Putin's War With the West

In an exclusive interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “needs new annexations.” With a failure to reach a peaceful settlement with the Ukrainian government - due to an incessant obsession to control Ukraine – and a plunge in the Russian Ruble, questions are raising over Putin’s leadership within Russia. The greed for new annexations are increasing the conflict and plunging Putin deeper into an abyss of his own creation.

The Ukrainian conflict in the Donbass region of Ukraine continues even as the Minsk Protocol was signed to prevent fighting. Moreover, the ongoing conflict has also beleaguered the relations between the West and Russia, and now the sanctions threaten to turn the tables on Putin. However, if Putin’s rise to power in Russia and his authority in the world is not a coincidence, then how did he gain his power? This piece attempts to outline his rise to power and briefly explain the future impacts.

Putin’s rise begins from his involvement with the Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) or better known as the KGB. Almost a decade after he joined the KGB, Putin was transferred to East Germany by the group, and he spent five years – encompassing the fall of the Berlin Wall. His position in the KGB was becoming more precarious as the years followed; finally, in 1991, he resigned from his post just before the KGB supported coup against Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev. Putin’s explanation for his resignation was the following: “As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on."1

After leaving Germany, Putin worked in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), which helped him launch a political career once he became the advisor on international affairs to the mayor. Eventually, Putin joined the newly created party “Our Home is Russia,” where he led the Saint Petersburg branch.

The big breakthrough came in 1997, when the former Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed Putin deputy chief of presidential staff. His close work with Yeltsin helped the former president choose his successor to be Putin; hence, in 2000, after Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned, Putin became the acting president of Russia with his party United Russia, and finally won the presidential bid later that year.

This victory was championed in the West because, even though it was viewed as dictatorial, it was recognized as “the right of Russian capitalism to autonomy within the framework of ‘world society’ and its justification for using extreme force in the struggle against ‘international terrorism’, or against anything that might endanger the existing world order.”2

However, this view did not remain for too long once Putin outlined his ambitions of Russian domination: a second Soviet Union in his eyes. In 2008, after being barred for a third term by constitution, Putin’s close ally Dmitry Medvedev took the reins, but Putin’s presence was present.

The 2008 Russia-Georgia war was the one of the first times the West felt Russia’s threat. Prior, to this event, there were numerous occasions for a closer relation – most famously when former US president George Bush looked into Putin’s soul -- and even the possibility of Russia joining the European Union. Nevertheless, his popularity soared with an almost 85% approval rating from the public after the hostage crisis in Moscow in 2002 – and remained consistent.

In 2012, Putin once again became the President, and this time, led a ferocious charge against the Ukrainians, trying to seek control over Ukraine through Viktor Yanukovych. This has, however, escalated into a full scale war between Russia and Ukraine, even though Putin denies having supplied weapons and troops to the Rebels.

Moreover, this war has exhausted Russia financially, but remains strong internationally. Putin has developed closer relations with China and Pakistan, hoping to find support against the crippling sanctions placed by the West.

Throughout the years, we have seen Putin’s rise to power and the reverberations around the world. His impact on recent world politics has been immense, so only time will reveal the motives of Putin.

#politics #economy #conflict #europe