Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to sail to re-election in a nationwide vote that begins on March 15, securing a fifth term in office and a full third decade as Russia’s paramount leader.
With the death of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, it’s fair to say Putin’s political career has reached the president-for-life stage. But his re-anointment lays bare an uncomfortable fact for Russia’s future political stability: The president and his circle have not made any visible preparations for a post-Putin era.
That may not seem an urgent matter for the man who is now Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin: Back in 2020, Russian voters endorsed constitutional changes that would allow Putin to stay in power until 2036. And even before Putin announced his candidacy, the Kremlin made it clear that it does not see any alternatives on the horizon to his system of one-man rule.
“If we assume that the president stands as a candidate, then it is obvious that there can be no real competition for the president at this current stage,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Putin “enjoys the absolute support of the population.”
Putin is 71 years old, a decade younger than US President Joe Biden. He may be passing the average life expectancy of a Russian male, but his recent public appearances appear to show someone in rude health.
But while Putin does not appear to be in a rush to groom a successor, some Kremlin watchers note that Putin’s re-election spotlights a problem: that the system built up over the past two decades under his rule is brittle, gerontocratic and vulnerable to a major shock, first and foremost the illness or death of the person at the top.
“Various challenges… may be closer than we think,” said Andreas Umland an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies. “Putin could theoretically rule for another 12 years. [But] I don’t think that will happen, especially if Ukraine achieves new victories that will have repercussions in Moscow.”
Umland said that the armed insurrection last year by Wagner mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin – successfully quashed, but the biggest-ever challenge to Putin’s rule – and unfounded rumors about Putin’s health that surface on anonymous Telegram channels and social media suggest that worries about succession may lurk behind the Kremlin’s opaque façade.
“It’s not so much the content of the rumors, but the fact that the rumors can spread” that is significant, Umland said.
On paper, Russia is a country of laws. The Russian Federation has a constitutional system that makes provisions for an orderly succession: If Putin dies or is incapacitated in office, his powers will be temporarily assumed by the chairman of the government, a post currently held by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
But in practice, analysts say Putin presides over something akin to a court system, in which the president is the ultimate arbiter of disputes between competing elite factions. And where the Soviet system had a consensus-driven Politburo that established a relatively stable (if untransparent) mechanism for the transfer of power, some observers have likened Putin’s inner circle, which includes wealthy cronies, representatives of the state security apparatus and loyal technocrats, to a sort of Politburo 2.0 that could manage a potential succession.
Putin’s Russia also has another precedent for handing over power to a trusted successor in addition to constitutional workarounds that have already prolonged his time in office. In 2008, Putin reached the end of his second presidential term, and stepped aside for a handpicked placeholder, Dmitry Medvedev.
But while Medvedev inherited the chemodanchik (nuclear suitcase with launch codes) and the seat on the Russian equivalent of Air Force One, Putin remained the real power behind the throne and won a third term in 2012. Medvedev signed a law changing presidential terms to six years and then Putin reset the count on term limits with the 2020 constitutional referendum.
Not surprisingly, Putin’s intent to stay in power has become the subject of ridicule by Russia’s opposition. When Putin announced his intention to run for a third term, a meme of the Russian president morphing into the decrepit Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev went viral, an image that featured in opposition protests.
The Kremlin has no doubt studied how neighbouring autocrats keep their grip on power. Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko saw off mass protests in 2020 following widespread allegations of ballot-stuffing; he now plans to run for re-election next year. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who calls Putin his “bosom friend,” has tightened his grip on the Chinese Communist Party and oversaw the abolition of term limits. And in Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev stepped down after three decades of rule, while maintaining the chairmanship of the country’s Security Council and the title of Leader of the Nation.
ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – 2024/02/17: Police block the way to the monument to victims of political repression to honor the memory of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny the day after news of his death in St. Petersburg. (Photo by Andrei Bok/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The case of Nazarbayev, however, may have proven instructive for the Kremlin. In the wake of violent unrest in January 2022, Nazarbayev was elbowed aside by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev from his security council post and lost key policymaking privileges. Trusted successors, it seems, can be trusted for only so long.
Some Russian political observers speculate that the real competition to succeed Putin is not likely until the 2030s, when Putin reaches his sixth term. Russian political observer Andrey Pertsev has described some of the potential competitors as “princes” who are quietly building their own bases of support in anticipation of Putin’s eventual departure.
Even the former president Medvedev, who lost the number two slot in 2020 when he stepped down in a government shakeup, may still have aspirations. While written off by some observers as a serious political player, Medvedev has used the war on Ukraine to carve out a place as a strident, anti-Western voice, most recently appearing in front of a map of a carved-up Ukraine and declaring that “Ukraine is definitely Russia.”
Whether or not Medvedev stands another chance at Russia’s top job, the invasion of Ukraine has shifted the official tone in elite Russian circles to one of unbridled bellicosity. And Russia is now a postmodern autocracy that can brandish Putin’s still sky-high approval ratings (however skewed) and his inevitable re-election (however undemocratic) as a sign of legitimacy and unquestionable public support for the war.
A leading state television channel opened with its host railing against the West and NATO. Another channel led with a segment extolling the virtues of domestically built streetcars. And there was the usual deferential coverage of Putin.
Since coming to power almost 25 years ago, Putin has eliminated nearly all independent media and opposition voices in Russia — a process he ramped up after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin’s control over media is now absolute.
State television channels cheer every battlefield victory, twist the pain of economic sanctions into positive stories, and ignore that tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine.
Some Russians seek news from abroad or on social media using tools to circumvent state restrictions. But most still rely on state television, which floods them with the Kremlin’s view of the world. Over time, the effect is to whittle away their desire to question it.
“Propaganda is a kind of drug and I don’t mind taking it,” said Victoria, 50, from Russian-occupied Crimea. She refused to give her last name because of concerns about her safety.
“If I get up in the morning and hear that things are going badly in our country, how will I feel? How will millions of people feel? … Propaganda is needed to sustain people’s spirit,” she said.
When Putin first addressed Russians as their new president on the last day of 1999, he promised a bright path after the chaotic years that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse.
“The state will stand firm to protect freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of mass media,” he said.
Yet just over a year later, he broke that promise: The Kremlin neutered its main media critic, the independent TV channel NTV, and went after the media tycoons who controlled it.
In the following decades, multiple Russian journalists, including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, were killed or jailed, and the Russian parliament passed laws curbing press freedoms.
The crackdown intensified two years ago after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
New laws made it a crime to discredit the Russian military, and anyone spreading “false information” about the war faced up to 15 years in prison. Almost overnight, nearly all independent media outlets suspended operations or left the country. The Kremlin blocked access to independent media and some social media sites, and Russian courts jailed two journalists with U.S. citizenship, Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva.
“The Putin regime is based on propaganda and fear. And propaganda plays the most important role because people live in an information bubble,” said Marina Ovsyannikova, a former state television journalist who quit her job at a leading Russian state television channel in an on-air protest against the war.
The Kremlin regularly meets with the heads of TV stations to give “special instructions on what can be said on air,” said Ovsyannikova.
Every day, TV stations serve up a mix of bluster, threats and half-truths — telling viewers the West wants to destroy their country, that sanctions make them stronger and that Russia is winning the war.
The Kremlin’s goal is to squeeze out any opposition so that citizens “remain inert and compliant,” said Sam Greene, a director at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.
The strength of the Kremlin’s grip on the media means that while Navalny’s death in an Arctic penal colony was major news in the West, many Russians didn’t know about it.
One out of five Russians said they had not heard about his death, according to the independent Russian pollster Levada Center. Half said they only had vague knowledge of it.
The most memorable event for Russians in February, the polling found, was the Russian military’s capture of the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka.
By trumpeting military victories, the Kremlin is focused on creating a “happy feeling,” ahead of the elections, said Jade McGlynn, an expert on Russian propaganda at King’s College London.
Anti-war candidates are banned from the ballot, and there is no significant challenger to Putin. State television broadcasts dull debates between representatives of Putin’s opponents.
Putin is not openly campaigning but is frequently shown touring the country — admiring remote tomato farms or visiting weapons factories.
The idea that Russia is thriving under Putin is a potent message for people who have seen their living standards fall since the war — and sanctions — began, driving up prices for food and other staples.
The war has also pushed Russia’s defense industry into overdrive, and people like Victoria from Crimea have noticed.
“If they tell me that new jobs have appeared, should I be happy or sad? Is this propaganda or truth?” she asked.
Russian propaganda is “sophisticated and multifaceted,” said Francis Scarr, a journalist who analyzes Russian television for BBC Monitoring.
There is some “outright lying,” he said, but often Russian state media “takes a granule of truth and massively over-amplifies it.”
For example, while unemployment in Russia is at a record low, news reports don’t explain it’s partly because tens of thousands of Russians have been sent to fight in Ukraine or have fled the country.
Many Russians know this, yet the idea that Russia is prospering – even if it contradicts what they see with their own eyes – is still attractive.
“The greatness of Russia tends to be measured throughout history in the greatness of the state and not in the greatness of the quality of life for its people,” said McGlynn of King’s College London.
Ahead of the election, state TV is ramping up that nationalistic theme, telling viewers it is their patriotic duty to vote. The Kremlin, experts say, is worried Russians may not come out in large numbers.
Videos released on social media – but not directly linked to the Kremlin – are aimed at combating apathy, especially among younger voters.
In one, a woman berates her husband for not voting. “What difference does it make? Will he not get elected without us,” the husband asks, indirectly referring to Putin. To which his wife warns him: inaction could leave their child without maternity payments.
The Kremlin wants high voter turnout, experts say, to lend an aura of legitimacy to Putin, whose reelection would keep him in power through at least 2030.
People can bypass government restrictions by using special links to foreign websites or accessing the Internet over private networks.
But it’s questionable whether many Russians — especially those living in Putin’s conservative heartland — even want to hear news conveyed in the language of the liberal West.
To “break through to the people who are not putting flowers on Navalny’s grave, they’re going to have to meet those viewers where they are and speak to them in a language that they understand,” said Greene. That means striking a balance between criticism of Putin’s regime and pride in the nation.
Even those soothed by the Kremlin’s propaganda also could long for a real choice at the polls.
“I don’t see any opposition in modern Russia,” said Victoria, pointing out that the candidates running alongside Putin all have the Kremlin’s approval.
“I don’t plan to vote in the elections,” she added.
