By Kaden Ryback
This is an opinion piece that reflects the beliefs of the author.
Ever since leaving his role as Deputy Minister of Energy in 2002, Vladimir Milov has been a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Despite leaving the government, he has yet to take his foot out of politics. Milov helped craft Alexei Navalny’s presidential campaign, a movement that has gained support from around the world after Putin’s attempts to kill Navalny with chemical nerve agent.
Last month, Milov spoke virtually at The Sedona Forum, an event focusing on solving global issues hosted by the McCain Institute, about the current state of Putin’s Russia.
“We don’t have much of a parliament left in my country, there is no federal assembly, there are just a bunch of androids that are appointed by the presidential administration,” Milov said. “We haven’t seen free and fair elections in more than 20 years.”
Putin is a textbook demagogue. Yes, he’s a post-Soviet Russian leader, but that hasn’t stopped him from taking notes from the Soviet autocrat playbook.
During his time in power, Putin has silenced his media critics, jailed his political opponents, flexed Russian military power in sovereign states and topped it all off by owning lavish estates that make the Playboy Mansion look humble.
The events over the past few months have demonstrated the vibrant despotism on display in Putin’s Russia.
Protests in support of opposition leader Navalny, who was jailed by Russian authorities after the government labeled his campaign an extremist organization, have been met with aggressive police responses, and journalists reporting on the protests weren’t spared beatings — even though they were wearing bright yellow press vests that were mandated by the government ostensibly for their safety.
Perhaps Putin’s most egregious action was last year when he held a vote for a constitutional amendment that allowed him to run for president twice more, potentially letting him stay in power until 2036.
Yes, it was a “vote” that 78% of voters approved, but this political triumph seems less legitimate when looking at the accusations of inconsistency in the tallying of results, voters being pressured to go to the polls to increase turnout, and the fact that days before the election results were known, copies of Russia’s constitution with the new amendment were on sale in bookstores.
All of this goes to show the state of reality in Russia, a nation with the pretense of democratic freedom.
Putin has gobbled up democracy so he can stay in the Kremlin. But Putin’s war against average people extends beyond Russia’s borders, it’s a battle conducted digitally in foreign states, and it’s a battle that’s currently happening in Ukraine through force of arms.
Your democracy is on his plate too.
A very popular despot:
Russia is in pain.
With an economy that is so reliant on oil profits (which tanked during the height of the coronavirus pandemic) coupled with the damaging effects of western sanctions and a market that is flush with dark money (unreported earnings that make up one-fifth of Russia’s GDP) has sparked hardship across the country.
The standard of living is stagnant, inflation rates remain high and any government initiative meant to lift the ranks of Russia’s poor is hobbled by revenue constraints.
By the look of it, you could safely assume that Putin would be rather unpopular with the public, but you’d be wrong.
Putin has managed to maintain some fearsomely high approval ratings at home. In April, 65% of Russians approved of Putin’s actions as president.
There are two main reasons for his popularity.
First off, it helps to remember what Russia has been through before Putin’s ascent to power. Massive economic instability and political turmoil plagued Russia as the Soviet Union waned.
In the 20 years that Putin’s been in power (either as president or prime minister), Russia has been on more stable footing.
Yes, the economy is still in trouble, but Russians feel more comfortable.
If you’re looking at Russia as an outsider, it looks terrible, but Putin’s Russia would seem good to you too if you grew up with grandparents talking about Stalin.
Then there is Russia’s position on the world stage. Putin has successfully painted himself as the strong man who can stand up to the West, and he has used this image to strategically beat down his opponents and news critics by labeling them as foreign agents.
The fear generated from the power play between Russia and its enemies in Europe and the U.S. acts as a cushion for Putin to keep up his approval ratings.
Timothy Frye, a political scientist who wrote Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia, said that Putin is a special kind of despot who is able to maintain his power because “the bleak condition of relations between Russia and the West has strengthened the groups in Russia most invested in the political status quo.”
When relations get worse, Putin tends to benefit.
Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketed in early 2014 when Russian forces annexed the Crimean Peninsula from 65% in Jan 2014 to 83% in May that same year after the conclusion of operations.
The international community was outraged by the military action, but the Russian people stood by their leader as he stuck up a big old middle finger to Western powers.
Russia paid a price for the invasion, sanctions were levied against Russia that knocked the country’s growth down by 3%, but Putin is fully aware of how it paid dividends for his popularity.
Putin realizes that the antagonism can work in his favor, and that if he can push the right buttons and disturb the democratic order of his adversaries, he can reap the political reward.
The War Outside Russia:
The Russian military is limited in its size and influence, but the development of Russian cyberattack capabilities has made Russia an international cyber-nightmare.
When the dotcom bubble burst in the late 90s leaving many computer programmers, coders and other tech wizards out of a job, the Russian government brought their brains on board to build up its cyberwarfare arsenal.
Russian hackers attacked former soviet satellite states in the 2000s, one of them being the first known cyberattack directed by one state at another in Estonia in 2007 when Russian hackers unleashed a DDoS attack (overloading internet servers with a barrage of traffic) that disrupted government email systems, banks and news agencies.
The attacks grew more sophisticated in the 2010s. Rather than just disrupting a country’s infrastructure as a show of dominance — a classic bully picking a fight with smaller kids on the playground — Russia began targeting foreign elections, both directly and indirectly.
When Ukraine held presidential elections in 2014, Russian hackers made multiple attempts to disrupt the process.
In the days leading up to the election, the hackers made their way into Central Election Commission computers and deleted files that rendered the vote tallying system useless and planted a virus, which luckily was removed less than an hour before results went live, that would have displayed the far-right candidate as the winner of the elections — despite the fact that the candidate received less than 1% of the vote.
The biggest target, and perhaps the most well documented, was the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Hackers sponsored by Russian military intelligence named “Fancy Bear” successfully infiltrated Hillary Clinton’s campaign managers emails and DNC email servers, and subsequently leaked information showing the DNC’s preference for Clinton over her rival in the primaries, Bernie Sanders.
Whatever the actual effect these attacks had on the election’s outcomes will forever remain unanswerable, but the intent of the attacks, to throw a monkey wrench at the Clinton campaign and cast doubt on the legitimacy of an election tainted by a foreign power’s covert actions, was clear.
The target of these attacks in Ukraine and the U.S. was more than just the election, the idea of democracy itself was under attack.
The questions raised about the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency showed the success of the Russian attacks, many people really did feel like the election was unfairly swayed in Trump’s favor because of Russian meddling.
Also, ironically, the support of Trump by Putin’s regime was partly based in Trump’s agency as a disruptive liar who could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election — Trump, shortly after winning, denied losing the popular vote by falsely claiming that millions of illegal immigrants voted for his opponent.
But this is all part of Putin’s game to weaken his adversaries and rally support at home, because he knows that Russia can’t compete with its adversaries militarily or economically.
Gen. H.R. McMaster, former U.S. National Security Advisor to President Trump, said it best while speaking at the Sedona Forum.
“Putin’s goal has been to return Russia to great power status, but with the declining population, dwindling influence and a weak economy, the country can’t compete directly with the U.S. and Europe,” McMaster said. “Putin adopted a strategy to drag others down to Russia’s level, sew division, weaken rival states, and unravel alliances that give other states strategic advantages.”
However, perceiving Russian cyberwarfare as a way for the country to compensate for its comparatively weak military prowess should not downplay the very real threat of Russian steel.
In April, Ukrainian sources reported that Russia sent an additional 14,000 troops to its positions on Ukraine’s eastern border and Crimea, bringing the total Russian military presence in the region up to 80,000.
But why now? Milov believes that the answer lies in the parliamentary elections this September.
“There are many rumors in Moscow that Putin might deliver another geopolitical gift to the Russian people,” Milov said. “What we do know is that Putin is preparing for a historical move.”
Despite his popularity, there is good reason for Putin’s regime to be afraid, because Russia is anything but sunshine and roses.
The economic slowdown caused by the pandemic only exacerbated the poor standard of living, stagnating wages and population decline. Such conditions could mean that United Russia, a party with a loose political ideology that is held together by obedience to Putin, is at risk of losing a part of its majority in parliament.
