I’ve been posting under the headline “Putin Patrol” on and off for over ten years. I’ve come to think of him as the gift that keeps on giving – if, that is, your interest is in leadership, especially bad leadership.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is a prototypical example of a leader who during his tenure – beginning in 2000 – has gone from bad to worse.* Moreover last week he announced that he would run for reelection. This means that failing a black swan event, he will win a fifth term. If he serves it in full his rule will extend to 2030, making him Russia’s longest serving leader since Catherine the Great.
Putin’s War – Russia’s attack on Ukraine – was launched in February 2022. While his leadership during this nearly two-year period has been unethical – even evil – in the last twelve months it has been effective, arguably very effective.
To a liberal Democrat, his badness, his malevolence, is self-evident. But how has Putin been good – how, specifically, has he been effective?
- His popularity at home remains high. This despite levels of domestic repression far greater than a few years ago. And far, far, greater than they were during the early years of Putin’s reign.
- His stature abroad remains high, or at least high enough. He and China’s president Xi Jinping remain best buds. India’s prime minister Narendra Modi tends to his ties to Putin with care. And just last week Putin sauntered around the Middle East, shoring up his relationships with Arab leaders. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman did no less than tell Putin he had “lit up Riyadh with his presence.”
- Despite dire early projections, and strenuous efforts on the part of the West, Russia’s wartime economy has remained stable. It has adapted to Western sanctions, kept in harness its key trading partners, and used its oil revenues to keep full the country’s coffers.
- Russia’s performance on the battlefield has gone from dismal to solid. Putin’s military has shored up its defenses and prevented Ukraine from making its much-anticipated breakthrough. Many in the West now see the war as a stalemate, neither side likely certainly in the near term to achieve a breakthrough. Further, Western support for the war effort is waning.
- Putin has disappeared his archnemesis, Alexi Navalny – so far without a trace. For several days, Navalny has been missing from the wretched prison to which he was confined by Putin, with no one in the West claiming to know where he is.
An hour or so ago Putin’s completed one of his rare press conferences. Not only did he exude self-confidence generally, but he also stuck to his guns on Ukraine specifically. “There will be peace when we achieve our goals,” he stated unequivocally. “They have not changed. I’ll remind you of what we talked about then: the denazification of Ukraine, its demilitarization, its neutral status. As for demilitarization, if they don’t want to come to an agreement, then we are forced to take other measures, including military ones.”
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown – supposedly. But not so now with Putin. To the contrary. After a post-pandemic rough patch, he’s riding high. Looking good and, to all appearances, feeling fine.
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*Barbara Kellerman, Leadership from Bad to Worse: What Happens When Bad Festers (Oxford University Press, March 2024).