The longer the Russian war against Ukraine continues, the more likely it is that President Vladimir Putin’s regime will collapse.
Despite Putin’s bluster, the authoritarian regime he has constructed
is exceedingly brittle. At the center stands Putin; surrounding him, the
power-hungry loyalists he has folded into his inner circle. Some,
called the
siloviki, belong to powerful institutions such as the
secret police or the army. Others, formally affiliated with various
government agencies, are loyal only to Putin. In such a system,
sycophantism is rewarded above good governance, empire-building runs
rampant, policy loses its effectiveness, and corruption becomes routine.
The neo-tsarist ideology of Russian imperialism, Orthodox revival,
and anti-Western Slavophilism that Putin has constructed has limited
appeal to the cynical men who help him run Russia. Therefore, Putin’s
ability to retain their loyalty rests primarily on his control of the
country’s financial resources. Thanks to the record-high energy prices
that accompanied his assumption of power in 1999, Putin was able to
personally purloin some $45 billion and still have enough money to raise
the country’s standard of living, strengthen the Russian military, and
keep his cronies happy. No longer. Oil prices have collapsed and are
likely to stay low; Western sanctions are hitting hard; and the Russian
economy is on the downswing.
Sooner or later Putin will be forced to make some cuts, but it is
hard to know where that money will come from. Given the ongoing war in
Ukraine and his anti-Western ideological crusade, reducing military
funding will be unfeasible. And Putin’s popularity would take a serious
hit if he were to roll back support to the lower classes. The only
option, therefore, may be to stop his cronies from dipping into state
coffers, even if doing so will alienate them.
Putin has an image problem—and he knows it.
For 15 years, Putin’s record of success won him enormous public
support. He crushed the Chechen rebellion, presided over military
reforms, built infrastructure, improved the lives of ordinary Russians,
and regularly outwitted the West. And then, just after the Sochi
Olympics, he blew it all. The Crimean annexation has been an unmitigated
economic disaster. The Russian war in eastern Ukraine has killed
Russians by the thousands. Ukraine, which was well on its way to
becoming a Russian vassal state under former President Viktor
Yanukovych, has turned against the Kremlin. The ruble, along with the
Russian economy, is in free fall, as Western sanctions bite. Putin,
Russia’s “Man of the Year,” is now routinely compared to Adolf Hitler.
Beyond his policy mistakes, Putin also has an image problem.
Fifteen years ago, Putin could pass himself off as a charismatic leader
who, despite his diminutive size, was man enough to chase down Chechen
rebels—in his own words—“even in the outhouse.” That tough-guy image was
essential to Putin, who claimed that he could reestablish Russia’s
imperial glory and needed to look the part. Now 62 years old, Putin
looks tired, his face distended, and it’s hard to imagine that the two
leggy singers who once sang, “I want a man just like Putin,” would still
feel that way today.
Putin knows he’s in a tough spot. He started the war in Ukraine, and
now it’s up to him to bring about some satisfactory conclusion, even
though it’s clear from his erratic behavior that he lacks a strategy. He
has no way to crush Ukraine without unleashing a global conflict. He
has no way to erode Ukraine’s economy without simultaneously destroying
Russia’s. Ironically, the one thing Putin could do easily—declare
victory in the Donbas and withdraw his troops—is off limits for him, not
because it’s politically unfeasible (most Russians would be delighted
to get out of this mess), but because his own cult of personality
forbids him from blinking.
OUSTING THE PRESIDENT
All signs point to the eventual collapse of Putin’s regime.
Although 85 percent of Russians currently support the president, an
Orange Revolution in Moscow—a city that has seen a series of mass
anti-Putin demonstrations in the past few years—is not out of the
question. Such a movement need not encompass the entire country to be
effective. Demonstrations in the capital, like past displays of “people
power” in Cairo, Kiev, and Manila, can effect regime change.
A coup d’état is another possibility. The
siloviki, like all
Praetorian guards, are a mixed blessing. They can keep him in power by
crushing political opposition, but they can also stage a coup should
they conclude that Putin’s policies are undermining their own security
and wealth. Putin knows that he replaced Boris Yeltsin (and that Leonid
Brezhnev replaced Nikita Khrushchev) in just this fashion.
Even if Putin is not ousted by popular revolution or by a coup, he
will be crippled by unrest in Russia’s non-Russian regions. Much of the
North Caucasus, for example, has already spun out of Moscow’s control,
as the recent terrorist attacks in Chechnya and the continued violence
in Ingushetia and Dagestan demonstrate. As the regime visibly decays and
Putin loses his sheen, militant non-Russians may emulate Putin’s
invocation of Russians’ right to self-determination in southeastern
Ukraine and pursue their own separatist agendas—with mass protests when
possible, and violence when necessary. The Crimean Tatars, whose
frustration with increasingly oppressive Russian rule in their homeland
is growing, could be the first to act out violently. The Volga Tatars
and Bashkirs, both of whom have large reserves of oil in their regions,
could easily follow, as they did in the 1990s, with demands for greater
autonomy or independence.
RUSSIA AFTER PUTIN
Will Russia and the world be better off without Putin? Yes, but only
if Putin’s successor ends the war and comes to a rapprochement with the
West.
All signs point to the eventual collapse of Putin’s regime.
Putin’s successor, whenever he takes power, is likely to be a
hardliner; even so, his first priority will have to be to clean the mess
created by Putin. Chances are that the new president will be more
inclined to end the war and more likely to adopt a conciliatory tone
vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
If Putin’s successor is not a hardliner, those chances will be
even better. This is a small but real possibility: Russia’s democrats
might just be able to take control of the country at a time of chaos and
instability, especially if they succeed in forging coalitions with the
increasingly disgruntled Russians whose sons are dying in Ukraine and
with non-Russian minorities, as Boris Yeltsin did in the waning days of
the Soviet Union. Besides, if history is any indication, Russia’s next
leader is anybody’s guess. The awful Lenin was succeeded by the dreadful
Stalin, but Stalin was followed by the decent Khrushchev, who was
replaced by the worse Brezhnev, who was succeeded by the good Gorbachev.
And Gorbachev handed over power to the pretty good Yeltsin, who was
ousted by the dreadful Putin.
In the meantime, the West should do all it can now to support Ukraine
and encourage Putin to deescalate the war. The West can also limit the
fallout from a possible regime collapse by supporting Russia’s
neighbors—especially Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine—economically,
diplomatically, and militarily. When the rotten Russian dam breaks, as
it inevitably will, only strong and stable non-Russian states will be
able to contain the flooding, shielding the rest of the world from
Putin’s disastrous legacy of ruin.
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