– Putin will go down in history in the ranks of the leaders of the European powers who knowingly and voluntarily triggered a war of unilateral aggression in Europe.
So says professor and historian Sven G. Holtsmark of the Defense Studies Department of the Norwegian Defense Academy.
And it’s not Putin’s pleasant company, says Holtsmark.
Before him, only Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler had done something similar.
– Until the outbreak of World War I, there was a dynamic that brought states into conflict. While World War II in Europe was Hitler’s personal project, Stalin followed with attacks on Poland, Finland and the occupation of the Baltic states.
Russia is mobilizing the homeless
Now Putin has done the same: he went to unilateral war against another country.
– So, if we look at the 20th and 21st centuries, it is on the side of Stalin and Hitler. He is not in pleasant company.
IT COULD BE DIFFERENT: Since taking power in 2000, Vladimir Putin has created an increasingly authoritarian Russia, says a senior researcher. However, the story could have been completely different. Photo: Pavel Bednyakov / Sputnik / Reuters
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– Pure dictatorship
Putin will also join history among the historic dictators of European history, says Holtsmark.
– In this class we find people like Lenin, Mussolini, Franco, Hitler and now Putin. All of them have introduced a form of dictatorship.
When Putin first came to power in 2000, he took on a shaky democracy, Holtsmark explains.
– After that, he turned Russia into a pure dictatorship, which has ever more totalitarian ambitions. Now he governs a dictatorship that seeks to intervene in more and more areas of society, such as schools and culture. Putin is an old man, and sooner or later he will meet the end of him, so we don’t know the end of the Putin saga, but we know what has happened so far.
HITLER, PUTIN AND STALIN: Two people look at a mural of Hitler, Putin and Stalin in Gdansk, Poland in September. Above the three faces is written “No more time”. Photo: Artur Widak / NurPhoto / Shutterstock / NTB
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The shame of history
Senior researcher Jørn Holm-Hansen at NIBR-OsloMet has in-depth knowledge of the political landscape in Russia. He believes Putin will be left “in the corner of history’s shame” after the invasion of Ukraine.
– I think a lot of people will see him as a war criminal and someone who has destroyed a lot of lives and a lot of infrastructure. But I don’t think he will be put on the same level as Hitler. He did not commit genocide against an ethnic group of the population. He is responsible for war crimes, but there are no extermination camps in Russia now, so he probably won’t be comparable to Hitler.
– DESTROYED: President Vladimir Putin pictured in the year 2000, at the beginning of his first presidential term. In the years that followed, he did very well for Russia, but after he entered his third term, things only got worse, experts say. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / Reuters / NTB
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The story to be written about Putin, however, could have been completely different had he surrendered before his third presidential term in 2012, Holm-Hansen argues.
– Then he would have remained as a leader who got Russia on the right path after communism and after the poverty and chaos of the 1990s. Then he would have earned a good reputation.
After 2012, however, it’s only downhill, the senior researcher believes.
– Russia has become an increasingly authoritarian conservative country and illiberal internally. Furthermore, Russia has become more militaristic and aggressive abroad. We see this in Syria and Ukraine. If Putin hadn’t been responsible for the 2014 invasion of Crimea, and this year’s invasion, then he would have had a much better reputation, Holm-Hansen believes.
– Bad reputation in Russia
How Putin will be written in the history books in Russia is, however, a much more open question, he believes.
– My advice is that he will have a bad reputation. It can happen quite quickly if there is a takeover, for example through a palace revolution. Either by the more bellicose right, who will point out that the war has not been waged effectively, or by more democratic people in Russia, who are more oriented towards the West. The latter will probably be able to argue in this case that Putin said he would make Russia great, but he did little.
Protests and dissatisfaction: Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine has led to major protests and discontent, including in Russia. Here he gives a demonstration in Moscow, following the Russian mobilization of several soldiers for the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Photo: AP / NTB
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Holm-Hansen points out that Putin has, among other things, destroyed what could have strengthened the Russian economy.
– He crushed it by cultivating only military strength. He has made Russia weaker than it was 10-15 years ago. Even if Russia can militarily take land, the question is what they will do with it, he says and adds:
– Only pays the expenses. It is not cheap to keep the territory occupied and the inhabitants must have wages and social benefits at the Russian level. It affects four to five million new inhabitants living in illegally annexed areas.
– It could mean the end of his life
Falling into better ground
In some parts of the world, however, it will likely be left in a slightly better light, Holm-Hansen believes.
– Putin’s way of explaining the war in Ukraine probably resonates more with parts of the population, for example, in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East than here. They probably have a little more understanding of Russia’s justification for the invasion, which is that NATO and the US invaded Russia via Ukraine, and that therefore Russia had to act with determination.
There is also dissatisfaction with US influence internationally in several countries, he points out.
– Because they have experienced that Americans have intervened with them in ways they do not like. There, the way Putin explains the cause of the war will likely diminish a little better. And some of Putin’s talking points seem to be aimed at audiences in the global South.