Putin might consider taking military actions in Ukraine to give United Russia a steroid boost, but any military action would come with a price.
Milov believes that the Russian people, much like Americans, would like to see more money spent at home rather than in conflicts abroad. If tensions with Ukraine were to escalate, and the number of Russian lives lost with it, the public’s opinion could flip on a dime.
“He knows what it does to popular opinion when you start to do a body count,” Milov said. “In Donbas (a region in eastern Ukraine), he is fiercely suppressing rumors or information in public about Russian servicemen being killed in action.”
This is a clear example of Putin’s biggest flaw; he sits on a tower of lies and ugly appeasements.
If Putin can pull of a military action or make some other geopolitical win without the cost of Russian lives, he can make the best for himself out of a poor situation for Russians.
“Here’s a gift to you Russians in front of an upcoming election in return of a bad economic situation,” Milov said explaining Putin’s logic. “You don’t have anything to eat, but at least you have something to be proud about geopolitically.”
How To Fight Back:
If Putin’s goal is to weaken Western democracy to even out the playing field for Russia, and if he is willing to infringe on the sovereignty of other nations to boost his political support at home, then, logically, the best way to fight back is to strengthen our democracy and our alliances.
The Capitol insurrection was a gift to Putin. As people across the world decried the attacks and mourned the desecration of American ideals, Putin must have been sitting with a smirk on his face watching the newsfeed of American democracy eating itself from the inside out.
After all, other Russian official didn’t hide their thoughts.
Leonid Slutsky, a foreign affairs chief, said after the insurrection that the US cannot “claim to be the world’s ‘beacon of democracy’.”
The United States and its European allies must make democracy look more appealing.
When there are insurrectionists storming the Capitol at home, and as the leaders of Western democracies fail to deliver for their citizens, that makes what Russians have by comparison not seem like the worst option.
To make democracy more appealing, it must start working for the everybody.
Western democracies desperately need to address the widening wealth gap through stronger government initiatives meant to reign in big business and restore the social safety net.
Recently, I’ve come to like the call for the Biden administration to go all ‘FDR New Deal’ style. In some ways the administration has already delivered — the expansion of the child tax credit is a big deal for lower class Americans — but there needs to be more.
Taxpayer funded universal pre-k, prescription drug reform and a single payer health care system similar to the ones already in place in Europe could do wonders in helping our democracy, because when voters see stuff getting done, they are more likely to be active citizens who participate in the democratic process.
But this must be a unified movement, Western democracies must hold each other up.
That means our alliances, NATO in particular, must be strengthened and not be afraid to bite back.
NATO hasn’t maintained its prominence as the bulwark against Russian aggression for nothing — shortly after the cyberattack in Estonia, NATO sent experts to help the country bolster its cyber-defense abilities — but it’s also fallen short.
By fallen short, I’m not talking about countries failing to meet their funding obligations (as many U.S. politicians love to talk about), I’m referring to NATO’s lack of cohesion.
The biggest problem facing the alliance are the mixed messages being sent by member countries to Russia. Every country has maintained its sanctions on Russia since 2014, but many countries have broken from the ranks and extended open arms to Russia.
Germany continues to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which Russian state-owned companies stand to profit from, and Hungary has blocked deeper ties between Ukraine and NATO due to disputes between the two countries.
Actions like this have prevented NATO from working together as a unified front.
Even as the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Poland and Lithuania have provided military equipment and training support for Ukraine, it is not a NATO program because multiple NATO members have reservations.
But what does this signal to Russia? If multiple NATO members are willing to deepen their economic futures with Russia and refuse to help nations most at threat by the Russian military, than surely the Russians will see that they have some wiggle room; that Putin can get away with biting off a little bit more.
This is a fight that no democratic nation can go at alone. The greatest way to respond to external threats is to unify by realizing what’s at stake, and not just for the sake of our safety, but for the sake of democracy’s survival worldwide.
“We are all in the same boat, we are the free people of the free world fighting against this international autocrat which includes not only Putin but his friends in Beijing and other places,” Milov said. “It’s part of democratic rule based order versus total autocratic mafia-style dictatorship which Putin and his friends want to impose all across the globe. We can’t let that happen.”
