Tag Archive for: Vladimir Putin

No, it’s not new. Russia and China have been best buddies for decades

Maybe people are only just beginning to notice the close alignment of Russia and China. It’s discussed as a sudden new phenomenon in world affairs, but in fact it’s not new at all.

The two countries have been each other’s most important diplomatic partner since no later than 2002, according to my research. Throughout this period, Russia has been central to China’s building of an alternative world order.

Based on the structured way the Chinese foreign ministry publishes incoming and outgoing diplomatic visits, I built a database that covers the presidential periods of Hu Jintao (2002–2012) and Xi Jinping (2012–present). My clearest finding was the dominance of Sino-Russian exchanges. The graph below shows the trend in Russia-China visits.

Russia-China visits (ministerial or higher) listed by the Chinese foreign ministry. Source: author.

This decades-old habit of intense interactions remained stable after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Beijing and Moscow’s similarly bleak view of the international order cannot be undone by a few trips of some eager European ministers to China or a few ill-thought-out US concessions to Russia.

The intimate nature of president-to-president ties is clear. Beyond the period covered by the database, there has been a state visit in one direction or the other every year since 1999. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin took office in 2000, a Russian president went on a state visit to China every even year, and every uneven year a Chinese president went to Russia. The exceptions are Xi’s extra visit to Moscow in 2015, officially called mere ‘attendance’, for the World War II victory parade. And there were no visits either way during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both Hu and Xi made their first foreign visit as president to Moscow.

There is no other country that has a diplomatic relationship with China like this. Russia is the top outgoing destination during Hu Jintao’s and Xi Jinping’s presidential terms. Russia was the top source of incoming visits for Hu’s two terms; it ranked second or third for Xi’s first two terms and, so far, for his third term, too. Few foreign officials have led delegations to China as often as Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

My data shows that Russia has been China’s most important diplomatic partner throughout the governments of Hu and Xi. Observers are right to point to the personal relationship Xi and Putin have developed—one that includes birthday phone calls. However, the empirical data shows that interaction was equally intense when Dmitry Medvedev was president of Russia and under the supposedly less assertively nationalist Hu.

Beyond diplomatic visits, Russia is fundamental to Beijing’s alternative world order. It has always been an important member of international groupings that Beijing began constructing from the 1990s onwards, including the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

China’s views on international order have developed a more global perspective over the years. Starting with the East Asia Summit and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nearer to home, China now reaches the entire developing world through groupings such as BRICS+. Russia was always there—often to back up Beijing’s camp.

Now this expanding horizon is reaching Europe.

China’s long-term solution for what it still stubbornly calls ‘the Ukraine crisis’ overlaps with elements of Russia’s view of regional order. Within days of 24 February 2022, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi presented a ‘Five-Point Position’ that called for the formation of a ‘balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism’.

Wang linked the conflict’s ‘complex historical context’ to the ‘principle of indivisible security’. This Cold War-era idea evolved into a phrase first used by the Soviet Union and now by Russia to claim that NATO expansion infringes on its sovereignty. Chinese officials, too, have since 2022 repeatedly described US Indo-Pacific policy as a ‘NATO of the Asia-Pacific’ that risks triggering the same ‘disaster’ as NATO supposedly did in Europe.

At his press conference following the parliament meeting in Beijing, Wang said no third party could influence the friendly ties between China and Russia. The data backs him up. The relationship has been at the core of Chinese efforts to strike out in the world.

Despite massive historical differences between the Sino-Soviet split and today, the data shows that the practical situation on the ground is durable and sustainable. China’s diplomatic ties with Russia have not quantitatively increased or decreased significantly since February 2022. In contrast, my data shows that after 2014 diplomatic interactions between China and Ukraine declined.

Xi—who has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky only once—told Putin during his most recent state visit in 2023 that Russia and China were driving ‘changes unseen in a hundred years’, which he links to his Chinese Dream.

In Xi and Putin’s world, there may be room for Donald Trump. But there is no place for the rules-based international order that many countries depend on. Western capitals and Washington pundits need to realise this is not a whim; Russia has consistently been China’s most important diplomatic partner.

US-Russia negotiations won’t bring peace to Ukraine

Will US President Donald Trump be able to forge a peace between Russia and Ukraine, or are we facing a repetition of the infamous Munich Agreement? When Britain and France forced Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany in 1938, they believed that doing so would ensure long-term peace. But appeasing a revisionist aggressor had the opposite effect, setting the stage for another world war one year later.

If peace means settling all the issues that now divide Russia and Ukraine, the likelihood of achieving such an outcome is extremely slim. The origin of the war lies in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s determination to prevent Ukraine from becoming ‘anti-Russia’, namely by forcing it back under Kremlin control. A democratic, sovereign Ukraine that sought cooperation and integration with the West was incompatible with what Putin regards as his historic duty. He has long maintained that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe, and that Ukraine is not, in fact, an independent nation-state.

This means that a true peace between Russia and Ukraine will not be possible until Putin has left the Kremlin, and a more realistic vision of Russia’s future has gained ascendancy there. Nothing of the kind appears imminent. But if peace is not possible in the near term, a halt to the fighting and the beginning of a political process to reduce tensions might still be achievable.

Trump’s promise to end the war in 24 hours obviously was never serious. He is now facing a challenge that will take months, not hours. Putin previously made clear that he will not accept a ceasefire that does not result in Russia’s territorial expansion and Ukraine’s political and military submission. He will now try to extract as much as possible from a direct meeting with Trump, and judging by past meetings between the two men, his maximalist approach could pay off. Recall Trump’s private meeting with Putin in Helsinki in 2018, when he declared that he believed the Russian leader over his own intelligence agencies.

But can Trump really deliver Ukraine to Putin?

In September 1938, Czechoslovakia did not have a choice about what happened to it. It wasn’t even at the table for the discussions in Munich, where Adolf Hitler persuaded French and British leaders to accept its dismemberment. Within six months, Hitler violated the agreement, and German tanks were rolling into Prague. Trump and Putin are equally adamant that Ukraine should not be at the table. Their intention seems to be to draft an agreement and then force Ukraine to accept its terms.

