today a light bulb moment: a time when the world grew up and people started to think for themselves ditching such superstitions as witchcraft and the divine right of kings. In their place science and intellectual curiosity flourished.
Without evidence to the contrary Putin appears firmly in the saddle. At 71, his long-term aim remains what it has been for 30 years: absolute control at home and projecting Russian power abroad. Ukraine is not an aberration but entirely consistent with this hegemonic approach.
Ukraine is not losing. But it’s not winning either. There are signs in fact that the balance of advantage may be shifting in Russia’s favour in Ukraine. That should ring alarm bells in western capitals. You can’t finesse Putin. You can negotiate with him but only from a position of strength.
Another Trump victory in the autumn may, or may not, lead to an unravelling of the western alliance (among other things) predicted by the Democrat-leaning press. But who knows what a reincarnated Trump presidency might look like? He may be mad as a box of frogs but he’s full of surprises.
Standing up to Putin is more than about reversing his land grab in Ukraine or holding him accountable for the war crimes perpetrated by his forces.
It’s about grasping that he’s not done yet, not by a long chalk. It’s about seeing clearly the threat he represents not just to our borders but the democracies he seeks to subvert by exploiting our politics and our culture wars.
Putin is fundamentally inimical to the interests of the liberal West in part because he believes the values we share represent a threat to his version of Russia’s new, patriotic identity. He’s not a live and let kind of guy.
Those of us on this side of Russia’s borders with our messy, under-resourced and rickety democracies need to understand this and be prepared meet the challenge whatever the cost.