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August 16, 2024 - 7:00am
On 16 August 1999, the Russian parliament approved a new prime minister. This was then-President Boris Yeltsin’s fifth in just 16 months and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a confused parliamentarian mistakenly called the new premier by the name of his predecessor. There was seemingly no need to recall the name of yet another dull bureaucrat who would most likely pass quickly and unremarkably through the revolving door of Russian politics.
Fast forward 25 years and Vladimir Putin’s name is forgotten by no one. Imitating another who had once been derided as a “grey blur”, the Russian President’s rule looks set to match the length of Joseph Stalin’s. That is not the only sign of the Stalinist tendencies of this modern-day vozhd. Political opponents are murdered, while sabotage and destabilisation operations strive to bring the countries on Russia’s periphery into its orbit. Tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives have been claimed, and to speak the truth of Moscow’s belligerence paradoxically carries a Soviet-style prison term for spreading “misinformation”.
There is no sign that any of this will abate soon. The domestic opposition is divided, while the war is lucrative for many ordinary Russians for whom peacetime offered only poverty. Besides, Putinism will outlive the President himself. While domestic opponents and even foreign governments grudgingly accept that change can come only after his death or retirement, the system of cronyism and corruption that Putin has sustained and encouraged is so embedded that it will be difficult to break even then.
Looking ahead, Putin’s ideal scenario of a Donald Trump administration cutting aid to Ukraine appears less likely following Kamala Harris’s emergence as the Democratic presidential candidate. Adding to Volodya’s growing list of headaches is Russia suffering its first foreign invasion since the Second World War, thanks to Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk. Nevertheless, with Ukraine still losing territory in the Donetsk region, the chances are that Putin will eventually bludgeon Kyiv into a shabby compromise, potentially keeping the Donbas and Crimea for himself in return for the rest of Ukraine being permitted to join the EU and Nato or remain neutral, protected by security guarantees. That will be sold as a victory to a Russian public hungry for any success.
With the constitution permitting him to rule until 2036 and open to further manipulation, Putin will most likely remain in office until his own death. At that juncture, a formal process will lead to elections. However, given the pool of likely candidates, it is the system that will win: 77% of 2019’s government were siloviki, or from the security forces. Alternatively, should he decide that dictatorial rule is a young man’s game and plump for a comfortable retirement, he would hand over to a carefully groomed successor selected for their commitment to keeping both their predecessor and his legacy alive.
One hopes for better, of course. Yet Putin always was the death of hope. More specifically, he was the death of a hope that Russia could become, in the words of a man who perished this year in the sub-zero temperatures of an Arctic penal colony, a “happy”, “free” and “normal” country.
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SubscribeRussia has never been a “happy”, “free” and “normal” country, and it doesn’t seem likely that it will become one any time soon. The West needs to resolve to ensure it becomes a “crippled” and “bankrupt” country.
I disagree. We do need Russia to become a “happy, free and normal country”. Almost as much as most Russians do. It’s hard to know what we can constructively do to make that any more likely (as in Israel/Palestine our interventions are usually counter-productive).
But I think you actually agree. The current battle is to “normalise” Ukraine (let’s leave aside for now how we got here – this is what Ukraine’s struggle to become free and independent boils down to). In the same way that the Baltic states are now “normal” countries that are happy to live at peace with their neighbours.
The article is badly wrong in suggesting that Putin created the cronyism and corruption in Russia. These have been present for centuries. Then hugely amplified under Communism (when it became impossible to become wealthy by honest hard work). Putin just turned the volume up to 11. It will be the work of decades – if not centuries – to get rid of this culture in Russia. And likely decades in parts of Ukraine.
You can hope for that “Russia as a happy, free and normal country” thing if you like, but I doubt that having been utter barbarians for the last 500 years, Russians are suddenly going to become a civilised people anytime soon (as you basically admit in your last paragraph).
There is no such thing as a “happy”, “free”, and “normal” country. What distinguishes the USA and it’s European proxies from countries like Russia are not democracy or human rights, but a comfortable status in the political-economic world order.
Just as you say, the superpower America will (Maybe not ‘should’) try to crush it’s competitors until it inevitably fails, be it against Russia or China or a future empire.
No, it is in fact democracy and human rights.
Russia cannot survive Putinomics … they will implode … again !!
The sooner the better!
I believe a huge opportunity for Europe, the US, and most importantly Russia, was lost when the US vetoed any possibility of post USSR Russia becoming a member of NATO.
Utter nonsense.
Russia never met any criteria for joining NATO and never will.
Idea that countries formerly subjugated by Russia like Baltic States and Poland would allow Russia into NATO is completely mad.
You clearly have no understanding of that part of Europe.
Most likely you are either Russian stooge of one of Lenin “useful idiots”.
Take your pick.
The age old adage of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” seems to have eluded you.
In addition, name one NATO member which has imvaded or unilaterally commenced military action within the sovereign territory of another NATO member.
You also seem to believe that Russia is the “forever enemy” and is irridemable yet, within few short years, Germany, which invaded drge whole of Europe and were both the architects and deliverers of the Holocaust were
admitted to NATO.
Less than 50 years later someone who was raised and achieved office im the Russian backed East Germany was being feted as one of the saviours of the western world.
The Germans are a civilised people who unfortunately experienced a spell of totalitarianism brought on by defeat in WW1, and tough economic times. The Russians are barbarians, for whom totalitarianism is the default position.
Russia in NATO? Right! The point of NATO is to keep Russia down. I guess if Russia was actually in NATO, the other members could delegate it to keep itself down, and thus save themselves the bother.