Speaking in a 1996 interview, a fresh-faced Vladimir Putin, then an ex-KGB official with a political career blossoming as the country reeled from the collapse of the USSR, theorised about leadership in Russia.
“It sometimes seems to us – and I won’t hide it, I sometimes think like this too – that if only there was a firm hand to provide order we would all live better, more comfortably and in safety,” he said. “But in fact, this comfort would be short-lived, because this firm hand will be tight, and would soon begin to strangle us all.”
Local elections will take place across Russia on Sunday, and focus has turned to Moscow, where protests have flared for weeks over the fact that the Kremlin blocked opposition candidates from running.
Putin’s grip is tightening, and the country is showing signs of strain.
In Moscow and beyond, the vote has come to be seen as a “critical test of the Kremlin and its regional representatives’ ability to successfully stage manage the vote despite a sharp drop in the approval ratings of both Putin and the party that backs him, United Russia”, write Amy MacKinnon and Reid Standish in Foreign Policy.
At the same time, Russians mourn the 20th anniversary of the devastating apartment bombings across three cities in 1999. The bombings catapulted Putin to power.
Could this be a time of change in Russia? Do its people still support their strongman leader, and are the protests in Moscow indicative of any wider dissatisfaction with the powers that be?
Putin’s grip on power
As the nation approaches municipal and regional elections on Sunday, there can be little doubt that any reservations Putin had about the need for a “firm hand” have dissipated.
Now in his fourth term as president, Putin has overseen a raft of measures intended to secure his grip on power, particularly since he was reelected as in 2012. This has included intensified suppression of protests, the reassertion of Eurasian identity and nationalistic ambition, the cementing of state control over online and traditional media outlets, increased funding and support for the internal security agencies, and a host of other hallmarks of modern authoritarian control.
However, it seems that, perhaps, these measures are failing to mask hardship brought by an outdated economy struggling under the weight of international sanctions.
“Since 2014, when… sanctions were first imposed on Moscow following the annexation of Crimea, Russia’s economy has grown by just 2 per cent,” reports the Financial Times. “Russian workers have seen their disposable incomes fall for five of the past six years, while being told to work five years more to get their pensions and stomach a rise in VAT.”
Unusually for Russia, unrest across the country is simmering. In May this year, activists stormed a park in Yekaterinburg in protest against the construction of a new church.
In a town outside Moscow, residents protested the dumping of waste on the outskirts of their town. “People are beginning to connect the dots, namely that things are so bad here not because the local authorities work poorly, but because they’re put in that situation by the federal government – because the rot starts from the top,” said Natalya Vlasova, a local blogger and activist.
Natalia Arno, the president of the Free Russia Foundation, a US-based nonprofit organisation, said: “More and more people are growing discontent, and what is most important for me is that people are losing [their] fear. For many years people wouldn’t be protesting or they would be afraid of participating in unsanctioned rallies.”
Putin’s final term as president is due to end in 2024, and thoughts are beginning to turn to what life after him might look like. Crucially, Sunday’s election will be an indicator of how Putin’s United Russia might fare in 2021 state Duma elections, where it will need to maintain its two-thirds majority if, as is likely, it seeks to amend the constitution to allow Putin to remain in power after the 2024 deadline.
But as the list of grievances grow against his kleptocratic, stagnant rule, polls are beginning to reveal worrying signs for the president. “Public trust in President Vladimir Putin has dropped to its lowest level since 2006, according to a new state-run poll, another setback for Russia’s president as the country begins to discuss its leadership options after his term limit ends,” reports the Moscow Times.
These trust ratings represent a significant drop, especially as in 2015, Russia’s annexation of Crimea saw his ratings rise to 71%.
“Putinism has been steadily falling apart,” writes Michael Khodarkovsky in The New York Times. “Government-controlled media are struggling to sustain the president’s falling ratings; Russia’s regions are impoverished; the oil- and gas-dependent economy is anemic; Russia’s elites are consumed by infighting for pieces of a shrinking pie; and the young generation is less susceptible than their forebears to government propaganda.”
The anniversary of the 1999 apartment bombings
Forming a sombre backdrop against the current unrest, yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Russian apartment bombings – blasts that hit four apartment blocks in Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing more than 300 people, and wounding more than 800.
CNN says “it was a 9/11 moment for Russia”.
Towards the end of the 1990s, it became apparent that Boris Yeltsin, unpopular and mentally and physically riddled by alcohol and age, was not long for the presidency. His inner circle – known as “The Family” – sought desperately to ensure their secure transition out of power. They faced charges of embezzlement, and a resentful opposition.
Putin, plucked from relative obscurity to become prime minister in August 1999, was Yeltsin’s choice, The Family’s ticket to a safe transition from power.
Some of his first acts as PM were to deal with September’s attacks, and he did so decisively – after intelligence services blamed the Chechen separatists, the new prime minister promised to pursue them ruthlessly.
When Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly in December 2000, Putin ascended to be Russia’s acting president. Radio Free Europe details the events that followed: “By February 2, just over a month after Putin became acting president, and nearly five months after being named prime minister, the Russian Army entered the Chechen capital, Grozny. The following month, Putin won 53 percent of the vote in the snap presidential election, his first electoral victory.”
However, on 23 September, three FSB agents were arrested by local police in Ryazan after being caught planting two bombs in a block of flats in the Western Russian city. The FSB, of which Putin had been director only a month prior, apologised, claiming police had stumbled upon a secret training exercise.
“Putin’s opponents – most famously, exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky and former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko – went on to promote the dark conspiracy theory that Russian security services had a hand in staging the apartment bombings as a provocation aimed to force military action in Chechnya,” reports CNN. Both are now dead.
It seems more than possible that Putin owes the genesis of his authority to the strategy that victory in the face of heightened external threat buys popularity and power. In this vein he launched his foreign adventures in Georgia, Ukraine and Crimea.