Putin will likely be very ambitious with his demands, because he knows that this is his big chance. In his own opening bid, Trump will probably seek a straightforward ceasefire, with political talks later. But Putin will want more. He will not only press his original demands but also ask for relief from Western sanctions. The risk, of course, is that he will overplay his hand, demanding more than even Trump believes he can deliver.

But even if Putin resists that temptation and the two men agree on territorial and political terms, it is far from certain that Trump can force Ukraine to accept them. In 1938, Czechoslovakia decided not to fight, because its military prospects were essentially hopeless. But Ukraine’s are not. The chances that it would simply swallow a blatantly unjust and unfair diktat are slim to none.

To be sure, there is war fatigue in Ukraine after years of attritional warfare and routine Russian strikes on civilians and critical infrastructure. But the Ukrainians also recognise what is at stake. In February 2022, almost everyone assumed that they would break under Russian pressure within the space of just days or weeks. But now, three years later, Russia controls only around 19 percent of Ukraine’s territory. Moreover, Ukraine itself has taken control of territory in Russia’s Kursk region.

While the stakes are existential for Ukraine, they are also very high for the rest of Europe. If a US president not only refuses to acknowledge a brazen act of aggression, but also forces the victim into submission, much of what NATO stands for risks going up in smoke. Would the United States still come to the defence of the Baltics or other vulnerable NATO members?

And the risks are not Europe’s alone. What would become of NATO’s security guarantees and alliances in Asia and elsewhere? If the US is unwilling to defend Ukraine, would it really defend Taiwan?

Critical days lie ahead. A new and powerful source of global instability—the US government—must now be reckoned with.

To deal with Russia, first understand what Putin wants

President Donald Trump has said he wants to end the fighting in Ukraine quickly. But it’s far from clear whether this is achievable, not least because the war in Ukraine has become a proxy for Putin’s wider confrontation with the West.

Trump’s campaign pledge that he would end the fighting within 24 hours has already been modified, with the new president and his advisers more recently discussing a period of three to six months. Trump has signalled plans for an early meeting with Vladimir Putin, while the United States’s special adviser to Ukraine is expected to visit Kyiv soon.

Putin will likely welcome a meeting with his US counterpart, not least because it will put him where he always wanted to be: talking directly to Washington, one great power to another, disposing of world affairs. This appeals to the Russian president’s concern for his, and Russia’s, appropriate standing in global affairs.

Moreover, Putin will likely fancy that he can play the incoming president, much as reports claim he did at their Helsinki summit in 2018. He will also consider himself to be in a strong position to drive a hard bargain on Ukraine.

He thinks he’s winning and that time is on his side. To some extent, he has a point.

Russia has the upper hand in what has become a brutal war of attrition. Russian forces have been making slow, costly yet inexorable progress, pushing the outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian defenders onto the backfoot. Meanwhile, relentless missile and drone attacks have taken a high toll on Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure.

Western countries are facing domestic political and economic pressures and distractions. Putin calculates that this, coupled with uncertainty over Trump’s approach to the US’s European allies, will lead the West to tire of supporting Kyiv and to welcome a deal.

To date, Putin has shown no real interest in a negotiated settlement—except on his own terms. These terms would effectively amount to capitulation by Kyiv and are by no means in the West’s interests.

Putin has not resiled from his core objective to bring Ukraine to heel, install a more pliable government in Kyiv, and draw Ukraine back firmly within Russia’s sphere of influence.

He won’t therefore be satisfied with just a ceasefire. Rather, he’ll want recognition of Russia’s annexed territories and a pledge of permanent Ukrainian neutrality and disarmament.

This relates to Putin’s wider objectives. As the war has continued, he has increasingly described Ukraine as a proxy for what he portrays as a wider existential conflict between Russia and the West. Resisting purported Western hostility towards Russia is now crucial in legitimising Putin’s continued rule.

Putin also wants to revise the post-Cold War security settlement in Europe and restore Russia’s global standing and influence. This was the essence of treaties that Moscow proposed in December 2021 on the eve of its invasion of Ukraine.

How the Trump administration deals with Moscow will be crucial not only for Ukraine’s future, but also for wider European and global security.

A quick, partial deal now would eventually come back to bite the US and its European allies.

If Trump wants a quick deal, he will press Ukraine to accept a ceasefire along the current lines of fighting. Kyiv may indeed have to accept a loss of territory as part of a settlement. But unless this is accompanied by robust Western (above all, US) security guarantees, such an agreement is unlikely to last, giving Russia the opportunity to rebuild its forces. Once it senses that Western attention has shifted elsewhere, Moscow will be emboldened to resume its subjugation of Ukraine.

The smarter approach for Washington would instead be to try and even up the scales by intensifying pressure on Putin to nudge him into negotiations while strengthening Ukraine’s hand ahead of any talks.

For example, Putin is keen to secure a relaxation of Western economic and technology sanctions so the Russian economy can recover and Moscow can reduce its stark dependence on China. Western states should give no such relief. Sanctions should instead be stepped up to increase pressure on the already-weakened Russian economy.

Washington should also pledge to increase military and economic support for Kyiv, signalling to Putin that he’s unlikely to achieve his aims in eastern Ukraine.

These measures would push Moscow to agree to talks to end the fighting and would strengthen Kyiv’s hand (and that of its Western backers) ahead of any such negotiations.

Early signals from the new administration are encouraging. Trump has urged Putin to agree to end the fighting in Ukraine, threatening otherwise to increase pressure substantially on Moscow, including through expanded sanctions.

Even so, securing a long-term, durable settlement in Ukraine involves more than this. It will also require Washington and its European allies to face up squarely to Moscow’s more confrontational and expansive ambitions.

The question is whether the new US administration will do this.

