Vladimir Putin’s final bye will be a long one

Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine — cutting off his own nation of nearly 150 million and torpedoing its economy in pursuit of a delusion — marks the start of a final act for Russia’s president. Not yet the end. Swept up by the charm of Ukraine’s comedian-turned-president, the bravery of the country’s defenders and the blunders of Russia’s armed forces, some may think that a miscalculation on this scale will trigger the swift demise of the longest-serving Russian leader since Josef Stalin. The unprecedented breadth of sanctions imposed means pain for both oligarchs and ordinary households, and opposition to the war is emerging from unusual quarters. We know that dictators are, more often than not, felled by their own mistakes — and those errors have often been far less consequential than this one.
Nothing is impossible in a crisis of this scale. But for now, the result is less likely to be an elite coup or popular revolt than it is a dramatic ramping up of repression to smother critical voices and maintain the illusion of overwhelming popular support. In fact, this is already under way, in a display of short-term thinking from a system that is out of options, with no party loyalty or ideology to fall back on and its social pact in tatters. The question is how long that can last.
Putin still holds the primary instruments of control. For one, that’s a firm grip on the message that reaches the vast majority of Russians, making it easier to sell the current cataclysm as an attack on Russia, directing popular anger towards the West — not the Kremlin. State television is providing wall-to-wall Putin-friendly coverage, with angry pundits berating “Nazis” in Ukraine or curated news bulletins that avoid mentioning a “war” or any Russian losses. In overdrive, Moscow has silenced even long-tolerated opposition voices like liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy, which has broadcast for over three decades, and imposed a strict censorship law that has prompted even Western outlets to suspend work on the ground. There’s a tight rein on social media, particularly dangerous given how many families have direct ties to Ukraine, and how loud the voices of soldiers’ mothers can be. Russians are turning to VPNs and short wave radios — but only some.
Unsurprisingly, there is also zero tolerance for even the most benign, single-person demonstrations against the war, as the Kremlin is all too aware that criticism against its “special operation” can rapidly turn against the regime. Since the invasion began, OVD-Info calculates more than 13,200 people have been detained, an extraordinary number given the constraints on protest, some for offences as minor as hanging a banner.
Putin, a former KGB man, still has the loyalty of the security services and of a roughly 400,000-strong National Guard, Rosgvardia, which he created six years ago, reports directly to him and is run by his former bodyguard. He still controls the upper levels of government too, including the “siloviki” security service veterans, who are far less united than is often assumed, and intervene extremely rarely — as in August 1991, at a time of state collapse. Yes, there have been expressions of discontent among the oligarchs, but this is not the 1990s. In Putin’s Russia, billionaires are recipients of rents, not the power brokers they once were.
Crucially, Putin has ensured there is no obvious alternative to his leadership, no easy replacement. Ben Noble at University College London, who studies Russian domestic politics, points out that it’s by design that there is no modern equivalent of the politburo, which enabled Nikita Khrushchev to be removed in 1964 — a rare event in the Soviet Union, and in part because of his mishandling of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
On the battlefront, meanwhile, Russia has deployed only a fraction of its resources. Its army may be ill-fed, drive poorly maintained vehicles and suffer confusion about its mission, but it has the weaponry and manpower to keep going, and to inflict far more damage. But how long can this continue? There are antiwar — if not quite anti-Putin — voices from emerging hard-to-silence corners.

—Bloomberg