Russian President Vladimir Putin Photo: AR
On 31 December, Vladimir Putin marks the 25th anniversary of his tenure as head of Russia. During this time, he has managed not only to consolidate full power, but also to build a rigid vertical, declare a series of wars, annex territories and effectively destroy the opposition. However, according to the Spanish EFE news agency, Putin’s current system of power shows signs of anarchism and crisis.
The road to the absolute
After taking over from Boris Yeltsin in 1999, Putin claimed to have “pulled the country back from the brink”. In the years that followed, he established himself as the leader who, in his own words, “restored Russians’ imperial pride”. His reign has been an era of centralisation of power, with no room for dissidents and major state bodies turned into stage sets.
A key turnaround was the constitutional reform that allows Putin to remain in power until 2036. This effectively became a point of no return, where the Russian leader established himself as a modern-day “tsar”, relying on the support of the Russian Orthodox Church and messianic ideas about the greatness of the “Russian world”.
Wars and isolation
The first serious crisis for Putin was the COVID-19 pandemic, when he isolated himself in his bunker and made decisions with only a narrow circle of advisers. The result of this isolation was a full-scale war in Ukraine, the first invasion of Europe in a decade.
The mistaken predictions of Russia’s own intelligence services that Kyiv would be “easily” captured in three days proved to be a failure. The Ukrainian resistance has not only destroyed these plans, but has also finally turned Putin into an international pariah. His attempts to portray the war as a conflict with the West are increasingly turning into a fight against his own people.
Internal challenges
Russian society is experiencing a new “cultural revolution”, where war veterans are becoming heroes and the opposition, independent journalists and activists are being persecuted. Yet even the toughest regimes are showing weakness. The failure of the system became apparent after the rebellion of the Wagnerians led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, which ended in his liquidation.
An empire on feet of clay
Despite loud claims of hypersonic missiles and “world greatness”, Russia remains a country burdened by corruption and technological backwardness. The failures of the Russian army at the front, discontent among the generals and disillusionment among the population signal that even the “biblical” Russian people have limits to their patience.
Putin wants to go down in history as the leader who restored Russia’s greatness. But the cost of the war in Ukraine could be the indicator that determines whether he is remembered as a victor or as a leader who led the country to disaster.