What ‘winning’ an election means in Putin’s Russia

As expected, Russian President Vladimir Putin has unofficially begun his campaign for re-election ahead of the presidential election scheduled for 17 March 2024. Exhibitions celebrating the Putin era are already on display, and cultural performances are set to tour Russia. Surprisingly, he has yet to officially announce his candidacy.

The election outcome is, of course, preordained. It’s an open secret that Russian elections are heavily ‘managed’ and political opposition has been suppressed for decades.

But that doesn’t mean the election is irrelevant. Putin will almost certainly be re-elected, but to truly ‘win’ he must convincingly refresh his political mandate.

Russian elections are theatrical, designed to create the perception of political popularity and a democratic mandate. John le Carre, in his novel Russia house, quipped about the failure of Mikhail Gorbachev’s more ‘open’ glasnost approach that ‘every democratic wish is filtered upwards by means of consultation at all levels, then dumped into the Neva’.

The failure of Gorbachev’s reforms is well documented. Putin can’t afford to alienate or disregard the Russian public in the same way. He came closest to doing that during his rokirovka with Dmitry Medvedev in 2008–2012. Blatantly sidelining the constitution resulted in mass protests in Bolotnaya Square and elsewhere in 2011 and the ‘March of Millions’ (50,000–100,000 participants) in 2012.

The Kremlin describes its approach to governing as ‘sovereign democracy’. The term was first attributed to prominent Putin supporter Vladislav Surkov in 2006. It justifies the centralisation of power and democratic interference on nationalist grounds. As argued by Russia expert Angela Stent, it’s essentially ‘democratic rhetoric’ with ‘undemocratic intent’.

The regime is yet to fall into le Carre’s trap. There’s remarkable tolerance in Russia for Putin’s authoritarianism and he remains broadly popular for a variety of reasons. In a recent poll, 62% of Russians said they believed the country was heading in the right direction.

Still, a motivating factor for election management is the Kremlin’s genuine fear of a ‘colour revolution’. This is partially based on the regime’s understanding of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Putin has lamented as a ‘major humanitarian tragedy’ and a ‘geopolitical catastrophe’, and the impact of the August 1991 protests in overcoming the conservative KGB coup in favour of Boris Yeltsin.

Anti-authoritarian movements swept through the post-Soviet world early in Putin’s tenure: in Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005—although Kyrgyzstan quickly devolved back into authoritarianism.

It’s no coincidence that the Kremlin cracked down on the independence of large enterprises and the media following these revolts. For example, it directly targeted Putin’s political opposition by seizing the Yukos oil company in 2003 and imprisoning media baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2005. The emergence of the concept of sovereign democracy in 2006 was a justification for anti-democratic electoral interference against a hostile regional trend.

But interference isn’t without consequences. Political apathy is high, especially in Moscow, and has been the norm for most of Putin’s tenure. His stabilisation of Russia and the country’s economic growth since 2000 created an implicit social contract, sometimes called the ‘no-participation pact’, wherein the public exchanges political participation for prosperity and higher living standards.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Western sanctions that followed have fundamentally challenged this status quo.

Dissatisfaction and even apathy could eventually become widespread opposition. This is mitigated by the consistent alienation and coercion of the opposition, particularly the assassination of leaders, such as Boris Nemtsov in 2015, or their arrest, as with Alexander Navalny in 2021. But the results of Russia’s regional elections in September indicate that opposition is not wholly irrelevant.

Kremlin-backed candidates from Putin’s United Russia party unsurprisingly won 15 of the 16 party-list elections for regional parliaments and 19 of the 21 gubernatorial elections. But analysis by election researcher Ivan Shukshin shows high levels of fraud in the results. Few regional elections were left undisrupted, particularly those of national importance.

Moscow’s elections were particularly targeted and featured high levels of non-participation. The capital’s apparent apathy towards Putin suggests that it remains a centre of support for the opposition—the city notably almost elected opposition candidate Navalny mayor in 2013.

The Kremlin’s treatment of the capital during the Wagner mutiny in June provides another indication of the strength of opposition support there. Moscow was of course quickly fortified in the face of the military threat, but Russia’s state security agency, the FSB, also used ‘anti-terrorist’ powers, including to dispel public gatherings. This was instructive—anti-terror terminology has been used consistently under Putin to justify suppressing democratic and journalistic freedom, silence political opponents and restrain pro-democracy civil-society organisations.

Concern that Muscovites might seize the opportunity to publicly protest against Putin and the war must have affected this choice, particularly given the anti-war protests in the city in 2022. The threat of a protest correlates with its size, and polling indicates that 25% of the city’s residents would like to be actively involved in politics (30% of respondents selected the neutral ‘can’t say’ option).

Nationally, Russian domestic support for Putin and the Kremlin remains firm, as do mechanisms for electoral management. But the public is not monolithic, and Putin does genuinely have to campaign ahead of next year’s election. Even theatrical elections must keep the audience engaged.

Over the past few months, the Kremlin has already worked to score some easy political points, particularly through attempts to stabilise the economy.

Most recently, it reinstated currency controls, creating tensions with Russia’s central bank, which preferred other measures of inflation control, raising the key interest rate by 2 percentage points to 15% on 27 October to try to further curb high inflation, which hit 6% in the third quarter of 2023.

Russia’s 2024–2026 budget revealed in September features record wartime spending, up 68% on 2023 levels, with the Russian finance minister announcing it contained ‘everything needed for the front’.

Overall spending in 2024 is estimated to be 26.2% higher than in 2023, but the claimed sources of that increased funding are dubious at best. Cutting social services would be highly unpopular, but military defeat would be catastrophic. Already, the Ministry of Finance has announced the reallocation of 6.7 trillion roubles (US$75 billion).

Similarly, unpopular reforms have been stayed. Chiefly, new digital conscription laws, passed in mid-April, are yet to be activated. Ongoing high casualties in Ukraine and ineffective offensive operations combined with a renewed post-election political mandate will probably see Putin start using the new system.

