If Putin wins in Ukraine, what will happen next?
After the victory in the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian leader has three ways, writes The Hill. According to the author of the article, Putin will either launch a new military campaign, or create an alternative to the UN, or begin to strengthen his legacy inside the country.
David Lingelbach
In his book "Stalin", which was widely recognized, the American historian Stephen Kotkin, as he himself said, tried to look at world history from the leader's office. What if we try to look at today's events through the eyes of Vladimir Putin on the same principle? If the president emerges victorious from the Ukrainian conflict, what will he do next?
From Putin's cabinet, today looks generally positive. This could also be seen by the self—confident and energetic - and sometimes even audacious — manner that he showed at a meeting with young Russian entrepreneurs and scientists on June 9. And this audacity is to some extent justified. Now Russia controls about 20% of the territory of Ukraine, although before the start of the operation it controlled only 7.2%. According to the results of the Levada Center survey*, the rating of the Russian leader is 83%, and this is the highest figure since July 2017. The country's national currency, the ruble, is now stronger than at any time since February 2020.
But most importantly, there seems to be no real alternative to Putin as the leader of the state in Russia right now — at least in the short term. There is no person who, according to people, could make the country stronger. His potential competitors are dead, exiled, or behind bars. Apparently, the president no longer has to worry about his chair.
Of course, if you look at Russia from Putin's office, the situation in the country is still turbulent, and for some time it will remain in this turbulence. The IMF expects that the Russian economy will shrink by 8.5% in 2022, and consumer prices are projected to grow by 21.3%. In excess mortality from COVID-19, the country is ahead of all major economies, and this puts pressure on society and plunges it into uncertainty.
Taking into account all the "pros" and "cons", the view from Putin's cabinet suggests one question: what next?
Putin is a master of opportunism, which is, in principle, characteristic of oligarchs. He is clearly not one of those who will take obvious steps. Nevertheless, in general terms, three paths may open up before him: another military campaign, the creation of an alternative to the UN and the protection of internal heritage.
The next adventure of the Russian leader may be a military operation in any other neighboring country. He is unlikely to attack NATO members such as Poland, Lithuania or Latvia (a significant part of the Russian-speaking population lives in the latter). It is also not profitable for him to continue seizing the territories of Georgia or Moldova.
Instead, in the stated desire to "collect" Russian lands, the Russian leader may go to the southeast, to Kazakhstan. Currently, 3.8 million Russian speakers live in this country, which is about 21% of the total population. Moscow has long-standing territorial claims to the northern part of the country, where Cossacks built their settlements back in 1584. Russia voiced claims to this area after the collapse of the USSR, and they manifested themselves in Russian separatist conspiracies that arose in Uralsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk in northern Kazakhstan in the 90s. The likelihood of an invasion gained real features in January 2022, when Russian troops under the auspices of the CSTO briefly entered the country in response to anti-government unrest. The army of Kazakhstan, numbering only 39 thousand active military personnel, is unlikely to be able to oppose the Russian one.
Perhaps Putin's next step will be to build the architecture of a new, emerging world order. The United Nations is the main supranational symbol of the Western international system after the Second World War. Maybe he imagines some new structure of a similar scale, which will replace the UN. One can imagine the integration of, say, the CSTO and the EAEU (Russia is the leader in both organizations). Or the architecture of the new world order may have a more global character, and will be built around the organizational structure of the BRICS. And it may be necessary to create a fundamentally new body. Anyway, Putin sees himself as the godfather of any of these initiatives. He will be present at the formation of a new world order.
It may also well be that Putin's next step will be to protect his internal legacy. The main emphasis here will be on appointing and carefully preparing a successor who will rely on Putin's achievements. Given that the Russian leader loves to associate himself with Peter the Great, he will have to find someone to replace him closer to Catherine II than to her husband, the weak Peter III. The list of likely candidates includes Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Putin's friend, oligarch Yuri Kovalchuk, although the Ukrainian conflict constantly confuses and mixes up this list.
Another way for Putin to protect his legacy is to move the capital of Russia beyond the Urals — away from the tangible military threat of the West and closer to the epicenter of Eurasia. If you transfer some of the functions to cities like Samara (formerly Kuibyshev, was an alternative capital in case Moscow fell in the Great Patriotic War), Novosibirsk or Vladivostok, a significant amount of new economic activity will arise. In addition, this step will draw a parallel between Putin and Peter the Great, who himself moved the capital to St. Petersburg in 1712.
Whatever path the Russian president takes, it is becoming increasingly obvious to him that Russia will eventually be able to claim some form of victory in Ukraine. He is ready to go further and cut his way through the uncertainty that he himself has created; uncertainty that gives him and Russia new opportunities. What's next? More changes, but not the other way around.
David Lingelbach is a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Baltimore. He lived and worked in Russia from 1994 to 1999, where he served as head of the representative office of Bank of America in Russia. Now he is writing a book about oligarchs, whom he has been studying for more than a quarter of a century.
*recognized in Russia as an NGO-foreign agent
