Will Putin's regime fall? Public policy for Russian dictatorship of wartime

Despite the fact that Russia is in full power of the warlike authoritarian regime, it has not slipped into the totalitarian path, but rather demonstrates the signs of a distorted but dynamic authoritarian public policy. The Putin regime is a personalist dictatorship, characterized by significant stability of elites at the top.

However, the political dynamics facing the eyes of the public are unlikely to be homogeneous and reflects real claims on power and influence that can help Western observers understand the political system of transforming Russia. Focus was translated by the new text of Julian G. Woller, dedicated to the political future leadership of Russia. Three interdependent manifestations of public policy are particularly useful understanding of the dynamics of the regime in Russia.

The Russian regime is experiencing huge political and social upheavals. These new events make it possible to understand what Russia is turning into a regime in which the inherited elite quickly comes to the background of criticizing various "patriotic" voices that openly and publicly claim political legitimacy and a place in the arena of decision making. The Russian internal information space has narrowed significantly, especially for liberal and western publications that have been survived.

However, for Russian writers and commentators standing on hawk, the opposite or nationalist side of the media watershed has been ongoing. The growth of the ranks of "military correspondents" or warriors was called "new leaders of thoughts" in the ecosystem of domestic media. Some popular "military" are anonymous or collective groups with Telegram accounts, while others are some people who now develop personal brands as reporters.

Despite the fact that this term belongs to the writers and participants of hostilities in the field, the environment in which they live, includes a wider range of dissident commentators and leaders of thoughts who write on the same or such platforms. Warriors became noticeable both within Russia and among observers in the West with their open criticism of the behavior of the Russian armed forces in the war.

This criticism is large -scale, uses a bold and emotional language and usually provides much more specifics about operational, tactical and even logistical details of the conflict than major Russian media or government presses. The place of "military" in the Russian media environment is now indisputable - and unusual.

Their legitimacy as knowledgeable, skeptical to the Kremlin and the voices of the war gives them a loan of trust and a huge audience-a natural result for well-informed and cares for their brand of online entrepreneurs that bypass traditional power channels and information. Even those "military" that demonstrate signs of influence and manipulation by state and political elites, usually make a name for themselves through critical comments.

In fact, the government's desire to use "military" for their purposes is an indicator of their influence. Putin has repeatedly met with the chosen composition of "military" both privately and publicly, and then formalized their role as "fourth power" through a working group created in December this year. As a result of the war, the military was influenced by the formation of the Russian authoritarian policy.

After a catastrophe on the battlefield under Izium and Balaklia, severe criticism of the warriors could not be ignored. This led to the public accusations of military leadership in accordance with the failure, which eventually prepared the basis for the appointment of General Surovikin in October 2022. Where this nucleus of popular wartime writers will come, it remains unclear.

The fact that the Kremlin can only partially restrain the criticism coming from conservative and warlike patriotic flanks, in itself deserves close attention. The hidden trust of Russian political commentators in the military department at least in terms of making strategic and operational decisions has fallen sharply, and Moscow can no longer afford it to think that it can control the information space.

The phenomenon of military correspondents who influenced the course of Russian domestic policy is far from the only one. One of the key events of the last year has been the sharp increase in the authority of some of the elite, who have taken the new role of official politicians. The two most important of them are Ramzan Kadyrov, a perennial sub -national dictator of Chechnya, and Yevgeny Prigogine, connected with Putin oligarch, who controls the Wagner mercenary group (the so -called Wagner PEC).

Neither Kadyrov nor Prigogine are new figures in the Russian elite. Kadyrov has a reputation of a fierce opponent of other members of the ecosystem of the Russian special services, which is constantly hostile to the Federal Security Service regarding the limits of authority and the degree of impunity. Meanwhile, Wagner PVC made a name in Syria, clearly serving the foreign policy of the regime, and in recent years it has expanded Russia's geopolitical coverage - especially in Africa.

Nevertheless, their authority has grown significantly after the war, which is the result of their interesting situation as sole commanders of large armies, which operate semi -independently on the Russian Armed Forces.

This unusual division in the structure of the armed forces of the Russian state is not complete, but the battalions of the Kadyrovians were used as separate shock troops - and, of course, were presented in this form for domestic media - while the Wagnets were given unofficial powers to recruit people from prison The cumbersome bureaucratic obstacles of the Armed Forces. Of course, Wagner is in the heart of the Battle for Soledar.

This unusual degree of freedom in the military sphere contributed to the public positioning of both. Kadyrov and Prigogine are widely used Telegram, video and interviews to demonstrate Putin's complete loyalty and simultaneously strengthen his personal image as pragmatic, dangerous leaders ready for extraordinary violence. However, this image creation goes far beyond the creation of an attractive, militant brand.

It enabled them to interfere with Russia's domestic policy with greater force than before. In fact, they created for themselves the niches of "Barons of War", capable of directly influencing both politics and the course of war. For several months, since February 2022, Russian politics - in the sense of public discussions and negotiations between political elites - has almost subsided.

Although some are of the opinion that there are no manifestations of true differences between elites in authoritarian regimes, there has never been such in Russia. However, for a short time, it reached an unusual state of truly de facto "closed" authoritarianism, when the war began and the Russian elites were overwhelmingly supported by the President. For several months, the only difference was observed between elites that sing a "special military operation" and those who behaved quietly.