Sanctions and support for Ukraine have compounded the pressure on the Kremlin, and it’s important that it be sustained even as other geopolitical crises require attention and resources.

Rigged or not, Russia’s election matters—because of the regime’s extensive and obvious interference, not despite it. Through the campaign period, Putin will attempt to dominate information and sell economic success. He will stoke international division and coerce domestic political dissidents.

A serious challenge to Putin isn’t likely to emerge by March. But it’s worth remembering that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny was unprecedented. At the very least, the election is an important opportunity to observe an opaque political system in one of its rare clearer moments.

What next for Russia’s Wagner mercenaries?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner private military company, joined the long list of Russian oligarchs who’ve died since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. From ‘tripped while smoking’ to ‘falling from a window’, challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin has proved fatal. Prigozhin’s death came just two months after his 23 June march on Moscow. In the aftermath we’ll see a struggle for Wagner’s resources and authority, and the rise of small private military companies that will align with the Russian military, primarily engaging in grey-zone warfare to serve Russian interests.

The former restaurateur and entrepreneur founded the Wagner Group in 2014 and soon became involved in the war in the Donbas. Officially, private military companies are illegal in Russia but Wagner was well funded by the Kremlin and Prigozhin was a long-term Putin ally. Wagner was an irregular warfare tool to exploit instability, providing plausible deniability for Putin while pursuing the Kremlin’s foreign policy objectives and extending Russian influence in Ukraine, Syria and Africa.

Prigozhin had a fierce rivalry with Russian military commanders and posted extensively on Telegram criticising figures including General Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. The use of Telegram enabled Prigozhin to circumvent government censorship. He declared his mutiny in response to what he said was a Russian missile strike on a Wagner camp.

The rebellion was short-lived, but Prigozhin captured the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov and advanced to within 200 kilometres of Moscow. It ended with a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko under which Prigozhin and his troops were exiled to Belarus. Prigozhin was soon seen travelling to and from Moscow and meeting Putin in July. In August he uploaded a Telegram video, ostensibly filmed in an unnamed African country, in which he spoke of freedoms Wagner troops were bringing to the region.

On 23 August Prigozhin was travelling on his private Embraer-135 jet, an aircraft with a good safety record, when it tumbled out of the sky. Witnesses reported hearing explosions. On board with him was Valeriy Chekalov, one of Prigozhin’s closest friends who had been with Wagner since the early 2000s. Chekalov provided logistics and ran subsidiary companies for Prigozhin. Also killed was Dmitry Utkin, a former Russian intelligence officer described as Prigozhin’s right-hand man. US intelligence assessments point to a deliberate killing to decapitate the Wagner Group.

Prigozhin’s attempted rebellion exposed his many supporters in the Russian military and the civilian population. The Kremlin has rounded up those close to him, including General Sergei Surovikin, who previously led Russia’s invasion forces and disappeared after the attempted rebellion. The day before the crash, Russian media said that Surovikin had been moved to a new position and was on vacation. While the Wagner Group has been greatly reduced since the attempted rebellion, thousands of its members remain in two bases in southern Belarus. Prigozhin’s supporters present a significant risk to Putin but his crackdown has been brutal and effective and these loyalists will find it hard to present the threat they did two months ago.

The more than 5,000 Wagner troops in Belarus are much needed by the Russian military. The Kremlin has imposed conscription and voluntary enlistment campaigns to boost Russian force numbers and the military is struggling to fill officer and NCO roles with experienced and capable soldiers. Most of the instructors in training establishments have been deployed to Ukraine. The Wagner troops are unlikely to be amalgamated happily into a system they blame for killing many of their number, and Prigozhin. Reports indicate that the demolition of the Wagner cemetery in Nikolayevka coincided with Putin’s directive for all Wagner troops to pledge loyalty to Russia. Putin is actively dismantling the loyalties Prigozhin established to neutralise the Wagner threat.

A significant rival for Wagner’s resources is the Redut private military company established in 2008 by Putin-linked oligarch and former KGB agent Gennady Timchenko to safeguard his gas empire. It enjoys complete backing from the Russian Defence Ministry and has been active mainly in Syria. Redut played a major role in the Ukrainian invasion, suffering substantial losses. Leveraging Prigozhin’s unsuccessful rebellion, the company has recruited former Wagner members. Redut is now the Russian military’s preferred private army, emblematic of the evolving complexity of its grey-zone operations. It highlights the growing ties between the oil and gas sector, conflict and Russian foreign policy. The company will use grey-zone tactics to extend the influence of Russia.

So, who now will lead the Wagner Group, managing its significant resources and global influence? Putin has previously redistributed resources from deceased or incarcerated oligarchs to strengthen other allegiances. But given Wagner’s potency and power, its controller could potentially challenge Putin, so he’s likely to allocate most of its resources to other entities. The individual assuming control of what remains must be loyal and skilled at maintaining intricate connections, particularly within Russia’s intelligence community. This community has strongly supported Putin and remains a pivotal force in post-Soviet society, with former intelligence personnel assuming influential roles in various spheres.

Whoever takes over the group will require large financial backing to maintain it and fund its operations. Wagner’s activities in Africa have allowed it to secure mining contracts, generating an estimated US$250 million since the beginning of 2022. Putin admitted to financing the group to the tune of US$1 billion since May 2022. Prigozhin’s wealth allowed him to pay his troops above the average Russian military salary, which helped thwart the army’s attempts to convert Wagner soldiers’ contracts into Russian military contracts this year. Wagner personnel offered these significant pay cuts have refused and chosen exile.

Prigozhin’s death has highlighted Putin’s political vulnerability as he strives to regain control and enforce consequences for what he labels Prigozhin’s ‘serious mistakes’. Having seen the danger of consolidating power under a single private military leader, Putin won’t permit another to command 50,000 troops, as Prigozhin did during the Battle of Bakhmut. Instead, Russia will favour multiple smaller companies overseen by Putin-aligned oligarchs. These companies will align with the military, acting as grey-zone tools to expand Russian control and influence, especially in Africa.

