Trends in Support for a Unified Russia
Enlargement of graph: http://img.asyura2.com/up/d14/524.jpg
(Source) Stability and Fragility of Putin’s Government in the 2021 Russian Federation’s Lower House Elections
https://www.jiia.or.jp/research-report/russia-fy2021-05.html
Invasion of Ukraine for presidential reelection in two years.
Currently, anti-war protests in Russia increase day by day.
On February 25 and 26, proposed financial sanctions in the EU to exclude Russia from the international funds clearing and settlement network (SWIFT) have resurfaced.
Sanctions against Russia, exclusion from payment and settlement network resurfaces, support spreads in EU (Nikkei, Feb. 26, 2022)
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUB2616H0W2A220C2000000/?unlock=1
What will Putin do with the axe he has raised?
If the U.S. and the EU decide to eliminate SWIFT, Putin’s plans for presidential reelection will be miscalculated.
Andrew Kuchins of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) called Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea a “risky political strategy,” but it seems that once again he had no choice but to “invade” as a means to get elected president two years later.
In recent years, support for Putin’s government and his ruling party, United Russia, has been declining. Affected by the spread of the new corona outbreak, Putin’s approval rating fell below 60% for the first time since he came to power in May 2020.
Support for Putin’s ruling party, United Russia, rose sharply after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but has since begun to decline again.
Stability and Vulnerability of Putin’s Government in the 2021 Russian Federation’s Lower House Election (Japan Institute of International Affairs 2021-12-21)
https://www.jiia.or.jp/research-report/russia-fy2021-05.html
In addition, Russia’s inflation rate reached 8.7% in January of this year, and people’s lives continue to suffer.
Putin seems to have a behavioral pattern of using the election strategy of invading Ukraine three to four years before the presidential election in a situation of declining support due to Russia’s economic stagnation.
The economy was stagnant at the time of the invasion of Crimea in February 2014, four years before the presidential election in March 2018.
Economic growth temporarily increased in 2021 due to higher oil prices, but the Governor of the Bank of Russia expects a further slowdown in the Russian economy in 2022-2023, and inflation is expected to accelerate in the future.
The current invasion of Ukraine is similar to the invasion of Crimea in that it is a military invasion under economic stagnation.
And in April 2021, Putin began massing a large contingent of troops in the border region with Ukraine, so Putin began deploying Russian troops three years before the presidential election in March 2024.
In both the invasion of Crimea and the current invasion of Ukraine, Putin invaded Ukraine three to four years before the presidential election, when the economy was in a state of stagnation. Another common feature of both invasions is that the support for the ruling party, “United Russia,” before the invasions was extremely low.
Bank of Russia Governor Sees Russian Economic Growth Slowing Through 2023 (Bloomberg, February 19, 2022)
https://www.bloomberg.co.jp/news/articles/2022-02-18/R7IE9FDWX2PS01
On April 5, 2021, Putin passed a revised presidential election law, a milestone that will allow him to hold office himself until 2036, and on April 8 of the same month, the “largest” gathering of Russian military units since 2014, when Crimea was annexed, was confirmed in the border region with Ukraine.
Russian troop buildup, Ukraine border tensions…perhaps aimed at testing the U.S. administration’s response (Yomiuri 2021/04/10)
https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/world/20210410-OYT1T50261/
Both U.S. President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have said that Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet Union, but Putin, a realist, cannot be such a Don Quixote-like dreamer, and it is in his favor that the world views him with such a regressionist eye. His strategic ideal of preventing NATO expansion is secondary, and this is a good pretext. Anyway, now he has to build up his accomplishments for his reelection as president in two years, while the Russian economy stagnates.
The following quoted article is from November 2014 on the website of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) by Andrew Kuchins, a specialist on Russia, who analyzed Putin’s political actions at the time of the Crimean crisis and how he thought he was going to invade in the midst of Russia’s economic stagnation.
The title of the article, “Putin’s Dilemma,” refers to a difficult problem, predicament, or difficulty.
It describes how Putin, having given up on structural economic reforms and economic growth, has chosen to use military force, which is his forte, to extend his power by invading foreign countries.
Putin’s Dilemma, Institute for Strategic and International Studies (11/13/2014)
http://csis.org/publication/putins-dilemma
Here is an excerpt from the article.
(begin excerpt)
Since taking office, Putin has managed to grow the economy by about 7% per year during his two terms as president (2000-2008). The high economic growth has been supported by a dramatic increase in Russia’s oil and natural gas production. Even after the global economic crisis, it recovered to over 4% in 2010 and 2011.
The foundation of the consistently high political regard for Putin was the Russian people’s perception that their economic prospects were constantly improving.
When Putin returned to the presidency in May 2012, he faced a difficult choice. For at that time, the signs of economic stagnation were already evident. He faced a choice between absorbing the growing middle class by addressing their economic insecurities and embarking on structural economic reforms or risking the weakening of his “vertical power,” as he called his political base.
Putin’s dilemma is reminiscent of the Soviet Politburo in the early 1980s.
Despite large dollar revenues from oil, the Soviet economy was so structurally inefficient that its growth rate was close to zero.
When the Soviet economic stagnation was at its deepest depths, Brezhnev and his successors decided that structural economic reforms were too politically risky and tried to get by without reforms.
If oil prices had remained high, the move might have worked. And the Soviet Union would have held on.
But needless to say, oil prices plummeted (between 1981 and 1986), the USSR tried to reform, and the collapse of the USSR occurred.
Putin has avoided structural reforms (like his Soviet predecessors) and the Russian economy has remained stagnant, even before the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine, despite historically high oil prices.
It appeared that Putin had already made up his mind to abandon economic growth and prosperity for political popularity and a power base.
This risky political strategy requires a <new political narrative> that justifies his leadership. If economic growth and prosperity are no longer absolutely necessary (to maintain power), then a “new political narrative” is needed.
This new political strategy (narrative) began to take shape in 2012-2013. It was accompanied by a strengthening of the emphasis (among the population) on traditional Russian values in the 19th century Russian policy of “official patriotism. That “official patriotism” revolves around three things: autocracy, legitimacy, and Russian patriotism.
The crisis in Ukraine provided an ideal opportunity to further strengthen this new political narrative.
(End of excerpt)
This excerpt is from the following article on my blog.
Putin’s Choice to Ditch Economic Growth and Invade – What Putin is Thinking and Doing (January 11, 2015)