Putin Will Remain Aggressive Abroad Because He has No Plans to Do Anything Great at Home, Mukhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 1 – “The only reason” for Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine is his desire to land in the future history textbooks of Russia, Anton Mukhin says. The Kremlin leader has no plans to do anything great at home and therefore will remain aggressive abroad as long as he is in power.

            The St. Petersburg commentator observes that when leaders are approaching the end of their time in office, they typically think about their legacies, which are all too often thought of by them as their ability to be featured in future history textbooks about their countries (gorod-812.ru/put-v-uchebnik/).

            Putin is clearly among their number even though how much longer he will be in power is an open question, largely dependent on his lifespan rather than anything else. But having proved himself unwilling to do anything impressive at home that might win him space in texts, he will as in Ukraine engage in wars abroad, the surest route to space in such books.

            All Putin’s talk about stability at home is an indication of that: he doesn’t want any significant changes there. And without changes, he can’t count on being remembered in the future. That leaves war; and so not just in Ukraine but more generally he will continue to engage in it, driven by his need for recognition rather than the needs of his country.

            Mukhin doesn’t say; but if follows from his argument that Putin in his drive to restore the values of the past is himself prisoner of that move: he is increasingly restoring not only the way in which rulers behaved in earlier centuries but also the reasons some are remembered and others not.