What does Russian president Vladimir Putin want? What is he trying to achieve? And what could go wrong? My thoughts and ideas are based not only on an analysis of Putin’s texts and policies, but also on personal observations of his logic and motives for decisions. He has spoken about them at regular meetings of the President with the editors-in-chief of Russian media outlets. The format of these meetings, as a rule, is closed, but also free in the sense of a frank exchange of opinions. At the very least, I could always ask Putin any questions, ranging from Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei Navalny, to civil liberties and democratic practices. And I always got detailed answers. The most recent meeting took place in St. Petersburg at midnight on June 17. It provided a real window into Putin’s mindset and objectives.

Here is what I have gleaned from these meetings: Two events of the recent past apparently preordained contemporary events in Ukraine. The harsh anti-Russian course of Maidan from 2013 to 2014, with a pronounced Russophobia towards the Russian-speaking population, including in Crimea, left no doubt that Russia would lose its naval base in Sevastopol and access to the waters around Crimea in general. Victoria Nuland not only openly represented, but also symbolized the United States as the main force behind the anti-government protests. Since Maidan was obviously anti-Russian in nature, Washington’s position was perceived as hostile to Moscow. And the fact that the guarantors of the settlement of the situation, represented by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, and Poland, could not guarantee anything was interpreted in Moscow as an attempted direct deception of Putin himself.

Moreover, there is information that, allegedly, President Barack Obama personally called Putin at that time and proposed cooperation. Obama was supposed to direct the protesters away from the Maidan, and Putin was to suggest to Yanukovych that he take armed law enforcement officers to the barracks. New elections of the President of Ukraine are to be held in the fall of 2014. As you know, this did not happen. And Obama never called Putin back. He didn’t even apologize, to say that everything had gone wrong, sorry, old man. He simply never called back and that was the end of it.

What’s more, in Putin’s thinking, it is American society that is split in half. One example is the topic of abortion. And no trace of Russia. It’s time for American politicians to admit that their society is split as never before. For its own internal reasons, not because of Russia. That would be an honest assessment.

But in 2018, based on an investigation purporting “Russian interference,” sanctions were imposed on the Russian energy sector, Russia’s completion of Nord Stream 2 was deemed unacceptable, and a replacement for Russian gas was identified—liquefied natural gas from the United States. At the same time, Congress outlined a new basis for including specific Russian citizens on the sanctions list—who enjoyed close relations with Putin. In other words, it made the president of Russia toxic for his citizens, chief among them the “captains of Russian business.”

Parallel tariff and sanctions pressure on China from 2018 to 2020 led to Russian leadership to the firm conclusion that the United States is using sanctions as an instrument of unfair competition. The problems of Uighurs, Tibetans, and human rights in China as a whole immediately came into focus. It is clear that the placement of such human rights issues on the bilateral agenda is a precursor to and a sign of a new Cold War.

In turn, the Russian National Security Council apparently reached several conclusions: first, globalization, a scenario in which only the West wins, is over; second, sanctions are unfair and the reasoning behind them is far-fetched; thirdly, sanctions will not be lifted soon, perhaps never; fourth, the main object of the West’s attack is Putin himself; fifth, adding people who cooperate with Putin to the sanctions list pushes Russian society to division and revolution. From that moment on, one can assume that an era of total distrust in Russia’s relations with the West has begun.

The person who has had to deal with Russia’s new challenge is Putin and Putin alone. Precisely for this reason, it is important to understand the key traits of Putin’s character in order to understand the logic of his decisions.

Who Is Mr. Putin?

In my view, the answer to this question, asked in Davos back in January 2000, is more or less clear today.

Putin is a Russian, a statesman, a patriot, a Chekist, and someone who appeals to the nation and common people. Each of these characteristics of his personality and the combination of them plays a key role in understanding the decisions he makes.

For a start, Russianness and the religious orthodoxy attached to it predetermine his understanding of responsibility for the life and position of Russians wherever they are today. The collapse of the USSR left 25 million Russians outside the borders of Russia. It is in the name of protecting the life and dignity of these Russians that Putin draws moral rectitude for the internal justification of his actions. In the West’s decision to ignore the problems of Russian speakers in the Baltic states and Ukraine, Putin sees immorality and hypocrisy.

Putin’s experience at the height of power led him to the deepest conviction that the well-being of citizens depends on the personality of the president, not on institutions. To be honest, I have never heard the word “institution” from Putin. Maybe he mentioned it in formal texts, but as a tool for transforming the life of Russia, the category of “institution” is insignificant for Putin.

The principle of democracy is also applied in a particularly Russian way. Democracy to most of us is the power of the majority, as in ancient Athens. Today, Russia does not attach importance to such an important feature of modern democracy as the constitutionally enshrined protection of minority rights, nor the regularity of free elections or the presence of opposition media. Quite the contrary. Finally, a one-man management style does not need a separation of powers. Putin’s decisions are not met with criticism or resistance either in parliament or in the judicial system, including the Constitutional Court. This type of government—with an extremely closed procedure for making the most important strategic decisions--has led to the fact that, taking into account the nuclear status of the country, the subjective ideas in Putin’s head turn into a geopolitical reality for Russia, not to mention the rest of the world. Everyone has to reckon with this.

It is also the case that Putin, like all people in uniform (albeit in civilian clothes), is convinced that it is not the individual who is at the center of Russia’s interests, but the state. Putin’s conception of patriotism has become a new national idea. He is convinced that the country’s main problems can be solved by state corporations, state monopolies, and state banks. And a patriot is a person who puts the idea of state sovereignty above individual human and citizen rights.

Put bluntly, Putin is a Chekist. The basic features of such a security officer are suspicion, opacity, and secrecy. Without these professional traits, a security officer is not fit for purpose. Putin has made these features of his profession and character the basis for interaction with society. Every event is like a special operation. Until the last moment, no one should know anything. Russia’s loss of 320-350 billion dollars in the frozen assets of the Central Bank is a vivid proof of this.

Opacity, as a principle of management and decision-making, has turned out to be incompatible with the era of the internet, gadgets, decentralized information acquisition, and social networks. It is here that the deep conflict between today’s Russian authorities and the Internet generation, security officers, and gadget-obsessed proletarians lies. It precipitated the fundamental changes in the country’s domestic policy after 2012, starting with the third term of Putin’s presidency.

Putin’s high approval rating, among other things, is based on his conception of simplicity and his attempt to understand the thinking of people who are equally simple. Many question the existence of such “ordinary” people. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this article, I mean people whose basic requirements in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs relate to the bottom of the pyramid—food, housing, safety. Putin himself ranked these people as part of the middle class, pointing to those with an income of 17,000 rubles per month ($250-320) as a criterion for belonging to this category.

The considered traits of Putin’s character predetermine his actions, both at home and abroad. There are no surprises.

Putin’s Major Concerns

Putin is convinced that the nation’s strategic interests do not depend on who is in power in Russia today - Tsar Nicholas II, General Secretaries Stalin or Brezhnev, Presidents Gorbachev, Yeltsin or Putin. The national interest of the country is constant: security. NATO’s expansion to the East is an obvious security threat. Putin has been paying attention to this issue for fifteen years in conversations with Western colleagues, but his arguments were ignored.

The rights of the Russian population were infringed upon in respect to cultural and linguistic distinctiveness. Putin cannot agree that the rights of sexual minorities should be protected, but the rights of Russians should not. It is here that his moral position is formed: to leave your comrades in trouble is a disgrace and shame. It is an honor and pride to protect them at any cost.

Putin once said that if it weren’t for NATO’s ambitions to absorb Ukraine into its structures, he wouldn’t even worry about Crimea, let alone Donbas. He points to normal relations at one time with such pro-Western leaders of Ukraine as Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. So far, the West has not yet begun the active phase of Ukraine’s transformation into an anti-Russian outpost, as Putin himself put it.

The most important factor that destroyed trust between Russia and the West was the principled cynicism, injustice, and group dishonesty of the West, acutely manifested in unjustified sanctions resulting from the far-fetched accusations of Russian collusion with Donald Trump. Any contact with the Russians was interpreted by the mainstream media as proof of guilt. Propaganda has replaced information. Russians were deprived of the presumption of innocence.

Putin’s Geopolitical Views

Putin is convinced that Russia, based on the scale and specificity of the problems in relations with its neighbors (fourteen states), can, under no circumstances, delegate issues of its sovereignty to supranational organizations and their members. Put otherwise, Estonia or Lithuania cannot influence Russia’s foreign policy decisions. He is convinced that Russia, like the United States and China, should have full sovereignty in making all decisions. “Sovereignty,” as an immutable category, is immeasurably more important for Putin than the categories “freedom” and “democracy.” All the decisions in recent years on Russia’s withdrawal from international obligations assumed by Boris Yeltsin and early Putin follow from this logic.

What Putin Wants

Putin wants a recognition of Russia’s exclusive geopolitical interests. In particular, in matters of its own security, he insists on the right to move NATO away from Russia’s borders. At a minimum, from the space of the former Soviet Union. This right of Russia should prevail over the right of neighboring states to enter into whatever agreements they want. In a way, these stands represent a return of elements of the doctrine of limited sovereignty of the Brezhnev era.

Putin does not recognize the familiar, but legally vague concept of the “rules-based order.” He says that Russia does not understand these rules, did not participate in the development of these rules and will not follow them. He is convinced that the Yalta-Potsdam peace is over thanks to perpetual violations of international law and the UN Charter by Western countries. He cites the bombing of Belgrade, Iraq, Libya, and Kosovo as examples.

He wants to retrain the new world order—without a nuclear world war. Putin wants the West to accept any domestic political processes in Russia on a non-discriminatory basis. He insists that there is no universal model of state and political structure that is mandatory for all countries. Everything in the West is decided in the corridors of power and offices of big business. Trump’s disconnection from social media showed the falsity of claims about freedom of speech in the United States. The use of postal voting technology without adequate verification of the identity of the voter struck Putin’s imagination. Big technology companies, relying on unprecedented windfall profits and access to voters, are becoming key factors in winning elections.

What the West Thinks About Putin

The main preoccupation of the West is the idea that Putin wants to restore either the empire or the Soviet Union. It seems to me that this is an erroneous judgment. Putin is not an adherent to the idea of a new internationale. By highlighting the Russianness of the “Russian world,” he clearly sent a signal to everyone that this is a proposed solution to the specific problems of a particular people. You cannot replace a Belarusian, a Kazakh, a Ukrainian, or an Uzbek with Russianness. This is obvious. Therefore, one can only guess why the West interpreted Putin’s specific concerns about security and the narrowing of the belt of friendly states around Russia as Putin’s desire to recreate the empire. Putin, unlike Xi Jinping, isn’t motivated by ideological concerns. The President of Russia has made statements several times that the CIS is a form of civilized divorce of the former Soviet republics.

Putin’s Rating and Propaganda 

Putin has an extraordinarily high approval rating by the Russian people—between 70 and 80 percent. And many of his critics assert that this figure is generated state media propaganda. Ratings are driven by propaganda. This is correct. Even more so is the assertion that propaganda itself is driven by the demand for it. People today generate less demand for information, objective information. They want to hear biased information, i.e. propaganda. And this is a salient feature of today’s world: major narratives are propaganda-based. The clash of narratives today is the clash of propaganda in which neither side can lose. You can lose in information wars but never in propaganda wars. Because information is shaped upon the demand for the truth and propaganda is shaped by the desire of a recipient to hear lies.

Putin understood a new reality in relations with a West, which is not interested in information from Russia about his true concerns, and he switched to the language of propaganda inside the country. At the same time, he referred to all his opponents who received funding abroad as propagandists, calling them foreign agents. The sociology reports from the end of June of this year confirmed that the phrase “foreign agent” created mostly negative connotations among Russians who think in terms of a spy, a traitor, an enemy of the Motherland.

The displacement of information by propaganda has narrowed not only the field of trust between Putin and the West but has practically eliminated platforms for meaningful discussion between experts in order to identify possible areas of cooperation and normalization.

