Can Putin's reign last through 2025?

As we enter a new year widely expected to be turbulent, Russia marks an anniversary some associate with stability and others with calamity — 25 years of Vladimir Putin’s hold on the reins of power. Amid a grinding war in Ukraine and a bruised economy, how much longer can his power last? Will he, as some fear, form an authoritarian alliance with Donald Trump after Trump returns as president this month? Putin’s history provides some clues to the future.

A former KGB officer who had to reinvent himself after the fall of the Soviet Union, Putin rose quickly in the late 1990s from an obscure aide to St. Petersburg's mayor to a high-level official in the Boris Yeltsin administration and then prime minister. When the ailing Yeltsin decided to resign in December 1999, he reportedly chose Putin as his successor because Putin gave convincing assurances he would not prosecute Yeltsin or his family for corruption. An unknown, Putin won popularity with a ruthless war to subdue the separatist region of Chechnya, seen as a breeding ground for terrorism. As many as 80,000 people died, but by 2009 Putin achieved his goal and the region was stabilized under the brutal control of pro-Russia Chechen leaders.

While paying lip service to freedom and democracy, Putin quickly began to clamp down on the Russian media — which, for all the flaws of the Yeltsin era, had enjoyed unprecedented freedom in the 1990s — and on independent political activity. Political parties, which had flourished in the post-Soviet period, were neutralized through intimidation and legal barriers; business leaders powerful enough to challenge Putin were jailed, forced into exile, or terrorized into submission.

In the early 2000s when he still wore an increasingly ill-fitting liberal mask, Putin cultivated a good relationship with the West, including the United States. Interestingly, it was almost certainly Ukraine that ended this beautiful friendship. In 2004-2005, Ukraine’s "Orange Revolution" — in which nonviolent protests scuttled the fraudulent election victory of Putin crony Viktor Yanukovych and brought pro-European leaders to power — was seen by Putin as a result of blatant U.S. meddling. His rhetoric toward the West turned increasingly bellicose.

In a sense, the current war in Ukraine, which follows a second pro-Western revolution in Kyiv in 2014, is the culmination of these shifts. Almost three years after invading Ukraine, Putin has destroyed what was left of Russia’s post-Soviet freedoms and vastly exceeded the Chechen death toll, while telling Russians they are under NATO siege. Whether polls showing his popularity can still be trusted in a terrorized society is almost impossible to know. But losing the war — none of whose stated objectives have been achieved — may prove fatal to Putin’s power.

Trump, who has sometimes spoken admiringly of Putin as a strong leader, is often seen by critics as being practically in Putin’s pocket. But it’s doubtful Trump has any loyalty to him. If, as his campaign rhetoric signaled, he sees a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine as an essential achievement, he’s likely to try to force a peace agreement. Will this mean extracting ruinous concessions from Ukraine or taking a tough stance toward Russia? Some recent rhetoric indicates Trump now sees Putin as being in a weakened position; what’s more, Trump's energy policies are likely to deliver a further hit to Russia’s economy if they cause oil and gas prices to drop. 

Will Putin’s reign outlast 2025? In an unpredictable time, all bets are off.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.