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Vladimir Putin’s fifth inauguration is coming up. But the autocrat’s power no longer seems irrefutable, explains an expert at IPPEN.MEDIA.
History repeats itself – if you look at it superficially. On Tuesday (May 7th) Vladimir Putin will be “inaugurated” into the office of Russian President for the fifth time in Moscow. The images, and perhaps parts of the words, will be similar: As in 2019, the autocrat will give a big speech in the magnificent setting of the Kremlin.
But will Putin remain untouchable in the next five years? Experts doubt this. Especially because of the war in Ukraine and its consequences. “The Putin regime is currently in a deep crisis,” says political scientist Felix Jaitner IPPEN.MEDIA. With the presumably manipulated one Russia election The elite have “bought time” – but a “transition phase” is actually beginning. And Jaitner is not alone in this assessment.
Putin’s fifth term in office: Wagner Putsch a foreshadowing of future conflicts?
One thing is clear, says the expert: There is currently no opposition force that can take effective action against Putin’s regime. The crucial question is whether there are “breaks in the elite”. The oligarchs are also less in focus: Some have lost their assets in the West, “but overall the concentration of wealth has actually increased since the start of the war.” But there is another problem, says Jaitner, who did his doctorate on development conflicts in the Russian power bloc: “Putin’s old age and the unresolved succession.” Putin will be 72 years old in October.
“In view of the pressing crises and the internal power struggles over the future direction of the country, it is by no means certain that this strategy will work,” says the political scientist, referring to the time game in the Kremlin. “The coup attempt by the paramilitary Wagner Group in June 2023 has almost been forgotten today, but it gives an idea of how violent it was
Conflicts over the country’s future course could escalate.”
Three trouble spots for Putin: What does the Kremlin chief say at his fifth inauguration?
Specifically, Jaitner sees two to three trouble spots for Putin’s fifth term in office. On the one hand, the “increasing confrontation with the West”, which will also determine the coming years given the lack of peace options in the Ukraine war. In addition, internally there is the economic dependence on the raw materials sector – and the precarious social situation of many people in Russia; according to Jaitner, a “big challenge”.
Putin had already announced during the election campaign that he would focus on these issues. And the Kremlin changed its economic policy course as early as the summer of 2022. Now the state purchase of military equipment promotes economic development – even outside the metropolises of Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, it is actually largely only in the armaments sector. In the meantime, real wages have even increased due to the high demand for workers, as Jaitner explains. But the situation remains precarious: parts of society benefited. For others, income does not grow with rising prices.
Putin under pressure: “Everything could fall apart at any moment”
At the same time, Putin has to satisfy an important clientele: He has changed his course of power politics in recent years, says Jaitner. “Putin’s ability – especially in his early terms in office – was to mediate between the competing factions in the elite and to form a common policy out of these contradictory interests.” Since the mass protests in the 2012 election, the Kremlin leader has increasingly relied on “so-called national -conservative forces”.
With the attack on Ukraine, their influence has even increased. They combine “a repressive, Great Russian agenda with the strengthening of domestic industry in order to reduce dependence on the raw materials sector,” explains the expert.
But the said dependency still exists. As are the inequalities in the country. And the Great Russian ambitions were not nearly as easy to achieve in the Ukraine war as the Kremlin initially expected.
“Everything could get out of hand at any moment,” says political scientist Maxim Samorukow from the US think tank Carnegie. Putin’s problem is not the fragmented opposition that has been violently deprived of its figurehead, Alexei Navalny. But the inner circle around the president. Putin has been living “for many years in a narrow circle of subservient courtiers who only feed his prejudices, resentments and delusions.” Wrong decisions could become suicidal at some point. (fn)
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