Putin to implement plan to resuscitate USSR

Just as no one had any doubts that Putin would be elected president of Russia, no one expected any surprises from the protocol ceremonies that would formally legitimize the continuation of his powers as state head. What we are now watching is which Western leaders have decided that their ambassadors in the Russian capital should refrain from attending Vladimir Putin's inauguration ceremony, and which leaders have decided that their diplomatic representatives will attend the ceremony.

The French ambassador's presence is interesting, but it is clear that from a political point of view, the presence or absence of the inauguration ceremony does not change much. Just as little changes the situation with the recognition or non-recognition of Putin as Russian president.

"Ukraine, engaged in a state of war with its neighboring country and having severed all diplomatic relations with it, can afford not to recognize Putin as a legitimate president. For Western countries, this poses a problem because such non-recognition essentially means a freeze in diplomatic relations and cessation of any contacts. In the case of a nuclear state, of course, it is quite risky from the perspective of national security, not only for Russia itself but also for those states that interrupt such contacts."

So, what is primarily important here is how willing Western states are in the coming years to resist Putin's aggressive plans regarding Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. And that's what we should hope for.

Putin has been leading Russia for 24 years straight as president, with a brief period as Prime Minister of the Russian Federation when Dmitry Medvedev formally held the presidency. Thus, he is approaching the tenure of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Many suggest that Putin may stay in the presidential seat until 2030, and formally, until 2036. However, it should be understood: Putin will realistically remain president of Russia for as long as he desires. Only the physical death of the Russian leader can prevent him from continuing to fulfill the duties of the head of the Russian state.

In fact, there is no real political alternative to the Putin regime in modern Russia. The Federal Security Service, which seized power in Russia in the late 1990s, meticulously purged the entire political system of the Russian Federation in favor of its chosen candidate. And there are significant chances that even in the event of Putin's physical death, the chekist regime with the same revanchist ideology will continue to exist in Russia for the next decade.

So, what is the political program of the nominee of this Chekist regime, Vladimir Putin, for the coming years? First of all, it is to correct the “mistake of 1991” when the Soviet Chekists gained power in the Soviet Union as a result of the ban of the Communist Party of the USSR and the liquidation of its apparatus, but were forced to be content with only the territory of the largest of the Soviet republics, the Russian Federation, which, as you know, occupied all other territories in the 20s of the last century and annexed them as a fake Soviet Union.

Soviet Chekists were already disillusioned in the 1990s by not having power over the entire territory. One of their main tasks was to correct this historical mistake, which manifested in attempts to annex two European republics of the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Belarus, to Russia. This desire led to the annexation of Donbas in 2014 and later to Russia's large-scale war against Ukraine.

Clearly, this war will continue. Because in their victory over Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and his associates see the opportunity to annex all other former Soviet republics to the Russian state or at least to the Russian sphere of influence. We need to realize that Vladimir Putin's political plans were to be re-elected not as president of the Russian Federation in 2024, but as head of a union state that would include Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian territories. The resistance of the Ukrainian people and the readiness of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to fight have essentially thwarted the Kremlin's ambitious and hateful plans. However, this does not mean that Vladimir Putin has decided to completely abandon them in the future.

“Thus, the main focus of the Russian president's political activity is primarily war. If his plans can be realized, Putin will return to the ideas that drove his attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Offers will be made to the leaders of other former Soviet republics to join this union state, which will be formed from Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian territories.”

Of course, it may seem unlikely that these plans will actually come to fruition, such as Putin being elected president of a state within the borders of the USSR of 1991 by 2030. So what is the alternative?

The alternative lies in the continuation of the Russian-Ukrainian war and in Western pressure on Russia. It lies in Russia's movement towards destabilizing the modern world, in cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea, and in creating new opportunities for wars on all continents, especially in the Middle East, Africa, and possibly in Latin America. Vladimir Putin's presidency during the period from 2024 to 2030 promises to be even more bloody, crisis-ridden, and alarming than in previous years of his presidency of the Russian Federation.

One could say that the world is continuing to approach the threshold of escalation, where in Moscow and Washington, London and Paris, questions of the danger of first tactical and then strategic nuclear weapons use will be addressed. This is how crucial Vladimir Putin's tenure as president of the Russian Federation could be, as he would prefer to leave it in favor of leading the newly revived Soviet Union. Russia under Putin is willing to pay a high price, creating chaos and destabilization wherever possible.

And of course, Ukraine must do everything possible in this situation to ensure that its war with Russia does not end with the disappearance of the Ukrainian state from the political map of the world. It should strive to obtain worthy security guarantees from the civilized world during these years, and to confront Russia with the choice of either continuing the fight with Ukraine or facing a real nuclear conflict with the countries of the civilized world. This should frighten the Russian political leadership and the Russian people, who are infected with the chauvinistic virus.

It is also absolutely obvious that without subduing Ukrainian territory to all the ambitious plans of Vladimir Putin and the majority of his compatriots regarding the return to the borders of 1991, these plans will not be realized. And this creates the possibility that perhaps in the 2030s or 2040s, Russia may transition from a model of an empire seeking to be restored to a model of a nation-state trying to find its place, if not in Europe, then in Asia.

About the author. Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, Shevchenko National Prize winner

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.