Is Vladimir Putin finished? Has the dictatorial regime of the Russian president entered an inexorable phase of decline? Can an end begin to be seen for the more than 26 years of rule of the modern Tsar of Russia? Cornered by his military failures in Ukraine, where he is finding it impossible to advance after four and a half years of war – even though he is crushing civilians in Kyiv and other cities with drones –, suffocated by international economic sanctions – saved only by China, on which he has become dependent – and breaking the original national consensus around his figure – even though the rigged legislative elections on September 20 cannot reflect it –, more and more observers believe that Putin's time at the head of the Kremlin is running out. Although that doesn't make it any less dangerous.
The war in Ukraine, Putin's biggest and most serious strategic mistake, is what will end up leading to his ruin. The misnamed “special military operation” was only so called in the poor documents of the Russian high command and the truth is that after four and a half years of fighting the front line is completely stagnant. “Russian advances on the battlefield are approaching zero, while Ukrainian forces are creating the conditions to overcome positional warfare,” notes the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The massive and indiscriminate bombings on the Ukrainian civilian population – with new versions of drones, powered by jets and much faster – have put Kyiv in serious difficulties, which lacks sufficient interceptor missiles, basically Patriot. But it is still a confession of impotence on the part of Moscow, unable to advance on the ground and conquer the entire Donbass, a fact that – forcing reality – would allow Putin to claim victory.
To finish darkening the Kremlin's outlook, the Ukrainian army has not only managed to stop the Russian advance – with swarms of drones that turn the front into a field of death – but has also taken the war inside Russia, to Moscow itself. The selective Ukrainian bombings – against ports and refineries, which have caused fuel shortages; against the Rassvet satellite launchers, with which Russia wants to make up for the lack of access to the Starlink network; against cargo ships in the Black Sea and against the large distribution centers of e-commerce platforms, such as Wildberries – not only cause economic and logistical distortions, but are also beginning to undermine citizen morale. And trust in the leader.
The progress of the economy does not contribute to improving the outlook. The initial impulse of the war industry, which doped growth, has slowed down and the Government has been forced to approve the first cuts in the public budget (up to 35%, outside the defense chapter). Social spending is the one that will suffer the most.
"Putin's charm is fading. The Russian president still holds absolute power, but the magic has faded. His true face is beginning to appear: that of a hunched, agitated, almost fragile old man," Russian political scientist Alexander Baunov wrote in the independent media Meduza, for whom the definitive turning point was the takeover of the internet last spring, with the blocking of the most popular messaging applications – WhatsApp, Telegram – and the imposition of the official Max so that nothing escapes the Kremlin. For citizens, in Baunov's opinion, this meant a kind of breaking of the tacit “contract” by which, in exchange for political passivity, private life was kept free.
At almost 74 years old, the Russian president seems to have lost his aura of invincibility. Its popularity – high, as it could not be otherwise in a tightly controlled country – has however experienced a clear erosion in recent months: if a year ago it was at 87%, today it is at 76%, according to the Levada Center. The Russian president will not see it very clearly when this past August he decided to prohibit Yabloko, the only legal political party in Russia that opposes the war, from participating in the elections on the 20th. The polls give victory to his party, United Russia, but that, with the opposition persecuted and imprisoned, has little value.
Some analysts have already begun to address post-Putin scenarios. Among them, Julian G. Waller, researcher in the Russian Studies program at the Center for Naval Analysis and professor at George Washington University, who in an article in Foreign Affairs titled After Putin highlights the uncertainty of the succession process, which the Russian dictator himself has encouraged by refusing to designate a possible heir, which could lead to a “chaotic power struggle” between the regime's elites, without ruling out a shaky continuity of the current gerontocracy.
