War, economy could weaken Putin’s place as leader

NEW YORK (AP):

With the Russian military in retreat from around Kyiv and facing condemnation for brutal tactics, harsh political repression at home and the economy buffeted by Western sanctions, adversaries and allies alike are raising the same question about President Vladimir Putin: Can he hold on to power?

The answer: For now, but maybe not forever.

After 22 years in power, Putin has built a powerful phalanx of loyalists who surround him, both in the Russian military and the secret services. He also has significant support among the Russian people, who are steeped in pro-Putin propaganda through the Russian leader’s almost total control of television and other mass communication. Even today, many Russians view his leadership as having delivered greater prestige, prosperity and stability for the country over two decades.

This edifice of protection, the vast wealth Putin controls, and the lack of any significant history of palace coups in Russia make either of the obvious means of removing Putin – a military mutiny or a mass popular ‘colour’ revolution –almost inconceivable right now.

Yet, all strongman states are inherently vulnerable to the unforeseen – especially when they become deaf to the society around them. Just ask Hosni Mubarak.

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” declared President Joe Biden of Putin last month in Poland. It was an unscripted but heartfelt comment as the bloodletting in Ukraine has mounted.

NOT CONFIDENT ENOUGH

The 69-year-old Putin is up for re-election in 2024, and changes in the Russian constitution conceivably would allow him to remain president until 2036. But the imprisonment of Russia’s best-known opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, is just one sign that Putin is not confident enough of his popularity to submit to an actual democratic test.

While there can be no credible polling in a country now effectively under martial law, the number of Russians informed and courageous enough to protest against the war in Ukraine so far has numbered in the thousands, not the hundreds of thousands.

Tens of thousands of affluent citizens, intellectuals and political critics have abandoned Russia rather than remain under the tight controls Putin has imposed, finding escape in Istanbul, Tbilisi or cities in the West. This brain drain no doubt will hurt Russia in the future. But at the moment, their departure removes a possible nexus of opposition from the society.

Unlike the Soviet Union, there is little in the way of an institutional party structure that could intervene to topple him. Putin has cronies, yes men, and a coterie of siloviki – people of power awash in hard-nosed nationalist thinking of the FSB and military – none of whom, so far, dare to show the least independence from Putin’s Ukraine war “project”.

Yet, losses on the battlefield have already led to an apparent paring down of military goals, angering and disappointing some anti-Ukraine pundits on Russian TV.

While Putin’s coterie has every incentive to stay close for the time being or risk losing privileges and wealth, if the war in Ukraine drags on for months or years, and Putin’s adventure becomes the mammoth disaster that it appears to be so far, it is almost certain that cracks will emerge.

Absent Russia’s total victory over Ukraine, it already is difficult to imagine the world going back to business as usual with Vladimir Putin. He could find himself boxed into a grinding, open-ended conflict on his border and facing a need to impose more and more repression at home to stifle dissent in a population paying the economic consequences of the invasion.

Ageing leaders rarely last forever or have the luxury to leave office on their own terms. Whether it is by elections, revolt or an internal mutiny, the long days of Putin’s rule may well be numbered.