From the bookshelf: ‘Putin’s wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine’

When Russia’s military crossed the Ukrainian border on 24 February 2022 to march on Kyiv, they were expecting an easy victory. Instead, they were held back by Ukraine’s highly motivated defence forces, suffered humiliating tactical defeats, got bogged down in logistical problems and had to pull back within a month. How could the world’s fourth largest military force—and one with extensive recent battlefield experience—have made such an enormous miscalculation?

In Putin’s wars, Mark Galeotti sets out to answer that question and many others about Russia’s armed forces. Galeotti is a well-known scholar of Russian political and security affairs, on which he has published widely, and an honorary professor at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

Galeotti’s ambitious book could hardly be more timely. He provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the wars waged by Russia from the 1990s to the present day, including the two Chechen wars, Russia’s incursion into Georgia, its Syria campaign, and the different stages of its war of aggression on Ukraine, from the ‘little green men’ who took over Crimea in 2014 to the current full-scale invasion.

With decades of experience observing Russia, Galeotti provides a warts-and-all account of its military’s strengths, weaknesses and future prospects.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s armed forces were in disarray, underfunded, corrupt, inefficient and in urgent need of reform. As a result, the first Chechen campaign (1994–1996) was an abject failure. The second Chechen war (1999–2000) drew lessons from the first and ended in an uneasy peace, leaving the Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov in power and heavily subsidised by Moscow.

This was followed by Russia’s intervention in Georgia (2008), which was intended to rein in the independent-minded president Mikheil Saakashvili and remind other former Soviet republics not to cosy up to the West. Russia’s intervention in Syria’s brutal civil war, again, was meant not only to support its long-time ally president Bashar al-Assad but to remind the US of Russia’s stake in the region.

From Moscow’s perspective, the invasion of Crimea—taking advantage of Russia’s established military presence and a largely Russian-speaking population—was a success. This may have misled the Kremlin to assume that taking over the rest of Ukraine would be as easy. But it also prompted Ukraine to revamp its military in anticipation of further aggression.

However, Galeotti’s book is about much more than simply Russia’s recent conflicts. He discusses in detail the uphill struggle of successive defence ministers to reorganise Russia’s top-heavy and outdated armed forces. Putin’s first defence minister, Sergei Ivanov (2001–2007), came from the KGB and tried hard to convince the generals of the benefits of a contract army over mass conscription.

Ivanov was followed by Anatoly Serdyukov (2007–2012), who had headed Russia’s tax service. Serdyukov brought fiscal efficiency to military planning and purged the armed forces’ senior ranks, but was himself brought down by a corruption scandal.

The current minister, Sergei Shoigu, is the most successful of the three. Politically savvy, he has implemented sweeping reforms, while skilfully using his position to cultivate his public image. Shoigu is the only member of Putin’s inner circle who comes from neither the KGB, Putin’s bailiwick, nor his hometown, Saint Petersburg. Among other achievements, Shoigu is credited with giving the dog-loving president a black Labrador, which Putin famously used to intimidate German chancellor Angela Merkel at a summit meeting. Shoigu is widely considered a potential successor to Putin.

The book includes a fascinating chapter on Russia’s military expenditure, much of which is buried in non-military budget lines. In Galeotti’s assessment, on a purchasing-power-parity basis, Russia has the world’s fourth largest military budget, behind the US, China and India, but ahead of the United Kingdom. Galeotti notes that Russia’s indiscriminate arms exports, second in volume only to those of the US, are one of its few economic success stories.

Russia’s military is centred around its huge army, with tanks and artillery a comparative strength. Logistics, again, has been Russia’s Achilles’ heel, as evidenced by its failed assault on Kyiv. Galeotti reminds us that Russia’s railways operate on a different gauge from almost all of Western Europe, which would make it difficult for Russia to sustain combat operations far from its borders. The book also reviews Russia’s air force and navy, which are predominantly regional, its Spetznaz special forces, and its nuclear arsenal.

Looking to the future, the words ‘hybrid’, ‘ambiguous’, ‘non-linear’ and ‘political’ figure frequently in Galeotti’s narrative. Russia has invested extensively in information warfare, including electronic jamming and spoofing, and in drones.

Due to the poor state of its armed forces, Russia has relied heavily on mercenaries, in particular the Wagner Group, a private military company. While giving Russia some deniability regarding war atrocities, the mercenaries have posed a constant threat to Russia’s military chain of command, and even to Putin’s authority.

The situation came to a head in late June, when the Wagner Group’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin staged a rebellion against Moscow. Russia quickly brought the insurrection under control, consigning Prigozhin to Belarus, announcing steps to disarm the Wagner Group and integrate its soldiers into the mainstream armed forces, and reorganising its security forces. But the episode left Putin severely weakened.

Putin’s wars is essential reading for defence and security professionals. However, its engaging style also makes it an excellent read for generalists.

Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensus

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s weekend rebellion has shone a harsh spotlight on the apparently fragile state of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime. While Prigozhin soon agreed to stand down and ordered his mercenary army to halt its advance on Moscow, the warlord-led uprising highlights, yet again, the imminent and existential risks that an aggressive and unstable nuclear power poses to the world.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year—and especially since it became clear that Putin wouldn’t secure the quick victory he apparently expected—a nightmare scenario has loomed. Putin could be driven from power, leaving behind a fragmented Russia where various warlords compete for power—including control of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.

When Prigozhin accused Russia’s military of attacking Wagner Group encampments, seized control of Russia’s Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and ordered his mercenaries to march on Moscow, such a scenario appeared likely. But though this particular coup didn’t materialise, there’s no guarantee that another won’t follow, especially in light of the support Prigozhin seems to enjoy among some segments of Russia’s population.

But even if Putin remains in the Kremlin, Russian nuclear weapons pose an imminent risk. After all, it is the threat of nuclear escalation that has prevented the West from intervening militarily to defend Ukraine and has forced NATO to calibrate carefully the timing and nature of military support for Ukrainian fighters.

