Putin’s period in power hits 25 years

VLADIMIR Putin celebrates 25 years of remarkable political longevity in senior office on Tuesday (Dec 31). However, “peak Putin” may already have passed, even if he goes on to break Joseph Stalin’s record of around three decades in office during the era of the Soviet Union.

Putin’s rule has been an extraordinary period in Russian history that has seen him serve as president or prime minister from New Year’s Eve 1999 to date. While he is widely criticised in the West, he remains popular in much of Russia, and he may well win at least one more term of presidential office, in 2030, presuming he maintains reasonable health.

Putin, at 72, is around a decade younger than US President Joe Biden, and six years younger than US president-elect Donald Trump.

Indeed, such has been Putin’s popularity in the most recent Russian presidential contests, his biggest challenge has not been winning. Instead, it has been trying to whip up enough popular interest in the contest to ensure a respectable level of turnout.

Of course, it is by no means certain that Putin will stand again in 2030 when he would be 78. However, this appears the least likely option at this stage if he is in decent health, not least because any genuinely new administration that does not have his blessing might ultimately launch retrospective probes into the controversies of his many years of power.

So another option is that he seeks to groom a trusted successor to hand over power, potentially under terms which could see Putin seeking continued influence. One variant of this future came in 2008, when he served as prime minister during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency for four years.

However, there is another scenario, given some signs that Putin’s power is already ebbing, that might see a transfer of power in Moscow before 2030. Events such as the Wagner coup led by Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023 showed the regime’s grip on power is seemingly a mile wide, but sometimes apparently only inches thick.

While such a future is widely discounted by many, if Putin’s political luck finally goes south in a very dramatic way – fuelled by further foreign policy misadventure in Ukraine or elsewhere, or domestic economic travails – it cannot be dismissed. Yet, it is perhaps more likely that his authority will decay gradually, rather than him being deposed in the immediate future.

In Ukraine, Russia is currently making gradual gains on the battleground, but this has come at high cost in blood and treasure. Meanwhile, Russia is under regular drone attack; Ukrainian soldiers have occupied parts of Kursk (the first time foreign soldiers have seized part of the nation’s territory since World War II); and Western sanctions are a growing challenge for the economy.

In 2025, there is growing expectation of peace settlement talks beginning in Ukraine, which may imply a degree of stability in the conflict. However, this is not necessarily true, and the level and range of risks actually remain very high. This is one reason why the war’s outcome still remains so unpredictable.

In the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous context, more significant “surprises” may yet occur in coming weeks. This includes the possibility of major nuclear incidents of some kind – possibly “accidents” at nuclear energy sites.

So the conflict will probably last for at least months more, with possible key economic as well as political impacts. Even in the most positive scenario for peace, with major fighting ending in 2025, there may well be periodic tensions between Russia and Ukraine for longer.

This could have a key impact on energy and wider commodity markets. Moreover, the behaviour of Putin may become ever more erratic, including towards internationally headquartered firms operating in Russia.

Nevertheless, the fact that Putin could realistically remain in power post-2030 underlines his grip on power in Russia a quarter of a century after succeeding Boris Yeltsin.

So much so he is fast becoming one of the longest-serving world leaders of modern times alongside others such as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has been in post since 1989, and Fidel Castro, who served as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 to 2011.

To be sure, Putin has made some big mistakes. But overall, he has proved generally skilled in tapping into the post-Cold War national mood by forging a new, heightened sense of patriotism fuelled by a growing economy during some of the period.

This theme of national unity, and seeking of global respect, is central to his political fortunes, with Putin regularly tapping into key events such as the upcoming 80th anniversary in 2025 of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. This builds upon his mission since assuming power from Yeltsin of trying to restore Russia’s geopolitical prominence and prestige through international gambits like the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In his 2024 annual press conference on Dec 19, Putin said that his 25 years in power had “pulled (Russia) back from the edge of the abyss”. He accused the West of having “patronisingly patted” his predecessor Yeltsin on the back while “using Russia for its own purposes”. But he, Putin, was “ensuring Russia was an independent sovereign state”.

Yet, while this has – so far – played generally well domestically for Putin, it has resulted in frostier relations with the West. A huge question in coming years is how the bilateral relationship, specifically with the US, will fare under the second Trump administration.

Putin and Trump had hoped for a warming in relations from 2017 to 2021. Yet, events during Trump’s first presidency helped undermine any window of opportunity that could have existed for this to happen between Washington and Moscow.

Here it was not only the fact that US sanctions made relations trickier, but also that the Trump team was under significant pressure over the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional investigations into alleged collusion with Moscow during the 2016 US presidential campaign.

Moreover, there were significant US-Russia tensions in the Middle East, including after US missile strikes targeted at Syria in 2017 following an earlier poison gas attack committed by the now-deposed Assad regime, which was backed by Moscow.

Taken together, Putin has shown phenomenal political endurance to remain in office, even as his power now decays. While his regime may be more fragile than is widely assumed, it is nonetheless plausible he could continue as president well into the 2030s.

The writer is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics