What is Next After Putin's Re-Election?

In what was certainly anything but a surprise, President Vladimir Putin won a crushing victory in last weekend’s presidential election in Russia, securing another term in office that will allow him to remain in the Kremlin until 2024, when he will be 71 years old.  Of course, some will argue that, as he can manipulate elections in foreign countries, he should have had no problem ensuring that he would easily win his own country’s presidential election.  Nevertheless, with or without manipulation, President Putin remains relatively popular in Russia and he would have been able to win re-election, with or without efforts to fix the vote in his favor, even with an economy that has been in the doldrums for the past four years. 

Now, with his grip on power even more secure, the world is watching to see if President Putin will make some changes to the policies that he has been enacting in recent years, particularly his foreign policy, which has damaged Russia’s relations with the West and others.  However, there is a general expectation that the Russian president will remain a disruptor, sowing chaos in many areas of the world and challenging the existing world order. 

President Putin’s victory had to have been the least surprising election result of the year.  In the end, President Putin 76.7% of the vote, a much higher amount than the 63.6% of the vote that he won in Russia’s previous presidential election in 2012.  Of course, his crushing victory was aided by the state’s total backing of the president and his campaign, although, it should be noted that President Putin remains genuinely popular with most Russians. 

Meanwhile, the seven challengers that were allowed to run against President Putin could muster only a combined 23.3% of the vote, a terrible result, even when compared with the relatively-poor showings of Putin’s opponents in previous elections.  Of course, one of President Putin’s leading opponents, the liberal politician Alexei Navalny, was barred from competing in this election, and he certainly could have won a sizeable share of the vote of younger Russians in this election.  As such, President Putin only had to face a motley group of opponents, including the obligatory Communist candidate and the long-time nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky.  With such opponents, President Putin did not have much to fear as he sought to remain in power.

Now that the formality of his re-election is out of the way, President Putin will be able to refocus on his primary goal, making Russian great again.  Clearly, President Putin’s aim since gaining power in 2000 has been to restore Russia to great power status.  At first, this involved re-centralizing power in Russia in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the anarchy of the Boris Yeltsin years.  After Moscow’s control over Russia was re-established, President Putin has moved on to the next step in making Russian great again, the re-establishment of Russian domination of its near-abroad.  This has involved restoring Russia’s presence and influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus while at the same time, weakening the forces in Ukraine that are opposed to closer ties with Moscow. 

As President Putin has learned, re-establishing Russia’s dominant position in its near-abroad, particularly in Europe, must also include dividing the West, a task that Moscow has undertaken with great zeal in recent years.  Now that President Putin is confident that Russia’s influence in its near-abroad is rising, he has turned his attention to restoring Russia’s presence in areas of the world further abroad where Moscow once had some degree of influence, such as the eastern Mediterranean.  However, Russia’s Achilles heel remains its resource-dependent economy, and this has been the area where President Putin has failed to make Russia great again, as well as the area where Russia’s power is most constrained. 

With the West finding itself somewhat leaderless under an inward-looking government in the United States and the forever-divided nature of Europe, President Putin sees the current international situation as one that presents his country with its best chance to regain great power status.  Under the Trump Administration, the United States has thus far found it difficult to maintain a consistent message with regards to Russian efforts to make strategic gains at the expense of the US, while the Obama Administration’s uncertain policies with regards to the Middle East opened the door for Russia to return to that region via the Syrian Civil War.  Meanwhile, Europe remains divided, while that region’s military capabilities continue to decline, providing Russia with another avenue to restore its influence in eastern areas of Europe. At the same time, President Putin views the success of authoritarian leaders in places such as China and Turkey as a confirmation of his own efforts to consolidate all political power in Russia in his hands, and he has taken steps to improve his country’s relations with these increasingly authoritarian governments. 

What remains to be seen is, in the wake of these elections, if President Putin is willing to further raise the stakes in order to bolster Russian power and prestige on the global stage.  Given Russia’s weak economy and its ongoing demographic collapse, an aging President Putin may view his next six-year term in office as his last best chance to make Russia great again.  That could pose some major risks for the West and others in the years to come.