Kadyrov and Prigogine were strongly committed to this atmosphere of lull and thus demonstrated their difference from many other Russian elites who would like to wait for a crisis in political obedience and silence. Prigogine joined the governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov, making dangerous accusations of insufficient loyalty of the latter and at the same time trying to review in his favor the distribution of rent.

At the same time, the legitimacy and authority of such officials as the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, which reinforces the thesis of the great influence of informal players on Putin, decreased significantly. The emergence of military-political barons-that is, political figures that have personal control over real military resources and profitable, cliental relations with the top of the executive-is an important change. Nothing that has been observed since the 1990s.

The analogies with the feudal organization are often inappropriate, but they are better than it should be when you think about how to conceptualize the relationship between Putin and armed, politically active vassals. Then, as most Russian public policy, wartime was extraordinary and unusual, intra -party policy continues to be sadly drawn by its turn. Russian policy is often regarded as a facade or, at best, as a veil of political reality.

In fact, the so-called "systemic" parties were truly relevant in the period from 2012 to 2016, when loyal parliamentarians actually promoted the non-liberal legislative agenda with greater energy than expected or wanted the Kremlin. However, under the pressure of policy, which lasted from February to the beginning of summer, official parties in Russia again became a mouthpiece of differences of secondary elites.

The return of the Russian parties indicates that the regime has not yet lost the form it received by the end of 2010s. Today, parties operate in two key areas. These "angry patriots" are described in the Russian media as "quite loyal power by figures, who, however, do not refuse to publicly ask inconvenient questions about problems, mistakes and even failures during special operation or, say, partial mobilization. " The connection between warriors and these "angry patriots" is obvious.

In fact, this term was originally treated with influential military bloggers such as Igor Girkin (Strelkov). However, in the field of party policy, it has a different meaning, describing the representatives of the largest opposition party, who seek to avoid complete absorption of the country by guidance loyalism. However, this position makes "angry patriots" vulnerable to attacks by convinced loyalists.

Prigogine gave another example of his active participation in public political discourse, condemning the "angry patriots" of the party system as "chatter" who need to take a step forward and take the burden before criticizing. " , as well as the Communist Party's management, is to simply agree with the government, the General Staff and the regime in general.

Playing in the field of criticism is associated with dangers, and if the "military", given their contacts in this area, impeccable reputation, impeccable, then "angry patriots" walk on shaky soil. The fact that party policy remains detached from the basic regime, is a feature, not a disadvantage of the current political order.

It is likely that during 2023 there will be outbreaks should be perceived as evidence that the regime is about They were completely abolished (although in case of deterioration of the situation on the front, all the means will agree). Russian commentators in the domestic press and popular Telegram channels have a number of tactical opportunities for the next year.

Some hope to improve the brand of the Liberal Democratic Party to create a second, loyalist-nationalist political party for those who no longer trust the ruling party. Others expect the government to finally bury the Communist Party and its problematic "angry patriots". In the end, there is always a chance that the regime will try to complete, cardinal reorganization of the system, as the political reporters offered for the year preceding the war.

All this leads to the fact that the intra -political picture is more complicated than sometimes expected. Russia has not gone through complete, totalitarian mobilization or mass, forced political lull. Different, critical voices survive in different formats. This is noticeable in the co -opted party system, which, however, contains many ambitious figures of the background that see the opportunity to use the war to promote their own careers. We will see how it will change during the year.

The internal political situation in Russia is unprecedented. The internal opponents of the regime ran, which the usual allies were more critical than expected. The short moment of almost complete closure of the elite lasted only a few months after the beginning of the war, and Russia's inability to achieve its strategic and operational purposes means that the space for ambitious votes has expanded sharply over the months.

Russian wartime policy was still characterized by a wonderful amount of criticism from the "hawk" flank, the emergence of military-political barons, whose relations with the supreme ruler are qualitatively new, and the stability of the subordinate part of the political elite, which continues to work creatively on non-liberal goals on "patriotism and loyalty.

The result is somewhat reminiscent of pluralistic dictatorships of the interwar era or some bureaucratic-authoritarian states of the middle and late 20th century. The small "pro -Western" flank of the Russian political spectrum, in political practice is mainly represented either by professional technocrats, or the bourgeois "protest electorate", is now silent or sharply displaced from the political field.

The regime no longer claims to be something else other than explicitly, though amorphous, ideological, and internal stimuli to feel the besieged "fortress of Russia" more than enough. But there is a large layer of varied positions within what can be called a "authoritarian camps of wartime", whose faction is now restrained at the top, but much more dynamic among the less significant elites and what is left of civil society.

This view of Russian public policy has important consequences for those who take care of the issues of conducting the Russian-Ukrainian war. For example, losses on the battlefield from the Russian side continuing are sometimes interpreted as an impetus to the collapse of the regime, but perhaps better understand them as feeding the dynamics described above - that is, the further increase in the legitimacy Above him.

Similarly, regardless of the results of the fighting, the experience of the war has strengthened the significant political power of Prigogine and Kadyrov, and the formation of personnel hardened in the battles, who are personally committed and associated with specific feats in the war, will not give other players of Russian politics to ignore these warlike figures. Interestingly, what use will find the military leadership of these forces that have both political and military power.

The preservation of the formal party system means that Russia will be prone to (authoritarian) electoral cycles that can distract the attention of the regime and create players electorally conditioned incentives for large offensive operations. Yes, the season of public political competitions, which will come in September, as well as the future presidential election of 2024, will be the background for Russian military campaigns. Julian G.