By Jim Heintz, Associated Press
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — As Vladimir Putin heads for another six-year term as Russia’s president, there’s little electoral drama in the race. What he does after he crosses the finish line is what’s drawing attention and, for many observers, provoking anxiety.
The voting that concludes on Sunday is all but certain to allow Putin to remain in office until 2030, giving him a full three decades of leading Russia as either president or prime minister.
The weight of that long tenure and the thorough suppression of effective domestic opposition voices gives Putin a very strong — and perhaps unrestrained — hand.
That position is bolstered by the Russian economy’s surprising resilience despite wide-ranging Western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine.
It’s also strengthened by Moscow’s incremental but consistent battlefield advances in recent months, flagging support for military aid to Kyiv from the United States and other quarters, and growing skepticism in some Western countries over more progressive social attitudes that echoes Putin’s push for “traditional values.”
Putin, in short, would head into a new term with few obvious restraints, and that could manifest itself quickly in major new actions.
“Russia’s presidential election is not so important as what will come after. Putin has often postponed unpopular moves until after elections,” Bryn Rosenfeld, a Cornell University professor who studies post-Communist politics, said in a commentary.
Probably the most unpopular move he could make at home would be to order a second military mobilization to fight in Ukraine; the first, in September 2022, sparked protests, and a wave of Russians fled the country to avoid being called up. However unpopular a second mobilization might be, it could also mollify relatives of the soldiers who were drafted 18 months ago.
Some in Russia believe it could happen.
“Russian leaders are now talking of ‘consolidating the whole of Russian society around its defense needs,’” Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser at the RAND Corporation think tank told The Associated Press.
“The precise meaning of this phrase is not entirely clear, but it suggests that Russia’s leadership understands that the war Putin describes will go on for a long time, and therefore resources must be mobilized,” he added. “In other words, Russian society must be organized for perpetual warfare.”
But Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, says Putin doesn’t require a mobilization in part because many Russians from poorer regions have enlisted to fight in order to earn higher pay than what they can earn in their limited opportunities at home.
Additionally, Putin’s apparent belief that the war is shifting in Russia’s favor is likely to lead him to continue insisting that the only way to end the conflict is for Ukraine to come to the negotiating table, she said. “That essentially means surrender.”
Although support for Ukraine is lacking in Washington, both French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski have recently stated that sending troops to support Kyiv is at least a theoretical possibility.
With those statements in mind, Putin may be driven to test the determination of NATO.
Alexandra Vacroux, executive director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, suggests that Russia will attempt to evaluate NATO’s commitment within a few years. Article 5, the alliance’s collective defense guarantee in which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
“I don’t think that Putin believes he needs to be physically, militarily stronger than all other countries. He just needs them to be weaker and more divided. And so the question for him is … instead of worrying so much about making myself stronger, how can I make everyone else weaker?” she said.
“So in order to do that, it’s like you have to find a situation where you could test Article 5,” and if the response is mild or uncertain “then you’ve shown that, like NATO is just a paper tiger,” Vacroux said.
Russia could conduct such a test without overt military action, she said, adding, “You could imagine, like, one of the big questions is what kind of cyberattack constitutes a threat to attack?”
Although it is not a NATO member, the country of Moldova is increasingly worried about becoming a Russian target. Since the invasion of Ukraine, neighboring Moldova has faced crises that have raised fears in its capital of Chisinau that the country is also in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.
The congress in Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region, where Russia stations about 1,500 soldiers as nominal peacekeepers, have asked Moscow for diplomatic “protection” due to alleged increasing pressure from Moldova.
That appeal potentially leaves “a lot of room for escalation,” said Cristain Cantir, a Moldovan international relations professor at Oakland University. “I think it’s useful to see the congress and the resolution as a warning to Moldova that Russia may get more involved in Transnistria if Chisinau does not make concessions.”
On the Russian home front, more repressive measures could come in a new Putin term, even though opposition supporters and independent media already are cowed or silenced.
Stanovaya proposed that Putin himself doesn't enforce restrictive measures but he agrees to such actions that are planned by others, expecting that these are what the Kremlin leader wants.
“Many participants are trying to survive and adjust, and they compete against each other and often they have conflicting interests,” she said. “And they are all trying together at the same time to ensure their own priorities and the stability of the regime.”
Russia last year prohibited the conceptual LGBTQ+ “movement” by declaring it to be extremist in what officials said was a fight for traditional values like those advocated by the Russian Orthodox Church in the face of Western influence. Courts also prohibited gender transitioning.
Ben Noble, a colleague professor of Russian politics at University College London, said he thinks the LGBTQ+ community could confront further oppression in a new Putin term.
In the Kremlin’s view, they “can be held up as an import from the decadent West,” he said.
Correction: This story corrects Noble’s title to associate professor.
