What to expect from Putin’s New Term?

Written by Leonid Gozman, President Union of Right Forces, Russia

The previous term – the results.

For the third year the main thing that has been happening in the country is the war. Therefore, of all the outcomes of the past six-year term, the main ones are those that are directly or indirectly related to the war.

This was a successful term for Putin and a destructive one for the country and the world.

In 2020, Putin changed (in fact, destroyed the Constitution) and gained the right to remain in power until at least 2036. Though, in fact, for life.

Having spent long months of the pandemic in complete isolation, the current ruler of Russia has formed for himself a picture of the world in which Russia is a special civilization, an object of hatred of the West, and  destined by God or fate to confront the European world – including with force.

The preliminary results of the war, which began more than two years ago, are generally favorable to Putin:

• Russia’s economy has not collapsed. It has withstood Western sanctions, partly because they were half-hearted, and partly because of its great internal potential and resilience. There is no hunger or shortage of essential goods in the country, and large cities are living as they used to. There are no protests or disobedience on a serious scale, and one can ignore the unpleasant dynamics in public opinion polls. Factories are working, which means new weapons are being produced. The army is being rebuilt; it has not collapsed and has become stronger. Of course, there are very serious problems in various areas, but overall, the situation for Putin is not bad;

• Things on the front are infinitely far from “Kiev in three days,” but they are not as bad as the results of 2022 would have suggested. The Ukrainian offensive expected in the summer of 2023 did not take place, and in recent weeks the Russian army has even been advancing, with terrible losses, but the Kremlin does not care about the losses. Experts agree that the aid that the U.S. has finally provided to Ukraine will only allow the Ukrainians to stop the Russian offensive, and even then, not immediately, but it will not be sufficient for victory. New notes have appeared in the words of Ukrainian leaders, indicating their willingness to negotiate and agree on certain conditions;

• The West, which first frightened the Kremlin by showing solidarity with Ukraine, seems to be tired of war. Something similar to the Anti-Hitler Coalition, which many saw after the first Ramstein group meeting, has not happened. Yes, they will not let Ukraine be completely destroyed, but they will not contribute to its victory either.

A new term – what to expect?

There is no reason to expect anything fundamentally new from the Russian authorities. The situation is not right, and the age of the rulers is not the same. Their actions will be predetermined by the results of the previous years. In fact, the new government basically repeats the old one, both in structure and personalities. The resignation of Defence Minister Shoigu is not a sign of a change in strategy; it is Putin, not his defense minister, who is leading the war.

The war will continue, and the Russian authorities are quite prepared for Its protracted (endless) character. Putin will not retreat; he does not have the political capacity to do so. Retreat and compromise with Ukraine will be perceived by his elites as proof of his weakness and inadequacy (as his power has long been based on the support of the upper strata of the civil and military bureaucracy). So, a show of weakness may lead to the loss of power, and with it, perhaps, his freedom and life. He also has no psychological capacity for retreat; it would mean a personal collapse, and it would undo everything he is proud of and considers his main achievements.

The war is for the destruction of Ukraine. He himself recognized this when he declared a few days before the elections that the reunification of Ukraine and Russia is inevitable. That is, according to his plan, Ukraine, having “reunited” with Russia, should cease to exist as a political, cultural, and even linguistic entity (as he has repeatedly explained that Russian and Ukrainian are one and the same language). Therefore, the negotiations, which he is so eager for and the prospects for the start of which are becoming more and more real, will only be a cover for rearmament and the accumulation of forces for a new attack.

The war will continue also because it has become a necessary condition for the existence of the regime. Only war, with unclear goals and even a vaguely defined enemy, can justify the ineffectiveness of the authorities, blatant injustice in all spheres of life, and the irreplaceability of the ruling team. Even now, the war has no image of victory (i.e., no one can say what result will be considered a victory), no understanding of a time horizon, and no goals in the name of which it is waged. War has already become not a special, forced state of the country, but something natural to it. In the next term, peaceful life will be perceived as something fundamentally impossible for the country.  It is not by chance that on this May Day the authorities began to replace the traditional slogan “Peace, Labor, May” with its modifications without the word peace.

The restructuring of the military-industrial complex and the army will strengthen the tendency of turning the country into a military (concentration?) camp. We should expect laws and law enforcement practices aimed at strengthening labour discipline. Perhaps it will come to a ban on changing jobs and labor mobilization.

Repression against dissenters will intensify. The authorities simply have no other choice. In the absence of clear prospects, they can offer society nothing but unity in the fight against internal enemies, and they are not capable of dialogue with those who do not support their policies. The number of political prisoners, as well as the number of refugees from Russia, will continue to grow.

Neither in the times of the Empire, nor in the times of the USSR, was our country so aggressive towards the West, and indeed towards the whole world. The official concept of the USSR was that people everywhere are good, even in America, but they live under wrong laws, and in countries led by villains – capitalists and warmongers. They and only they, not the people of these countries, were our enemies. We had to help the people to get rid of the bad rulers and, when that happened, there would be life everywhere as good as ours.

Today the concept is different. Our enemies are no longer governments, but entire nations, and we are not going to lead them to a brighter future, but only stay in a deafening defence, lest they bring us to our knees and force homosexual marriages (as it is homosexual marriages that the Kremlin always cites as an example of how the West threatens Russia). This line of isolating Russia from all humanity will only intensify in the new term.

The militarization of consciousness will continue, starting from kindergarten. The goal is to instill in people’s heads that the only meaning and purpose is not life at all, but death for the Motherland.

The new term does not bode well for either the world or for Russia. The heroic struggle against the regime, which has not stopped for a single day in Russia, will of course continue. The European-oriented citizens of Russia will not put up with the prospect of the death of their country, or simply with the daily humiliation. There is little the West can do to help them, but at least it should not refuse to recognize that Putin is not the whole of Russia. The notion that Putin is an emanation of the Russian people and fulfills their will is not only untrue, but an idea that also extremely weakens anti-Putin forces. Yet World War III can be avoided only if the West realizes the existential nature of today’s threats and realizes that 1938 is always followed by 1939, without exception.