From Friday, Russian-installed leaders in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces are holding referendums that are expected to be used by Moscow to justify annexation.
The provinces represent around 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory. Moscow does not fully control any of the four regions, with only around 60 per cent of Donetsk held by its forces.
But the move ramps up the stakes in the conflict by allowing Moscow to accuse Ukraine of attacking supposedly Russian territory.
Meanwhile, Mr Putin has called up 300,000 reservists in a “partial mobilisation” to fight in Ukraine, saying the country will use “all available means” to protect its people “if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened”.
“This is not a bluff,” Mr Putin said in a televised address on Wednesday, as he renewed his threat to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.
The latest moves have drawn condemnation from Western leaders and prompted demonstrations across Russia, with some experts arguing they’re largely a sign Mr Putin’s strategy is failing.
So, what is driving the leader who has orchestrated Europe’s largest war since World War II? And what is his end game?
The four Russian-held regions where referendums are taking place in Ukraine. Source: SBS News
Who is Vladimir Putin?
Vladimir Putin has been serving as Russia’s president since 2012, and between 2000 and 2008. He was prime minister in 1999 and from 2008 to 2012.
He previously served for 15 years as a foreign intelligence officer in the KGB – the foreign intelligence and domestic security agency of the Soviet Union.
The collapse of the Soviet empire was to have a lasting impact on Mr Putin, who later spoke about asking for orders from Moscow in 1989, but “Moscow was silent”.
“I had the feeling the country no longer existed,” he said in a book of interviews published in 2000. “The (Soviet) Union was ill. It was a deadly, untreatable illness called paralysis: the paralysis of power.”
Australian Russians condemn Putin’s decision to mobilise civilians
Australian Russians condemn Putin’s decision to mobilise civilians
Putin’s rise to power
After retiring from the active KGB service and getting a job in the Kremlin soon after, Mr Putin quickly rose through the ranks of the presidential administration. By 1998, he was considered one of the most powerful officials in the Kremlin.
He was made prime minister in 1999 before being elected to a four-year term as president in 2000, winning just over 50 per cent of the vote. He was re-elected in 2004 with 71.3 per cent of the vote.
After his second term ended, he served as prime minister before becoming president again in 2012, due to Russia’s constitution limiting the president to two consecutive terms.
In 2020, Mr Putin drafted a constitutional amendment allowing him to remain president for two more terms, which was approved by Russian voters in a national referendum later that year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Source: AAP
Putin’s rule over Russia
Mr Putin sought to end the chaos hallmark of post-Soviet Russia and presided over the longest Russian economic boom in a generation, fuelled by high market prices for oil.
While supporters would credit him with bringing order and improving life for many Russians, critics would say he rolled back democracy and stifled freedoms.
Mr Putin also increased centralised Kremlin control over politics, the economy and the media.
Dr Jessica Genauer, Lecturer in International Relations at Flinders University, said Russia under Mr Putin became increasingly authoritarian and internally oppressive.
“When Putin came into power, there was at least a kind of fragile democracy or electoral democracy, that was the regime type in Russia,”
“As Putin is becoming increasingly attached to being in power … Russia has become increasingly authoritarian at the same time.”
Meanwhile, she said the Russian leader was expected to maintain popularity with certain sections of the population.
“This is going on at the same time, and Putin has been providing this narrative to the Russian people – at least to those who support him as leader – that he will create a great Russian power once again.
“As part of that narrative, Putin draws on these moments of crisis in order to galvanise the Russian people around him as leader.”
John Blaxland, Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies at the Australian National University, said Mr Putin “brought order” and provided prosperity as held onto power, largely sustained off the back of Russian oil and gas.
But he said Mr Putin’s image as the “deliverer of a modicum of prosperity” has all but changed.
Why is he determined to take Ukraine?
Mr Putin’s invasion is not a new war — rather an escalation of one stemming from Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a southern province in Ukraine, in 2014.
In the decades since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine moved closer towards integrating with Europe.
“This was likely seen as unacceptable to Putin himself, but also potentially to others within the Russian population,” Dr Genauer said.
In 2014, Ukrainian (and pro-Russia) president Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown after he refused to sign a European Union association agreement. He cited pressures placed on him by the Russian government to place distance between the EU and Ukraine.
After Mr Yanukovych fled Ukraine as civilians revolted against his government, Russia annexed Crimea.
On 24 February this year, Mr Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine, after months of Russia massing a military presence at its borders with Ukraine and Belarus.
Mr Putin said the purpose was to demilitarise Ukraine, rid it of dangerous nationalists and defend Moscow from the transatlantic alliance NATO, which Ukraine and its allies said was a baseless pretext for a war of aggression.
They call Russia’s actions an unprovoked, imperialist land grab and an attempt to reconquer a country that broke free of Moscow’s rule with the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Professor Blaxland said when it comes to Mr Putin’s equation for taking Ukraine, his own reputation is at stake.
“He’s staked a lot on him being, ‘Putin, the Great’ – and he has a vision of Russia that echoes imperial Russia of the 19th century. And he has a sense of Russian greatness, to which Ukraine’s independence has presented, in his view, an existential challenge,” he said.
“It is delusional and it is harking back to a world that no longer exists. And it is one that Putin is prepared to strive for, at the expense of any country, any people that cross him.”
The war in Ukraine has killed thousands, destroyed cities and sent millions fleeing their homes.
Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons
Mr Putin’s recent announcements followed a setback for Russian forces, who have been driven from areas they had captured in northeast Ukraine in a Ukrainian counter-offensive this month and are bogged down in the south.
Professor Blaxland described the Russian mobilisation as a “de-factor declaration of failure of his strategy so far”.
“You don’t do that seven months into a campaign unless something has seriously gone amiss. And that’s evidently what’s happened. The efforts so far have demonstrably failed,” he said.
Dr Genauer agreed the moves are signs of the Russian leader’s weakness.
“Putin understands he needs to show he’s doing something. He’s playing with fire a little bit, and he’s walking a thin line with announcing a partial mobilisation,” she said.
‘I am not going to die for Putin’: Russian anti-war protests erupt as Vladimir Putin mobilises army
‘I am not going to die for Putin’: Russian anti-war protests erupt as Vladimir Putin mobilises army
Professor Blaxland said the referendums could be a significant move by Mr Putin to consolidate gains into what could be recognised as Russian territory.
“That’s significant because it’s Russian territory that is what is explicitly covered by Putin’s declarations about the potential for the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.
“That policy is not new. But his positioning of the referendums and of the purported legitimacy – for their actions in eastern and southern Ukraine is a potential game changer.”
He said while it may seem rational for Mr Putin to “double down” on such threats, “it is not rational to do so”.
“He knows that to cross that nuclear threshold is to escalate the war to a point where he has been repeatedly mistaken in the resolve that the West is showing in support of Ukraine. And he can’t afford to keep making that mistake.”
Dr Genauer said Mr Putin has drawn on his threat of using nuclear weapons since the early weeks of the war.
“We’re dealing with a high-risk situation. But I don’t feel that Putin’s speech on Wednesday significantly increased the likelihood that Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon, despite the rhetoric.”
What is Putin’s end game?
Dr Genauer argues Mr Putin has little chance of achieving his original ambition to increase Russia’s influence over Ukraine. Now, she suspects his objective is staying in power.
“He talks about it as an existential threat for Russia. But it’s more accurate to say that the war in Ukraine is an existential threat for Putin and his specific regime,” she said.
Professor Blaxland agrees the war is now about self-preservation for the Russian leader.
“Yes, he has aspirations for imperial greatness. But we all know that really, this is about Putin and his own political survival.”
– with Reuters
