Leaders 7W
hen vladimirputinorderedtheinvasionofUkraine,he
dreamed of restoring the glory of the Russian empire. He
has ended up restoring the terror of Josef Stalin. That is not only
because he has unleashed the most violent act of unprovoked
aggression in Europe since 1939, but also because, as a result, he
is turning himself into a dictator at home—a 21stcentury Stalin,
resorting as never before to lies, violence and paranoia.
To understand the scale of Mr Putin’s lies, consider how the
war was planned. Russia’s president thought Ukraine would rap
idly collapse, so he did not prepare his people for the invasion or
his soldiers for their mission—indeed, he assured the elites that
it would not happen. After two terrible weeks on the battlefield,
he is still denying that he is waging what may become Europe’s
biggest war since 1945. To sustain this allencompassing lie, he
has shut down almost the entire independent media, threatened
journalists with up to 15 years in jail if they do not parrot official
falsehoods, and had antiwar protesters arrested in their thou
sands. By insisting that his military “operation” is deNazifying
Ukraine, state television is reStalinising Russia.
To grasp Mr Putin’s appetite for violence, look at how the war
is being fought. Having failed to win a quick victory, Russia is
trying to sow panic by starving Ukrainian cities and pounding
them blindly. On March 9th it hit a maternity hospital in Mariu
pol. If Mr Putin is committing war crimes
against the fellow Slavs he eulogised in his writ
ings, he is ready to inflict slaughter at home.
And to gauge Mr Putin’s paranoia, imagine
how the war ends. Russia has more firepower
than Ukraine. It is still making progress, espe
cially in the south. It may yet capture the capi
tal, Kyiv. And yet, even if the war drags on for
months, it is hard to see Mr Putin as the victor.
Suppose that Russia manages to impose a new government.
Ukrainians are now united against the invader (see Briefing). Mr
Putin’s puppet could not rule without an occupation, but Russia
does not have the money or the troops to garrison even half of
Ukraine. American army doctrine says that to face down an in
surgency—in this case, one backed by nato—occupiers need
to 25 soldiers per 1,000 people; Russia has a little over four.
If, as the Kremlin may have started to signal, Mr Putin will not
impose a puppet government—because he cannot—then he will
have to compromise with Ukraine in peace talks. Yet he will
struggle to enforce any such agreement. After all, what will he do
if postwar Ukraine resumes its Westward drift: invade?
The truth is sinking in that, by attacking Ukraine, Mr Putin
has committed a catastrophic error. He has wrecked the reputa
tion of Russia’s supposedly formidable armed forces, which
have proved tactically inept against a smaller, worsearmed but
motivated opponent. Russia has lost mountains of equipment
and endured thousands of casualties, almost as many in two
weeks as America has suffered in Iraq since it invaded in 2003.
Mr Putin has brought ruinous sanctions on his country. The
central bank does not have access to the hard currency it needs
to support the banking system and stabilise the rouble. Brands
that stand for openness, including ikeaand CocaCola, have
closedtheirdoors.Somegoodsarebeingrationed.Western ex
porters are withholding vital components, leading to factory
stoppages. Sanctions on energy—for now, limited—threaten to
crimp the foreign exchange Russia needs to pay for its imports.
And, as Stalin did, Mr Putin is destroying the bourgeoisie, the
great motor of Russia’s modernisation. Instead of being sent to
the gulag, they are fleeing to cities like Istanbul, in Turkey, and
Yerevan, in Armenia. Those who choose to stay are being muz
zled by restrictions on free speech and free association. They
will be battered by high inflation and economic dislocation. In
just two weeks, they have lost their country.
Stalin presided over a growing economy. However murder
ously, he drew on a real ideology. Even as he committed outrag
es, he consolidated the Soviet empire. After being attacked by
Nazi Germany, he was saved by the unbelievable sacrifice of his
country, which did more than any other to win the war.
Mr Putin has none of those advantages. Not only is he failing
to win a war of choice while impoverishing his people: his re
gime lacks an ideological core. “Putinism”, such as it is, blends
nationalism and orthodox religion for a television audience.
Russia’s regions, stretched across 11 time zones, are already mut
tering about this being Moscow’s war.
As the scale of Mr Putin’s failure becomes clear, Russia will
enter the most dangerous moment in this con
flict. Factions in the regime will turn on each
other in a spiral of blame. Mr Putin, fearful of a
coup, will trust nobody and may have to fight
for power. He may also try to change the course
of the war by terrifying his Ukrainian foes and
driving off their Western backers with chemical
weapons, or even a nuclear strike.
As the world looks on, it should set out to
limit the danger ahead. It must puncture Mr Putin’s lies by fos
tering the truth. Western tech firms are wrong to shut their oper
ations in Russia, because they are handing the regime total con
trol over the flow of information. Governments welcoming Uk
rainian refugees should welcome Russian émigrés, too.
nato can help temper Mr Putin’s violence—in Ukraine, at
least—by continuing to arm the government of Volodymyr Ze
lensky and supporting him if he decides that the time has come
to enter serious negotiations. It can also increase pressure on Mr
Putin by pushing ahead faster and deeper with energy sanctions,
though at a cost to the world economy (see next leader).
And the West can try to contain Mr Putin’s paranoia. nato
should state that it will not shoot at Russian forces, so long as
they do not attack first. It must not give Mr Putin a reason to
draw Russia into a wider war by a declaring nofly zone that
would need enforcing militarily. However much the West would
like a new regime in Moscow, it must state that it will not direct
ly engineer one. Liberation is a task for the Russian people.
As Russia sinks, the contrast with the president next door is
glaring. Mr Putin is isolated and morally dead; Mr Zelensky is a
brave Everyman who has rallied his people and the world. He is
Mr Putin’s antithesis—and perhaps his nemesis. Thinkwhat
Russia might become once freed from its 21stcentury Stalin.nAs it sinks in that he cannot win in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is resorting to repression at homeThe Stalinisation of Russia