Putin Keeps Compounding His Problems by His Approach to the Pandemic, Legucka Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – The pandemic came to Russia at a most inconvenient time for Vladimir Putin, Agniewszka Legucka says; and the Kremlin ruler has only made things worse for himself and his regime by the way he has responded. But despite that, as long as he has reserves, he will retain the support of big business and the country will not collapse.

            The analyst at the Polish Institute for International Affairs says Putin wanted 2020 to proceed under the banner “Putin forever.” Perhaps for that reason, he was slow to recognize the dangers of the coronavirus and thought he go ahead without change (biznesalert.pl/rosja-putin-kreml-polityka-energetyka/; in Russian at inosmi.ru/politic/20200605/247557864.html).

            His campaign was based on the proposition that Russia needs a strong leader like himself rather than weak chief executives as in the West. To that end, he argued that he had prevented the pandemic from hitting Russia as hard as it was Western countries, only to discover shortly thereafter that it would harm Russia at least as much and that he had failed to prevent that.

            Then, instead of taking the lead, Leguchka continues, Putin withdrew to his residence, appearing only occasionally on television, and shifted primary responsibility for combatting the pandemic to the governors, hardly the way in which Russians expect a strong and descisive leader to act.

            Not surprisingly as a result, his support among them collapsed to the lowest levels ever. “Even in 2018, when the decision was made in Russia to raise the pension age, these indicators were not as long as they are now,” the Polish analyst says, at least in part because Putin has hidden himself and tried to shift all responsibility.

            And the propaganda memes that worked in 2008-2009 and 2014-2015 failed to work this time around, she argues. Then, blaming the West worked for many Russians; but now they can see that the West is confronted with the same problems and doing better because countries there are providing “much more assistance” to their populations.

            Instead of making a mid-course correction, Putin and his political technologists have further compounded his problems by scheduling the Victory Parade on June 24 and the referendum on July 1, a step the Kremlin took because despite the pandemic, “with each passing month, the situation [in the Russian economy] is becoming worse.”

            According to Legucka, Putin expected to win support for extending his rule by promising to deliver general well-being. But the pandemic and the oil price collapse make that almost impossible at least anytime soon.  And his failure to deliver is hurting him particularly because of the propaganda line he had used earlier.

            The Kremlin has insisted that it has sufficient gold holdings and other reserves to survive as “a besieged fortress.”  But now that there is a real crisis affecting the population, it isn’t using those reserves or taking on debt as Western countries have. Instead, it is leaving the people to suffer on their own; and seeing that, they are turning against Putin.

            All of this, even taken together, does not mean that Putin and his regime are likely to collapse anytime soon, Legucka says. “As long as the Kremlin has money, ‘business’ and the oligarchs who want to preserve the political status quo will support him.”  Only the Russian people will no longer be in his corner.