The attack on Ukraine is accompanied by intensifying repression in Russia. The development can be expected to continue as long as Vladimir Putin is president.

It is still unclear whether his power will be strengthened or not, but Putin will go down in history as the man who destroyed Russia. His irrational rule means that the outside world must assume that he is a leader who can make any decision. Russia will quickly move in a more authoritarian direction.

– The external aggression is reflected in internal repression in Russia. It is a process that has escalated in recent years with the assassination attempt on opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his imprisonment. Russia currently has more than 400 political prisoners, increasing from about 50 political prisoners five or six years ago. Hundreds of people were arrested in Russia overnight on Friday for protesting against the war.

With the full-scale military attack on Ukraine, Russia has “inevitably and irreversibly changed,” Martin Kragh believes. Kragh is the head researcher of the Center for East European Studies at the Institute for Foreign Politics in Stockholm, Sweden.

There have been protests in many cities in Russia. One can understand that what is happening now is not popular with the Russian population. What do you think about the power of resistance?

– So far, there are relatively small protests, but we must remember that protests in Russia come with extremely high personal risk. You can get rid of the job, and you can be sentenced to prison. They can come up with accusations that you have resisted violently or that you have insulted the police. Statements on social media criticizing the government or the military can lead to lengthy prison sentences.

– So, what we can expect in a situation where Russia, on the one hand, continues to torment the Ukrainian people with its military campaign while the authoritarian development in Russia will only continue. There is no stopping this development as long as Vladimir Putin is in power because all this is driven by his convictions, his idea of ​​restoring a Russian empire. And he wants to go to the history books as the strong leader who held power, ruled other countries, and decided issues of war and peace. This is the inevitable consequence of his political logic.

He may have strengthened his position, but Putin will go down in history as the man who destroyed Russia.

Martin Kragh

But is his grip on power strengthened or weakened by the invasion of Ukraine?

– One would, of course, like to say that now his power is weakening, that now it is over. In a way, this is the beginning of the end. This is, of course, a vast strategic blunder, even from the narrow Russian state perspective. Putin has, after all, forever alienated and repelled the Ukrainian people, a country with which Russia has solid and historical cultural ties. And Russia will be increasingly isolated from the West, from the outside world, and it will become increasingly dependent on China, a country which, like Russia, is very authoritarian but, unlike Russia, is an economic giant. So he has weakened Russia. He may have strengthened his position, but Putin will go down in history as the man who destroyed Russia.

Does anyone have Putin’s ear in this situation? Would he listen to Chinese President Xi Jinping if he told him to step up?

– The dilemma is that China is the only country that benefits. So China bids its time and lets Putin dangle there at the far end of the twig where he now hangs. And internally in Russia today, there are no balancing counterweights in the political system. We can assume that Putin can control these issues unilaterally. There has previously been a discussion about making decisions within a narrow circle of like-minded people. The last few days, especially the meeting broadcast on television by the National Security Council, which is supposed to be this limited group, suggest that Putin is not listening to them. He wants them to confirm his own decision. He only surrounds himself with people who do not know or dare or have the intellectual ability to speak out against him. So we have to assume that Putin is isolated and will make decisions on his own and that he will probably also make these decisions based on a distorted and incorrect worldview.

Does this inner circle have the interest and ability to depose him?

– It is too early to speculate about such scenarios. We know from historical experience, when looking at this type of person-centered autocracy, shifts of power tend to be sudden and occur without warning. They appear for reasons that have nothing to do with constitutional mechanisms. Leaders like Putin are usually replaced by the leader’s death, a palace coup, or a revolution from below. It is a contrast to, for example, what is generally called party dictatorships, such as the Chinese and other similar systems, with a party in power. The power tends to change hands in more stable and predictable forms as the party constantly retains authority. In Russia, everything depends on Putin and the cult of personality that has been built around him. This means that Russia will enter a new phase of instability and unpredictability.