In fact, Putin has repeatedly reminded the West to tread lightly. In 2014—the year Russia invaded the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea—Russia altered its military doctrine to include first use of nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the Russian state. Four years later, Putin reiterated his commitment to that principle. Yes, it would be a ‘global catastrophe,’ he explained, but a world without Russia need not exist at all.

Putin has ramped up his nuclear sabre-rattling. Last September, his speech announcing the annexation of four more Ukrainian oblasts was peppered with blistering denunciations of America’s military record—including its status as the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons.

Earlier this month, Putin again confirmed his willingness to use nuclear weapons to protect the ‘existence of the Russian state’, its ‘territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty’. He also noted that he considers Russia’s massive arsenal to be a ‘competitive advantage’ against NATO. In February, Russia withdrew from New START, its last remaining nuclear-arms-control treaty with the US.

Putin’s provocative nuclear rhetoric has lately been echoed by other high-profile Russians. In a recent commentary, the honorary chair of Russia’s Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergei Karaganov, made the case for pre-emptive nuclear strikes. By hitting ‘a bunch of targets in a number of countries,’ he argued, Russia could ‘bring those who have lost their mind to reason’ and ‘break the West’s will’.

Even coming from a hawk like Karaganov, that is a shocking proposition. But perhaps more worrying are similarly incendiary statements from historically moderate figures. Dmitri Trenin—the former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who had long been considered a voice of reason in Russia—now advocates inserting the ‘nuclear bullet’ into the ‘revolver drum’. Trenin suggests that a pre-emptive strike could ‘dispel the mythology’ about NATO’s collective-defence clause and lead to the alliance’s dissolution.

To be sure, some dissenting voices have emerged. Figures such as Fyodor Lukyanov, chair of the presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy; Ivan Timofeev, director-general of the Russian International Affairs Council; and Alexei Arbatov of the Russian Academy of Sciences have challenged Karaganov’s logic.

But such arguments must be couched in patriotic terms, because Russia is now gripped by Soviet-style repression, exemplified by the recent detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and the outrageous prison sentence of opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza. In Russia, internal repression has historically often linked to external aggression.

For now, Putin says that Russia does not need to use nuclear weapons—at least not to defend the Russian state’s existence. But a warlord like Prigozhin might disagree. In any case, the use of lower-yield ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons in Ukraine appears increasingly likely. With its conventional arsenal nearing exhaustion, Russia recently delivered a tranche of such weapons to the territory of its closest ally, Belarus, and plans to send more.

In April, a third of Russians surveyed by the Levada Center thought that their leaders were prepared to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, though 86% of Russians believe that nuclear weapons should not be used under any circumstances. Last week, US President Joe Biden acknowledged the ‘real’ threat that Russia will deploy tactical nukes.

Such a move would make the world a far more dangerous place—especially if Putin is allowed to get away with it. If the West submits to Russian nuclear blackmail, further attacks could be expected, in Moldova and beyond.

The war in Ukraine has raised the spectre not only of Russia’s disintegration, but also of a nuclear confrontation akin to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis—one that may prove impossible to defuse. In this context, the West must use every tool at its disposal to take the temperature of Russian domestic discourse and gauge the severity of Russia’s ‘nuclear fever’.

Of course, as Prigozhin’s mutiny showed, anything can happen in Russia. And as Cold War Kremlinologists learned after decades of reading the tea leaves, it’s impossible to determine whether public statements and debates are indicative of a new consensus among the political and military elites. But the stakes are too high not to try.

From the bookshelf: ‘The story of Russia’

As the war in Ukraine grinds on with no end in sight, it is increasingly important to understand what drives Russia. Is the war President Vladimir Putin’s personal crusade to restore Russia to some notion of former Soviet glory, or does it have deeper historical and geopolitical roots? Is a negotiated settlement possible and, if so, would it provide the basis for a lasting peace, or should Ukraine and the West dig their heels in further and prepare for a long haul?

In Orlando Figes’s view, recent analyses of Russia’s war focus excessively on Putin’s idiosyncrasies, his oligarchic entourage, and events since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Instead, Figes recommends that political and military analysts cast a much wider net, drawing lessons from Russia’s long history.

Figes teaches at Birkbeck College at the University of London and Trinity College at the University of Cambridge and has published extensively on Russian and European history. In The story of Russia, he provides a compact but comprehensive account of Russia’s past, concluding with reflections on where Russia is heading.

Figes’s elegantly written book takes the reader from Russia’s Viking and Slavic origins in the 7th century and the Kievan Rus era, through the rule of the Mongols, imperial Russia and the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, to the present day. In the process, he explores numerous themes of relevance to the war in Ukraine.

Russian autocracy has always been absolute. In Western Europe, state and crown gradually diverged, paving the way for today’s liberal democracies. The monarchs that remain lack political power. In Russia, attempts at reform came too late. Figes reminds us that Russia’s autocratic state has broken down twice, in 1917 and 1991. But both times autocracy was reborn in a different form.

In the West, state and church also gradually separated, while in Russia, political power and religion remained intertwined. In Italy, the home to many of Moscow’s architects, churches were built outside the city walls, while in Moscow the most important churches were built within the Kremlin. Reflecting this close relationship, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has thrown his weight behind Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Unlike China, which built a defensive wall and acquired buffer zones, Russia has always been expansionist. From the Mongol conquest in the 11th century, Russia learned that the best way to defend itself was to control as much of the Eurasian steppe as possible. Following the collapse of the Mongol empire, Russia expanded through Siberia and Central Asia, eventually reaching the Pacific.

The strategic significance of the Black Sea is crucial to understanding the invasion of Ukraine. Without the Black Sea, Russia has no maritime access to Europe except through the Baltic Sea, which can easily be blocked. Empress Catherine II (‘the Great’) annexed Crimea in 1783, and today Sevastopol is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, a key element in its naval defence.