The War with Gadget-Proletarians

The West appeals to institutions in Russia and public opinion, but they are rickety, underdeveloped, and tone-deaf. Having stopped talking to Putin and betting on the long-term exhaustion of forces inside Russia, the West is waiting for the collapse of the system in terms of parameters that are not essential for Putin and most Russians. I emphasize, for the majority! In the West, the majority is sacred as a source of legitimacy. And only in relation to Russia is the majority perceived as something disgraceful and shameful.

And a minority of new gadget-proletarians are perceived as the voice of Russia. Gadget-proletarians, as a rule, for the most part are people without property, no apartment, no car, no house. And their mobility is due to the lack of attractive assets in their ownership in Russia. As Marx wrote in his Manifesto: the proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains. Today, the same can be said about almost all of Putin’s opponents. With some exceptions. The gadget opposition, strictly speaking, predetermined the direction of the government’s attack on social media as a platform and a “collective organizer” of the masses. Lenin called the newspaper Iskra a “collective organizer” more than 100 years ago.

Shock Surgery

The economic costs will be heavy in the medium term. The current sanctions packages have brought the Russian economy to a state that can be called “shock surgery.” The difference between “shock surgery and the “shock therapy” of the 90s is that then, thirty years ago, Russia was urgently looking for industries that could enter into global economic relations and value chains. Today, shock surgery means cutting out the most competitive sectors of the Russian economy from global value and supply chains. The turn to the East, to Africa, and Latin America, which the authorities are discussing, cannot be carried out quickly. There are too few exports of finished products. And optimism about China, as a consumer of everything sanctioned from Russia, is excessive. China doesn’t need much besides Russia’s raw materials.

Whether or Not Everything Has Been Taken Into Account

The concept of one people (Russian-Ukrainian) was clearly overestimated since it overlooked the significance of public consciousness as collective identity. It is one’s own identity that determines belonging to any community. In addition to a shared 1,000-year history, for a modern person, his actual political, state, gender, etc. identities are important. Within one nation (even if it is proven) there may also be two or three state-forming nations (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians).

The intelligence data on the state of morale and the real combat capability of the Ukrainian army, which, thanks to the training of instructors from NATO, Britain, and Poland, has radically changed since 2014, seems to have been miscalculated. Apparently, no one in Russia predicted the scale and depth of the sanctions aimed at isolating Russia from key world markets (capital, finance, technology, scientific exchanges, sales of main export items).

No one expected the new trend toward Cancel Russia, which has significantly undermined Russia’s “soft power” resources for years to come. It is difficult to imagine an intensive cultural exchange in the near future. Such things have been put on pause.

What Can Go Wrong and Why

Having started, in essence, a revolutionary restructuring of Russia in the course of an attempt to re-create Ukraine and the new world order, Putin has set extremely tough survival conditions for society, changing many of the habitual lifestyles of Russians. About 70 percent of his supporters will calmly react to some deterioration in the standard and quality of life. 30 percent of the population with higher incomes will feel the rigid logic of the “new normal.” I will not guess in detail what, where, and how will happen or go wrong. That’s not the point. And the fact is that there are no known cases in history when the core of a conservative revolution would consist of people around seventy years old.

I do not doubt in the least the energy of this group of colleagues and comrades in their desire to go through with the difficult path of revolution until victory. I still have a suspicion that they started their revolution later than the time frame in which such things are usually done. Revolution, like war, is a matter of the young, whatever one may say… If there are losses in the core, many things will begin to change, there are many scenarios depending on the people who assume their place.

The conflict in Ukraine will last four to five years. We need to prepare for this. There are no grounds for peace yet. There will be no street protests on socio-economic grounds in Russia. Neither in the fall, nor next summer. Russia exhausted the power of speeches from below in the twentieth century, having squandered a critical mass of passionate personalities in the fire of class and civil struggle. Alas, changes in Russia will come from above, as always.

Konstantin Remchukov is an authority on Russian politics and the proprietor and editor-in-chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta. You can follow him at: @KVRemchukov.

Image: Reuters.