After Momentous 2020, Putin of Russia enters the new year as powerful as ever

He supported greater restrictions on the Internet and made it difficult to hold political protests. On Friday, Russian lawmakers passed a bill that the Kremlin has supported the designation of people and groups who carry out political activities and receive funds from abroad as “foreign agents,” subjecting them to greater restrictions. .

While Mr Putin is making Russians guess about his plans for the end of his current term in 2024, these moves show the Kremlin is preparing to defend itself from threats to its power, analysts said.

“Next year, Putin enters as a brutal, unwilling autocrat, willing to further isolate Russia,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a Russian domestic policy expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center. And the more challenging your regime is, the harder and more “sovereign” it is. There are no signs of symbolic liberalization.

The adoption, in July, of changes to the country’s nineties-era constitution marked a crucial moment for the Russian leader. It reflects the Kremlin’s belief that Mr Putin enjoys popular support for an extension of his power, although polls show an erosion of enthusiasm for his leadership, said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R.Politik, a company of independent political analysis.

“He was finally able to realize his dream of creating a real Putin regime with his own constitution and system,” he said.

Even when Mr Putin moved to bolster his power this year, dissent has been simmering. Mass protests in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk in July over the arrest of a popular regional governor quickly turned into an expression of growing discontent over declining revenues, poor public services, including health care, as the coronavirus affected the country and Mr. Putin’s government.

On Saturday, Russia registered 29,258 new cases of coronavirus, according to Russian government data, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to just over three million, the fourth largest number in the world after the United States. India and Brazil.

Putin waited for the protesters and since then people have dissipated. But the rage reflects a split between the Kremlin and the average Russian.

“The gap between the Kremlin and society is widening,” Kolesnikov said.

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, has tried to take advantage of public frustration by investigating allegations of government corruption and excess and helping organize voting strategies against the Kremlin in regional elections.

But in August, Mr Navalny fell ill after being exposed to what European doctors said was exposure to the nerve agent Novichok, a substance to which only state actors could have access. , according to analysts and intelligence officials.

Navalny and his supporters believe the Kremlin thought of the failed plot to assassinate him. Moscow has denied any involvement. Putin said earlier this month that if Russian intelligence agents had wanted to kill Mr. Navalny, “we would have finished the job.”

In response, the European Union imposed sanctions on members of Putin’s inner circle. Russia responded in kind.

“What I see is that the regime has lost any capacity for compromise, tolerance of any criticism and has lost the ability to deal with any political risk peacefully,” Ms Stanovaya said. “The only way he knows how to behave is to use repression.”

Next year, the Kremlin could continue with the cow of Russia’s so-called systemic opposition, or opposition groups and government-tolerated political parties. Meanwhile, opposition groups like the one led by Mr Navalny will be suppressed or possibly destroyed, analysts say.

The Kremlin has rejected claims that want to stifle dissent. In a March interview with state news agency TASS, Putin said opposing voices were essential.

“There has always been and always will be a part of society in any country that does not agree with the authorities in power,” the Russian leader said. “And it’s very good that these people exist.”

At the global level this year, Putin handed over the political lifeguard to alleged Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who since a faulty presidential vote on August 9 has faced protests demanding his resignation. The Russian leader pledged military and financial support from his Belarusian counterpart.

Putin also negotiated a peace deal in November between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The agreement strengthens the Kremlin’s status as an agent of regional power and ensures its leverage over both countries. Russia already had a military base in Armenia, with which it also shares economic ties, but the peace deal places Russian forces in Azerbaijan for the first time.

Most former Soviet states “are our allies,” Putin told his national security council in August. “Our interests coincide in many ways, both economically and politically. This is certainly one of our foreign policy priorities. “

In an interview, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this year’s crises, as well as Western sanctions and a “continuing friendly environment,” require decisive action by Moscow.

Crises “demanded harshness from the president, speed in decision-making,” he said. “In general, of course, we are convinced that the main task was to maintain stability in all its directions [and] this was preserved “.

Russia has entered into agreements to sell its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to other countries, in which analysts have said it could allow Moscow to exercise soft power over recipient nations, particularly in South America and the Middle East.

Next year, Mr Putin could demand the return of the aid he extended, analysts said. It is likely to require Mr Lukashenko to cede the Kremlin’s long-standing efforts to lure his younger neighbor into its orbit. The Armenian and Azerbaijani governments are likely to be more deferential in Russia, as they depend on Putin to stop the resumption of fighting in the South Caucasus.

Tensions this year with the West are likely to continue, especially with the arrival of the Biden administration. This month’s revelations of an alleged Russian cyber attack on the U.S. federal government that infringed on at least six cabinet-level departments worsened relations between Moscow and Washington.

But antagonism toward the West could work to Putin’s benefit at home, according to his supporters.

The perception is that “if Putin were bad for Russia, he would not have been attacked like that,” said Sergey Markov, the pro-Kremlin director of the Moscow Institute of Political Studies. “The more angry the enemy, the more we move on the path to a brighter future. For Putin, there is nothing special here. [It is] a natural process of attacks on a successful Russian president ”.

—Nonna Fomenko contributed to this article.

Write to Ann M. Simmons to [email protected]