Figes traces Russia’s current-day oligarchy and corruption back to the late Middle Ages, when boyars (feudal noblemen) were granted land ownership and wealth as a reward for their loyalty to the grand duke in Moscow. During this period, the practice of ‘feeding from the land’ took root, with officials extracting goods and money from the population. This relationship was not unlike Putin’s alliance with his oligarchs, whose wealth depends on their loyalty to Putin.

Figes also discusses the evolution of Russia’s military. Under Tsar Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’), landowners provided the army with soldiers, based on the size of their holdings. Tsar Peter I (‘the Great’) expanded conscription, with groups of peasant households providing soldiers for life. What the military lacked in quality it made up for in quantity. In World War II, the Red Army lost about 12 million soldiers, three times Nazi Germany’s military losses.

In its war on Ukraine, Russia is again tapping into its large supply of peasant soldiers. In late 2022, Putin announced the mobilisation of an additional 300,000 conscripts. Most come from rural and remote areas and are poorly equipped. With a top-heavy command structure and ineffective non-commissioned officers, in Ukraine Russia’s military has lost disproportionate numbers of senior officers. Interestingly, this problem dates back to tsarist Russia, where NCOs were poorly trained and unreliable.

The war in Ukraine has turned Western public opinion against Russia. Within Russia, however, polls indicate a high level of support for Putin and his ‘special military operation’. Significantly, there is little evidence of domestic opposition to the war. Figes ascribes this largely to attitudes carried over from the Soviet era, including low material expectations, social conformism and acceptance of authority.

Figes reviews future scenarios. He is concerned that Russia is trapped in a repetitive historical cycle, continuously reverting to Soviet-style authoritarianism. Russia has caused massive death, human suffering and destruction in Ukraine and triggered global energy and food crises. But in the long run, Figes notes, Russia itself is the biggest loser, inflicting enormous damage on its people and economy and setting its own development back decades.

Putin’s nuclear threats to Ukraine could easily spiral out of control

We should be deeply concerned that, in the midst of what US President Joe Biden has described as the greatest risk of Armageddon since the Cuban missile crisis, Russia and NATO are this week conducting virtually simultaneous exercises of their nuclear forces, including live (conventional) missile launches. Both Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin no doubt believe the risks involved in signalling their resolve this way are manageable, but experience during the Cold War suggests otherwise.

Clearly, Putin would not use a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine if he believed it would ultimately lead to a nuclear exchange with the United States. That would be suicidal for the Russian regime, to say nothing of the broader global implications. But even threatening their use or conducting military exercises in a crisis can trigger events that rapidly increase the risk of a wider war. Richard Ned Lebow, an expert on nuclear risk, has identified three primary paths by which this can occur: pre-emption, miscalculated escalation and loss of control.

Pre-emption refers to the dynamics in a crisis in which neither side may want a war but each fears an imminent attack by the other and feels compelled to strike first to prevent a disadvantageous outcome. Of course, there’s no significant advantage to either side in striking first in an all-out nuclear war, but leaders may be convinced that advantages exist at lower levels of warfare.

Strategist Thomas Schelling’s work on this issue is particularly notable, and cycles of mutually reinforcing belief in imminent attack are possible whenever the element of surprise confers significant advantage.

The risks around NATO’s 1983 Able Archer exercise may have come close to triggering such a pre-emptive escalatory cycle. For a range of reasons, Soviet intelligence analysts and political leaders believed the exercise was preparation for a NATO first strike against the USSR, and they started preparing for it.

Miscalculation refers to crossing a threshold in the mistaken belief that the action will be tolerated by the adversary. Two good examples are the American decision to march north of the 38th parallel in Korea in 1950, and Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982. Both led to responses that had not been considered likely—Chinese entry into the Korean War, and a determined British campaign to retake the islands.

Loss of control might occur for any number of reasons. Military preparations or procedures might be poorly understood by political leaders, and certain steps taken by one side to defensively heighten readiness might be interpreted by the other as an offensive move. Their early warning and intelligence systems might misread force-posture changes in the adversary, leading one side to increase its own alert levels, which then triggers the other to do the same. The two sides can become locked in an action–reaction feedback loop.

Perhaps the classic example of loss of control is the July crisis of 1914, although it unfolded at a much slower pace than would be the case today with nuclear-armed adversaries. Statesmen and generals made deliberate decisions, including choices to accept or seek ‘limited’ war. But mutual and interacting mobilisations contributed to the outbreak of a world war in a ‘quasi-mechanical manner’.

Failures of technology can also lead to loss of control. In 1960, US early warning systems incorrectly interpreted with high certainty that the rising moon was a Soviet nuclear missile attack. Fortunately, decision-makers correctly identified it as an error. Vastly improved early warning systems would make that sort of error highly unlikely today, although other technological vulnerabilities continue to exist.

A profoundly worrying risk of loss of control relates to the interplay between restrictions placed on nuclear weapons to prevent their accidental or unauthorised use in peacetime (known as ‘negative controls’) and the systems to ensure their authorised use in crises (‘positive controls’). As a nuclear state seeks to prepare forces for potential use—or simply prepares them to signal resolve to an adversary, without the intention to employ them—the balance of controls shifts from negative to positive measures.

Under typical peacetime conditions, many nuclear states physically separate warheads and delivery systems. That’s not true of all systems; nuclear ballistic missile submarines are a critical case here. But states don’t tend to have bombers sitting on the tarmac with nuclear missiles or free-fall weapons already loaded. Examples of positive controls include the protocols and codes through which release authority is communicated and targets confirmed.

At a heightened state of readiness, with warheads married to delivery systems and various potential delivery systems physically dispersed and held at shorter and shorter notice, these positive controls assume much greater relative importance. In effect, the ‘safety catches’ are gradually released, increasing the capacity to launch and the risk of accidents.

The range of escalation options open to Russia is broad and has been repeatedly parsed over the past eight months. Putin could conventionally target Western supply lines at a border location or conduct a nuclear test in the Artic, or even the Black Sea, as a signal. He could also ‘jump rungs’ on the so-called escalation ladder and use a relatively small ‘tactical’ nuclear weapon, either demonstratively on Ukrainian territory or on military targets.

