Current Affairs

In March, Putin stands for re-election, it is almost certain that he will win. He has been polling at sixty percent and the nearest opposition, which is the Communist Party is polling at four percent. Of course there was Prigozhin who polled at six percent before he and his entourage were killed, but there is nobody willing to challenge Putin, and those that have in the past are either in jail or exiled from Russia. Putin has moved the trajectory of the United Russia party toward an ideal that encapsulates the family as the central pillar to the states success. Furthermore, he has criminalised the LGBT community and brought through bills that have closed Gay clubs and made it illegal to congregate or even be seen as a gay couple.

The LGBT argument is linked to Putin’s ideological and spiritual alignments. He has moved the liberalism of the Russian state away from the sphere of tolerance toward a perspective that is reinforced through demands that the police clampdown on gatherings. The Russian Supreme Court has moved that the LGBT community are an extremist organization and has been criminalised by the authorities who can impose prison sentences of up to ten years imprisonment.  The new law argues that participation, financing, information dissemination about upcoming events will be prosecuted. Igor Kochetkov, the head of the rights group LGBT Network, argues that the bill is designed to “create an imaginary effort to create enemies within the framework of its ideology to promote tradition values.”

Following the decision of the courts, Moscow police raided numerous venues, according to Tatiania Stanvya, law enforcement officers photographed passports as they left the venues. She argues that Putin is unlikely to have taken the “decision personally, as he is reluctant to take decisions for such radical measures.” Tatiana also argues that the LGBTQ movement is an international movement that makes it a geopolitical tool that could “undermine Russian cultural and traditional values.”

There has been widespread arguments about the law. The Bolshoi Ballet cancelled a show about the life of Rudolf Nuriyev and further cancellations have been announced by other artists. Even a K-Pop group was affected, when the TV station showing a video of the k-pop group portraying a rainbow in the background was taken out. Russian legislators are debating what is the symbolism that can be seen as part of the LGBTQ community and have argued that the rainbow can be seen by children as something positive. There are also reports that members of the LGBTQ community are trying to exit Russia to Europe and America, but as a whole there has not been a mass exodus yet.

There is a question whether Putin is becoming more dependent on a conservative elite led by Alexander Dugin, his speech to the Church Council advocated for traditional values that placed the family at the centre of Russian family life. He argued that Russia should “integrate a holistic approach to education.” His argument centred on the family as central to the Russian states future and that families should be larger, and that there should be a “national culture [with] children and youth organisations” at the centre of Russian life. He believes that the moral compass of Russia is dependent on his arguments and that patriotic language must be brought into the classroom to promote the Russian state with a youth movements that will reflect Russia’s ambitions.

But whether this is Putin setting the agenda for the upcoming elections is also framed by his argument that 2024 is the year of the family. It is expected that the core theme to Putin’s re-election will be traditional values and the family, which will serve as an ideological pillar to the lives of ordinary Russians. His ideological shift was not to unexpected as he has become deeply invested in the ideal of Russian supremacy and more dependent on the ideological arguments of Alexander Dugin, who argued that Putin’s speech to the Church Council was “pivotal for the nation and post war Russia.”.

In an article in Le Monde, Michel Eltchaninoff, a writer, argues that nobody really know what Putin’s personal beliefs are and that Informal sources told him that Putin is not “particularly Orthodox.” Nikolai Mitrokin, a Russian historian and sociologist believes that Putin “uses the Church for some rituals [and] staging acts intended to set an example for the Russian elite.” He argues that Putin likes to display his Orthodox credentials, which is a central core to the everyday lives of ordinary Russians, though Putin argued fifteen years ago that “it is not possible today to have a morality separate from religious values.”  But according to the Atlantic Council, “Putin has long sought to use the Russian Orthodox Church and its Orthodox offshoot as soft power tools.” And in re-writing his vision of Ukrainian independence, he argued that Russia and Ukraine are inseparable through cultural and religious alignment, though in 2019, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox world gave the Ukrainian church independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Putin argues that Russian foreign policy is an argument that Russia is dependent on for its survival and not only that, he views it as an argument that is international in its inception. He believes that the “freedom of the whole world” is essentially at the core of his argument. Putin argues in his speeches that his world view is dependent on Russia as a power that leads the way against the “dictatorship of one hegemony,” and that Russia must lead the way towards this argument, whether militarily or diplomatically. His global argument challenges the status quo and Russian foreign policy has become cornered by the arguments and speeches that Putin is giving, which means that there is very little movement politically and internationally, because he is determined to control the narrative for the domestic audience.

Tatania Stanvya argues that Putin is using propaganda to placate a domestic audience through “messianic rhetoric”, with broader political implications. She argues that the “radicalisation” of Putins “tone”, is closely related to his “emotional state”, and this in turn will influence senior officials and mainstream media and will be taken up by radical broadcasters, conservatives and those who want the war in Ukraine to continue. The speeches by Putin are aimed at making the “domestic political environment much more intolerant and hostile.”  

There is a general consensus that Putin is becoming more isolated from the realism that he is confronted with on the domestic front. The riots in Dagestan have shaken him and his speeches have become more aggressive. He argues that ethnic or religious conflict will not be tolerated and believes that there is Western influence in the riots that took place in Dagestan. Putin argues there is a deep state attempt by Western nations to interfere in the political machinations of the Republics, and he argues that Western propaganda is evidence that the West is involved in the destabilisation of the federation. This means Moscow is readying itself for further terrorist attacks that have not been seen in Russia since the war in Chechniya . He believes that Russia should expect crafted propaganda from the West that destabilises the state, which  Putin is feeding into in his narrative. It is an argument that has not been seen since the end of the Cold War and Putin is readying the state for further conflicts both domestically and internationally, which may mean a more assertive Russian state is going to be realised internationally.

Russia watchers argue that the state is trying to repress voices that could challenge the electoral process and it is part of a strategy that will gain momentum, which will repress the voices that challenge the political make up of Russia. The Silvoki (FSB) will enforce the rules and restrictions of the state in order to capture the national debate and especially the arguments concerning Ukraine. The emboldenment of the radical arguments coming from the conservatives and hawks, which are part of the realignment of the states movement towards a more conservative state, plays into the hands of Dugin et al, and moves the state towards a more imperial trajectory, which Dugin argues for. But this is nothing new in Russia, the question is whether the state can build an identity that will last after Putin and the conservatives forces that are underpinning his arguments at the moment. With these arguments of national and spiritual realignment, Putin is creating state repressive mechanisms that will deter any challenges that he will face in Russia now and in the election.