Invasion of Ukraine, repression in Russia, confrontation with the West: it is as an authoritarian warlord that Vladimir Putin, in power for a quarter of a century, secured six additional years in the Kremlin.

The Russian leader prances with more than 87% of the votes, after counting more than 99% of the polling stations, according to the official Russian agency Ria Novosti, at the end of a vote from which the opposition was excluded.

Vladimir Putin – who had the Constitution revised in 2020 to be able to remain in charge of his country until 2036 – has already served four terms (two of four years, two others of six years), interspersed by an interlude as Prime minister between 2008 and 2012.

Over the years, the vertical of power established by Vladimir Putin, from the Soviet KGB and arriving in the Kremlin on December 31, 1999, has revealed two major characteristics of his regime.

The first, that of a constant hardening with first the bringing into line of the oligarchs, the second Chechen war, the stifling of public freedoms, of the media and of the opposition.

Also read Death of Alexeï Navalny: who are the other opponents of Putin who died prematurely?

His most famous opponent, Alexeï Navalny, died in mid-February in murky circumstances in the Russian Arctic prison where he was serving a long sentence for "extremism".

Europe, in particular Angela Merkel's Germany, believed it could channel these ambitions, betting on economic interdependence via massive purchases of Russian gas.

In vain.

Putin is counting on an attritional victory in Ukraine

At 71, Vladimir Putin seems more indestructible than ever.

The master of the Kremlin is certainly entangled in the war in Ukraine and his army has suffered humiliating defeats, but he persists, counting on a victory through attrition thanks to the fatigue of Western donors and the Ukrainian population.

And, two years after the start of the assault, Vladimir Putin sees reason to believe it.

His troops are on the offensive: they have captured the fortress town of Avdiïvka and are pushing against a Ukrainian army lacking ammunition and men.

At the end of February, during his annual address to the Nation, the Russian president vowed that his soldiers "would not retreat" in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin addresses the crowd after the announcement of the annexation of the regions that the Russian army occupies in Ukraine, September 30, 2022 © Alexander NEMENOV / AFP/Archives

For Russia, it is a “question of life and death”, he repeats over and over again.

And, this week, he deemed it "crucial" that Russian voters vote as one to stay on the "path" set out.

Since launching the offensive, he has accused Ukraine of "Nazism", claimed its territories and presented the conflict as a proxy war hatched by the Americans.

Any opposition to the invasion is punishable by prison.

Thousands of Russians have been harassed, prosecuted, imprisoned or driven into exile.

What do Western sanctions matter, what does the International Criminal Court prosecute Vladimir Putin for the deportation of Ukrainian children and what do army losses matter?

The Russian president has given himself a mission: to put an end to Western hegemonism.

In October, he announced that his “task was to build a new world”.

Westerners divided in the face of the master of the Kremlin

It must be said that the former KGB agent, stationed in East Germany in the 1980s, remains scarred by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its defeat in the Cold War.

And Vladimir Putin can boast of his proximity to China, of Asia's thirst for its hydrocarbons or even of seeing these African countries turn to Moscow and its paramilitary groups to counter Western "neocolonialism".

He asserts another leitmotif.

For him, Russia is the standard bearer of “traditional” values, facing what he judges to be the moral “decadence” of the West due to its tolerance towards LGBT+ people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting devoted to the economy at the Kremlin, February 28, 2022 in Moscow © Alexey NIKOLSKY / SPUTNIK/AFP/Archives

With the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, Vladimir Putin feels freer, with Westerners divided over continued aid to Ukraine.

He made a return to the international scene and the Russian economy generally absorbed the shock of Western sanctions, despite inflation and dependence on military production.

As powerful as he is, there is no shortage of challenges.

His war in Ukraine is far from won.

The ability of Russians, elites and the economy to withstand this conflict over time remains a real question mark.

The mutiny in June 2023 of Wagner's mercenaries, led by Yevgeni Prigojine, long one of his faithful, was an illustration of this.

The death of rebel leaders in a plane crash, presented as accidental, allowed the Kremlin to close this chapter.

Implacable repression

On the domestic political front, the Kremlin tolerates no opposition.

Some opponents have died, like Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov, assassinated in 2015. Countless well-known and anonymous activists are behind bars for denouncing the invasion of Ukraine.

Nevertheless, for a majority of his compatriots, Vladimir Putin remains the one who restored honor to a Russia undermined by poverty, corruption and the alcoholic decline of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin.

A Russian police officer near a wall on which a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin is painted, during elections in Donetsk, in the part of Ukraine occupied by Russia, September 8, 2023 © - / AFP/Archives

Aged 47 when he entered the Kremlin, he promised friendship to Westerners and developed the economy, taking advantage of favorable oil prices.

The American George W. Bush considered him “remarkable” at the time, the German Gerhard Schröder and the Italian Silvio Berlusconi were his friends.

Despite the repression that is taking place, despite the abuses in Chechnya.

But the seeds of divorce are already there.

And Vladimir Putin presented them in 2007 in Munich in a virulent indictment to Western dignitaries.

He accuses NATO of threatening Russia and criticizes the United States for seeing itself as the "sole sovereign" of the world.

Recycled arguments to defend the decision to invade Ukraine.

His private life is surrounded by the greatest secrecy.

Her two daughters were raised in extreme secrecy, although one of them has made public appearances in recent years.

With AFP

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