Pre-emption, miscalculation and loss of control—and their linkages—could well play out in the lead-up to or aftermath of any of these actions.

Putin may simply not believe that an American-led response would follow a given escalatory action by Russia. Or he could believe that the response would be limited enough to be tolerable. That is, he could miscalculate.

Or, if Putin used a tactical nuclear weapon and the US responded with large-scale, conventional strikes as signalled by retired American general David Petraeus recently, the risks of loss of control and pre-emption might both increase. Russian military leaders might misread preparations for conventional strikes against battlefield targets in Ukraine as instead positioning for strikes on Russia’s leadership or command-and-control systems.

Other factors could interact with this kind of escalatory dynamic. We are currently experiencing a heightened period of solar flare or ‘sunspot’ activity, which has historically interfered with satellites, as well as with terrestrial high-frequency radio. One hopes Russian and American systems have been hardened to withstand this well-known problem, but it is emblematic of any number of prima facie unlikely factors that could contribute to catastrophic escalation.

In 1963, the year after the Cuban missile crisis, US President John F. Kennedy gave a speech professing his commitment to peace. Among many remarks that resonate nearly 60 years later, Kennedy observed: ‘[N]uclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy or a collective death wish for the world.’

Putin’s humiliation is Putin’s doing, and Ukraine is understandably committed to reconquering its own territory. Paths must be found despite these realities that avert the spectre of the worst possible outcome for Ukraine, Russia and the rest of the world. A good starting point would be for leaders to understand that the risks of nuclear escalation are likely to be even greater than they have assumed.

From the bookshelf: ‘Putin: his life and times’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been called the most dangerous man in the world.

How did he manage to rise from a communal apartment in suburban Leningrad and a mediocre early career in the KGB to become Russia’s all-powerful president, who after more than two decades in power might remain in office until 2036? And what has driven this former spy, who was once described as so forgettable that he ‘disappeared into the wallpaper’, to launch a war on Ukraine that has sparked a global energy and food crisis and taken Russia and its adversaries to the brink of a nuclear war?

Philip Short has written acclaimed biographies of the Chinese tyrant Mao Zedong, the Khmer Rouge despot Pol Pot, and the charismatic French president Francois Mitterrand. In Putin: his life and times, Short has surpassed himself with a biography that is both meticulously researched and wonderfully readable. Eight years in the making, and based on wide-ranging documentary sources and nearly 200 interviews, Short’s book stands head and shoulders above other recent Putin biographies.

Short anchors Putin’s life firmly in the sweep of Russian history. Starting from the ‘Great Patriotic War’, in which Putin’s father was wounded, the book takes the reader through the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation’s early years under President Boris Yeltsin, and Putin’s rise to power at the turn of the millennium. It concludes with his attack on Ukraine early this year.

Short is at pains to paint a balanced picture of a leader who is both strategically skilled and dangerously flawed. Despite suggestions that Putin is under severe stress, Short reminds us that he keeps his emotions in check, weighs decisions carefully and is highly disciplined, starting the day with a rigorous workout, laps in his Olympic-sized pool and a plate of kasha (buckwheat porridge).

Leaders who have met Putin describe him as well briefed, direct and action-oriented, but also as introverted, manipulative and frequently ill at ease. At school, he was rebellious and trouble-prone. While on a KGB training program, he broke his arm in a fight and was labelled as having ‘a lowered sense of danger’. His middling performance gained him a backwater assignment in Dresden, East Germany’s second largest city, rather than a plum posting in a Western capital.

On returning to Saint Petersburg, he shifted into high gear, first rising to become deputy mayor and then moving to Moscow, where an impressed Boris Yeltsin anointed Putin as his successor. As president, Putin consolidated his power by reining in the media and oligarchs. The media mogul Boris Berezovsky fled to London, and was later found dead, while Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the oil giant Yukos, was consigned to Siberia.

Putin gradually replaced the oligarchs with his cronies from Saint Petersburg and the former KGB. However, he was never interested in real reform and Russia’s economy remains underdeveloped and deeply corrupt.

According to Short, Putin is driven by two concerns: his desire to restore Russia to its former glory and his disillusionment with an American-led world order. Putin frequently calls the collapse of the Soviet Union ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century’. He is particularly bitter about Russia’s loss of its ‘near abroad’, the former Soviet republics; the ‘colour revolutions’ in Georgia and Ukraine; and NATO’s expansion.

Initially, Putin tried to build relations with the West, but once the political utility of Russia’s natural gas reserves became clear, the muscle-flexing began. Putin is convinced of Russia’s exceptionality and in 2011 told Vice President Joe Biden that while Russians and Americans resemble each other physically, ‘inside we have very different values’.

Short’s narrative is peppered with anecdotes. On a state visit to the United Kingdom, Putin complained to his aides about the pomp and ceremony, including having to wear tails to dinner with the queen. When Prime Minister Tony Blair was showing him the cabinet’s secure crisis meeting facilities, Putin noted: ‘You know how we deal with Islamic terrorists? We kill them.’

Short details the many political murders that have taken place during Putin’s time in office, from the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky to the former spy Aleksander Litvinenko and journalist Anna Politkovskaya. After an attempt to poison him failed, Putin’s principal rival Alexei Navalny is now languishing in jail.

Putin has moved to entrench himself in two stages. In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev, who was keeping the presidential seat warm for Putin after his first two terms, initiated a constitutional amendment extending the presidential term to six years. That allowed Putin to be re-elected until 2024. In 2020, a further amendment was approved removing the word ‘consecutive’ from the two-term limit and specifying that previous terms would not be counted. This allows Putin to be re-elected in 2024 and again in 2030.

Internationally cornered and with domestic support beginning to crumble, Putin’s next moves are a major concern. Short provides valuable insights into the mindset of Russia’s autocratic leader.