The frequency with which Vladimir Putin raises the possibility of using nuclear weapons to attack Britain and other western countries in support of his war of conquest in Ukraine is both chilling and irresponsible. These threats from Russia’s president, echoed by his sycophantic predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, have become almost routine, prompting suggestions that Putin is not really serious. Yet while there is certainly an element of bluff, and a crude attempt at intimidation, complacency about his behaviour is dangerous – and potentially catastrophically misplaced.
No entirely rational national leader would casually raise the risk of mass annihilation in this way, let alone one who commands the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. Putin’s incomprehensible decision to mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine revealed a man cut off from political and military realities, impervious to opposing views, obsessed by supposed western plotting, and in thrall to his own deluded fantasies about restoring the power and sway of pre-Soviet imperial Russia. His complicity in targeting Ukraine’s civilians and numerous war crimes and assassinations shows he will stop at nothing.
Putin is not a fit person to lead Russia. He portrays himself as a man of the common people yet wholly lacks common decency, integrity and honour. He should be standing in the dock of the international criminal court in The Hague, where he faces war crimes charges over the abduction of Ukrainian children, not standing for re-election as president for another six years.
Putin’s victory in the election, which concludes this weekend, is a foregone conclusion. He faces no credible rival. The Kremlin has spent an estimated $1.2bn (£1bn) on “information management” (meaning lies and propaganda), vote-fixing in occupied Ukraine, and unopposed nationwide campaigning. Lavish state funding, including a reported 20-fold increase in spending on internet projects, platforms and media, has a single aim: a Putin landslide.
If it were not so sinister, Putinism might objectively be considered an interesting phenomenon. Not content with absolute power, the leader needs to be loved and adored. He craves the legitimacy conferred by popular vote, but abhors the uncertainty of a free democratic process. He purports to listen to people’s concerns, as in marathon phone-ins and rallies, but only hears what he wants to hear: positive affirmation of his omniscience. A weak man plays the strongman, horse-riding bare-chested in Siberia and assassinating rivals with a sneer and a smirk. Over the course of nearly a quarter of a century, Putin has bent and subverted Russia’s entire system of government to his will. He has co-opted, compromised or ostracised the monied elites. He has turned the state into his personal fiefdom and embezzled on an obscene scale. Putinism works through fear and corruption, underpinned by exploitative patriotism. Alexei Navalny, his foremost critic, was murdered because he exposed such abuses. He ridiculed insecure Putin and made him feel small, when he desperately needs to feel great. In Navalny’s telling, the tsar has no clothes. Worse, for a Russian, he has no soul.
This parody of an election will be remembered, if at all, for the cynically methodical manner in which Putin and his cronies stole the people’s right to freely choose Russia’s leader. It will be remembered for the accompanying threats to unleash a humanity-obliterating nuclear war upon the world. And the crass brutality of Putinism will be forever symbolised by last week’s hammer attack in Lithuania on Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s close associate.
Ultimately, it is violence, not votes, that keeps Putin in power. But it cannot sustain him indefinitely. The oppressed of Russia must look to their history and keep faith. One day, this too will pass.
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