Since launching a war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is now “running a state that is poorer, less secure, and in which he’s got fewer political options,” an expert on Russian politics says. “He’s painted himself into a corner.”
announced a new phase of his invasion of Ukraine, laying out a plan to call up some three hundred thousand reservists. Putin blamed the United States and its European allies for the decision, saying that Western support for Ukraine necessitated a Russian escalation.
You have previously argued that Putin has maintained popularity and power by not asking too much of the Russian population. It does seem like a risk to ask something this serious—something that, potentially, has no obvious military benefit, unless it’s about testing the waters. He’s facing two challenges at the same time. The successful Ukrainian counteroffensive over the past couple of weeks in the northeast part of the country hasn’t provoked discontent in Russian public opinion from people who are opposed to the war. It’s been from people who want Russia to fight harder. Clearly, Putin felt that that was the constituency he had to respond to. He needs to keep those people on board.
There were some protests in Moscow at the beginning of the war, which I think were viewed as classic antiwar protests. And there were more after this speech from Putin. You also have nationalists opposed to the way the war is being fought, or irritated that victory is not at hand. Can you talk about how Putin balances these?
Obviously, the antiwar protests in February and March were crushed. People made a choice between, basically, going into exile or passive resistance on the one hand and going to jail on the other. For a lot of people, that was not a difficult decision to make, but it was made in the absence of any real consequence. The feeling was, “Look, this is a war that we can’t stop. We can maybe do some things to help Ukrainians.” But there wasn’t a risk in it for the individuals.
In 2014, when he began this semi-clandestine war effort in eastern Ukraine, he needed them even more. A lot of these people were volunteering to serve, whether through the Russian military, paramilitary groups, private military companies, or just as volunteers for the armies of the “People’s Republics” in Luhansk and Donetsk. On the one hand, he really needed them to support this. On the other hand, he didn’t want to become beholden to them.
In polls, people have been very clear that they don’t believe that they will be able to find high-tech goods, durable goods, automobiles, that kind of thing, of the quality that they were able to get before this war. As months go by and things break and need to be replaced, that has an over-all impact on people’s quality of life and on the efficiency of the economy.
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