Russia Tajikistan 8626010 21.02.2024 Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon at the Kazan Expo international exhibition centre in Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. Sergei Bobylev / POOL Kazan Republic of Tatarstan Russia PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxESTxLTUxLATxNORxSWExDENxNEDxPOLxUKxONLY Copyright: xSergeixBobylevx
6:57, 25 February 2024
Vladimir Putin has faced setbacks during his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now, two years later, things seem to be turning in his favor. It seems that his grip on power is not going to loosen, he writes “Newsweek”.
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Ukrainian resistance early in the war led to the push back of Russian forces from Kyiv and later, in 2022, the retreat from Kharkiv and Kherson delivered blows to Putin and bold headlines for Kyiv.
But Putin has received some news in recent weeks. US-led sanctions aimed at isolating Russia from the global financial system may have caused turmoil, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last month forecast GDP growth of 2.6% in 2024, more than double its previous estimate predicted.
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Moreover, Putin is preparing for the elections scheduled for March 15, because he is confident of his victory. Thanks to the death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, Western doubts about providing additional aid to Kyiv and the capture of Avdiyivka in the Donetsk region.
“Domestically, Vladimir Putin is stronger than before,” Texas Christian University political science professor Ralph Carter told Newsweek. “He has controlled public opinion by calling Western sanctions an attack.
He has also neutralized local opposition, killing his most prominent critic, Alexei Navalny, and the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin. The message to the Russians is that if it can happen to them, it can happen to you.”
Prigozhin seized military facilities in Rostov-on-Don and went to Moscow with his group of Wagner mercenaries. He was later killed in a plane crash that many see as punishment for challenging Putin’s authority, although the Kremlin has denied any involvement.
Putin is distancing himself from the West and is under sanctions that have reduced Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. Moscow, on the other hand, has made some progress in finding new markets for its export products, especially China and India.
“Putin’s position seems stronger than it was six months ago,” John Hall, a law professor at California’s Chapman University, told Newsweek.
“Attempts to isolate Russia economically have proved far less successful than hoped, mainly because of India’s willingness to buy Russian oil.
The war in Ukraine is going better for Russia than the West had planned, as Russia has secured arms supplies from North Korea, Iran and China, while Ukraine is facing serious arms and manpower shortages.
With no end in sight in the US Congressional impasse over further funding for Ukraine, Putin has also benefited from former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, which has been adopted by some in the government in opposition to more military aid to Kyiv.
“Trump has used his influence to undermine any continued support for Ukraine, which is a pro-Putin policy,” Hall explains.
Trump’s disdain for NATO, which last month included urging Russia to attack its member states that do not meet the 2 percent minimum spending requirement, has also played into Putin’s hands, said Ken Osgood, a history professor and expert on U.S.-Russia relations.
“Breaking NATO’s solidarity has been the goal of every Russian leader since Joseph Stalin,”
he told Newsweek.
Even if Trump takes the White House and fails to change the US relationship with the alliance, or even loses the election, “Putin has already made a significant profit by making American withdrawal from NATO a serious issue.”
Jennifer Kibbe, a professor of government at Franklin and Marshall College, explained to Newsweek that Putin “is clearly in a stronger position in Ukraine than he has been in over a year, having just taken over Avdiyivka, and Ukraine is struggling because its arms shipments are slowing.”
“Unfortunately, at least in the short to medium term … his grip on power is more consolidated than ever and is unlikely to loosen.”
However, the speed of Prigozhin’s rebellion last June showed how quickly things can change in Putin’s Russia.
“Yevgeni Prigozhin managed to take over a major military command center without firing a shot and march with armed loyalists to within a couple of hundred miles of Moscow — not the kind of state collapse that would happen in a fully consolidated totalitarian regime,” said Stephen Hanson, a professor at the University of William and Mary in Virginia. .
CBS News’ former Moscow bureau chief, Beth Knobel, says Russians are increasingly worried about the war, and potential losses could ultimately undermine the president’s standing.
“I actually think Putin is in a weaker position now than he was two years ago,” the Fordham University professor told Newsweek. “Russians have lost a lot because of the war in Ukraine.”
According to her, the arrests of those who publicly showed their respect for Navalny show that “Putin is very afraid of a people’s revolution, as we have seen in other countries.”
Randall Stone, director of the Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies at the University of Rochester, believes:
“Putin is very insecure, and the uprising by Wagner’s forces has clearly shown how tenuous his grip on power is. He does not dare to end the war in Ukraine without a significant victory, but public aversion to war limits his war efforts.”
Russian-born economist Konstantin Sonin, who works at the University of Chicago, said Navalny’s death was a “huge short-term gain” for Putin, but the Russian president had “completely backed himself into a corner.”
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2024-02-25 05:09:06
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