There are signs that Putin’s power is waning

Seen from a distance, it seems that Putin’s rule is weakening. We now regularly hear statements from people close to Putin (such as former Prime Minister and President Dmitry Medvedev) about the significance of the war, the catastrophic consequences that await Ukraine and the West, and so on. This is interesting because it seems to be a sign that Putin is losing control.

Normally, media coverage of such statements focuses on their content. When Medvedev says that Poland is to blame for the war, that Ukraine is a Jewish conspiracy, or that this or that action will have terrible consequences, he is sure to get attention. He plays on the keyboard of news that mobilize our fear. But the deeper reason for this may be that he and others at Putin’s side now feel entitled to make such colorful statements. This was far less the case before the war.

The meaning of the doom propaganda

The doom propaganda has two purposes. On the surface, she shows (or seems to show) loyalty to Putin. At a time when Russia is on the verge of defeat, the hope is to convince the West that somehow Russia is unstoppable – which is not the case. In this war, Russia has already withdrawn from much of the Ukrainian territory it had conquered. Its forces in the south are currently in an unenviable position. Russian history, like American history, is littered with wartime defeats.

At the same time, the doomsday propaganda appears as rhetorical preparation for a power struggle after Putin’s fall. If Russia loses the war, the people who are now saying radical things have protected themselves. I myself tend to see the drastic announcements as proof that important Russians like Medvedev or Foreign Minister Lavrov know very well that Russia can lose wars and is about to lose this one too.

Putin was good at keeping us all in the dark. But now he seems to lose himself in the fog of war.

It is doubtful that Medvedev, who for years has been seen as a liberal alternative to Putin, believes in the anti-Ukrainian, anti-Semitic, anti-Polish and anti-Western hate speech he spews on his Telegram channel. Rather, he creates a profile that could be useful to him post-Putin—just as his technocrat profile was once useful to Putin. Lavrov’s bluster strives for a similar effect. He doesn’t want to fall out of the chorus of atrocity cheers, but he can’t be held accountable for making sense either. His recent statement that Russia must annex any territory from which any weapon of war could reach Russia implies that Russia must expand until it controls the entire surface of the earth.

Another interesting example is Ramzan Kadyrov, who has held Chechnya as his personal satrapy ever since he helped Putin win the second Chechen war. Kadyrov commands a kind of personal armed guard that assists the Russian army in its wars abroad.

In Ukraine, Kadyrov spoke of the need to take Kyiv, but then seemed reluctant to burn his men on the unprestigious targets currently being pursued by Russia’s Donbass offensive. According to Russian statistics, Chechnya has the fewest war casualties of all regions, which seems strange given the presence of a Chechen task force in Ukraine.

From the point of view of Kadyrov’s own interests, this makes perfect sense. His men need to mark presence in Ukraine because at the moment he is forced to appear loyal. However, it is more important for him that they are available for a future power struggle in a post-Putin Russia.

It seems that Kadyrov is already thinking about the future. He suggests that Russia should install anti-aircraft systems in Chechnya. He justifies this by saying that Ukraine could attack Chechnya, which is completely absurd. He also announced that a new battalion set up in Chechnya to fight in Ukraine would remain in Chechnya after all. It seems he is preparing for the post-Putin era when Chechnya would claim independence.

The Army as a Source of Strength

Another sign of Putin’s weakness is the army itself. The question of whether Russia is winning or losing can be answered from a military point of view. But the army itself is a source of Putin’s political strength. The assertion of their eternal invincibility is a constant element of his own propaganda.

Russians may think Russia is winning the war. But out in the real world, on Ukrainian territory, the Russian army is suffering losses in equipment and officers, to a degree that threatens its integrity as an institution, not to mention its ability to sustain its many other missions outside of Ukraine fulfill.

The sanctions make the situation even worse. A world-class army begging in Tehran for drones replicated using Western technology is not a world-class army. But that is precisely the current situation in Russia. Putin can put up with a weakened army. But at a certain point, not being strong turns into not looking strong. Putin’s power rests on an image; with his decision to wage a real war, he has made illusion hostage to reality.

The Russian army is also suffering horrendous losses in soldiers, indicating the next sign of Putin’s weakness. The Russian state is not designed for a war of this kind. He behaves fascist at the top, but he lacks the fascist capacity for total war. Its day-to-day power rests on demobilizing the Russian people, not mobilizing them. An old communist joke went, “We pretend to work and you pretend to pay us.” In Russia today, the reality is more like this: “You act like you’re going to win a war, and we act like we’re excited about it.”

Putin seems concerned that a general mobilization would hurt his popularity and bring down his regime. The dramatic rhetoric on Russian television and in the Telegram channels of the leadership is more a substitute for than evidence of a national consensus on the war. As long as everyone prays to the nationalist canon, a certain balance is maintained. It all boils down to everyone bluffing everyone else.

The balance that keeps Putin in power – domination of all rivals, gentle popular support, integrity of the army – is challenged by the realities of an unpredictable and very costly war. Putin was good at keeping us all in the dark. But now he seems to lose himself in the fog of war.

No one can say what exactly is going on in the Kremlin. But the dilemma that arises seems clear. The trap set for Putin (willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly) by his competitors, the public and the army is this: we all agree that we are winning the war – and we will all become nobody but you blame if Russia loses him. It’s all rather vague, half unspoken, clouded by emotion, denial, taboo and fear. But it’s the general picture. And basically, Putin set the trap for himself.

A banal dwindling of power

No one can predict how a change of power in Russia will unfold, or what the next stage of Putin’s rule will be. Personally, I can’t imagine that the weakening of Putin’s power has to lead to one of those dramatic coup scenarios that were envisioned at the beginning of the war (although they are entirely possible if Putin allows the war to go on too long).

Nor do I expect a moment to come when Putin concludes that a drastic event on the battlefield can save him — which won’t be the case. It would be tantamount to openly admitting defeat, something he must avoid. What can be expected instead is something much more mundane: that as the war progresses, Putin’s voice will count less and less, and at some point he will have to decide whether it is worth risking his position of power.

War is politics by other means; Putin himself chose this war with all its atrocities. For the war to end, Putin needs to sense that the politics around him have changed. And in order for the war to come to an end, Ukraine must win. For the West, this means patience and determination, as well as the consistent delivery of the weapons Ukraine needs to achieve this goal.

Timothy Snyder, Born in 1969, is an American historian and professor at Yale University specializing in Eastern Europe and Holocaust research. The text printed came first on his website released. – Translated from the English by Andreas Breitenstein.