Every Tuesday, The Ukrainian Week publishes an overview of the political, social and economic situation in Russia and Belarus in partnership with the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”. The Council’s Russian and Belarusian Studies Programme presents a new weekly #aggressoranalysis, in which Iaroslav Chornogor and Anton Oksentiuk analyse the latest news in Russian domestic and foreign policy.
This week’s highlights: Putin has officially announced that he will be running for upcoming Russian elections while the Russian government continues to push for possible negotiations with Ukraine and a ceasefire. Putin makes a trip to the Persian Gulf, while Russia attempts to win the Global South.
Domestic policy takeaways:
- Russian President Putin has officially announced his intention to run in the 2024 presidential election. This was done through a demonstration of a “request” by Russian militant Artem Zhogi, who “asked” Putin to remain a president. Putin’s decision was announced during the award ceremony of the Russian military personnel with the Zolotaya Zvezda (“Golden Star”) orders in the Kremlin’s Georgievsky Hall. Putin fully utilised a military environment during the announcement, thus indicating a potential military-themed presidential campaign.
- Previously, Ukrainian Prism has anticipated the possibility of Putin’s nomination through a large public event, such as an annual “Big Press Conference”, in combination with the so-called “Direct Line With the President”, creating a powerful media effect for the Russian authorities.
- At the moment, it is safe to say that Putin is unlikely to drop his aggressive militaristic rhetoric and, hence, a further escalation of Russia’s war against Ukraine. This potentially indicates Putin’s confidence that the war will last at least until March 2024. Putin aims to monopolise the “war candidate” status, leaving social issues to other candidates. Analysis of the current trends in Russian society indicates a high level of support for military aggression. This way, Putin aims to personally leverage militaristic rhetoric to monopolise public discussions and, consequently, pump up his rating. This decision confirms the analysis done by the Ukrainian Prism earlier, suggesting that the 2024 elections will have to demonstrate record-high figures for Putin, essentially legitimising the current political line, primarily for the Russian elites.
- Igor Girkin (Strelkov), a retired FSB colonel, wanted internationally for the MH17 plane crash, and a presidential candidate in Russia, received a 6-month extension of his detention on charges of extremist activities. It is not unlikely that the Russian authorities have been trying to keep his ambitions in check as well as tighten their grip over the information space ahead of the elections.
- The Russian government decided to increase its control over Russia’s cultural scene. Russian actor and the Oleg Tabakov Theatre’s artist, Vladimir Mashkov was elected as the head of the so-called Union of Theater Figures of the Russian Federation, replacing the former leader, Alexander Kalyagin, for the first time in 27 years. This organisation deals with various financial matters related to the functioning of Russian cultural facilities and assisting their employees, exercising significant control over the entire cultural scene in Russia. Mashkov has been openly supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine and he is a member of the so-called “Putin’s Election Team”. Such sudden replacement demonstrates another step on Russia’s path towards further information control, including the cultural sphere.
Foreign policy takeaways:
- The Russian government continues to dwell on the topic of potential negotiations with Ukraine. Last week, through the Kremlin-controlled outlet Izvestiya and the announcement made by the “high-ranking official”, Russia announced its readiness to negotiate with Ukraine. Furthermore, the Kremlin hinted that there was a possibility of holding such talks on the territory of what was called a “Western country”. It is clear that the Russian government is pointing at Hungary, whose Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had previously expressed his country’s preparedness to mediate in potential negotiations.
- We are seeing Russia’s continued insistence on holding negotiations, with the goal being a “ceasefire”, allowing the Russian army to recover, regroup and prepare for further military invasion. The Kremlin continues using the Russian ‘opposition figure’ Yavlinsky to create a more favourable outlook for Western states. Additionally, Alexander Venediktov, the former chief editor of the Russian radio Echo of Moscow, has been carefully promoting Yavlinsky. Alexander Venediktov is known to have good professional and personal relations and the ability to organise initial contact with many European political figures. Yavlinsky himself became a vocal supporter of a “ceasefire”, openly using cliche Russian phrases about the so-called “unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” calling them the “right and left hands of one nation”. Yavlinsky has clearly attempted to smoothly inject the obsolete narrative about “Ukraine’s and Russia’s future being inseparable”. Russians will likely try to use this narrative in the potential negotiations with the West, presenting this as a basis for a compromise. Moreover, Yavlisnky keeps repeating the key points already expressed by the Russian authorities – whether it is the format of negotiations (here, Russians want to achieve the most crucial agreement for them – a ceasefire) or the question regarding the culprits of the war, where Yavlinsky, unsurprisingly, publicly blames “all sides”. In addition, Yavlinsky could potentially use the fact that he managed to gather quite a lot of signatures supporting his presidential candidacy as an argument for his negotiating skills. The Ukrainian government should preemptively warn its partners about the fact that any such talks about the so-called “ceasefire” with Russia are absolutely unacceptable until the Russian troops fully withdraw from internationally recognised Ukrainian territory.
- Putin made an official visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, during which he met with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. Evidently, both economic and political issues were discussed. The economic aspects included bilateral cooperation, trade development, and the situation in the energy sector. The last aspect is rather significant because OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, has recently decided to reduce levels of their oil production, which has prompted higher energy prices. It is likely that Putin has raised the issue of further cooperation in this area. The same applies to relations between Russia and the United Arab Emirates, which has been helping to re-export Russian oil. In addition, it’s worth paying attention to other important factors, such as UAE and Saudi Arabia’s partial compliance with Western sanctions against Russia, making these two countries safe harbours for Russian businesses trying to evade sanctions.
- UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will become full members of BRICS in 2024, which was approved at the organisation’s summit in August. This is an extremely negative point that Russia can use to strengthen its ‘authority’ among other states, especially in the Global South. Besides, there is also a possibility of Russia attempting to become a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This will have an extremely negative impact on the United States’ position in the region and will further strengthen Putin’s ‘authority’ – all of these are bad news for Ukraine. In its foreign policy, it is time for Ukraine to pay closer attention to these states because they are important political and humanitarian players able to mediate with Russia in the context of its aggression against Ukraine.
- On December 7, Putin held rather long talks with the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ibrahim Raisi. Their meeting took place in the Kremlin and, according to some Russian media, lasted for nearly 5 hours. None of them made any significant statements or signed any documents in public. Raisi and Putin focused on their economic ‘achievements’ and discussed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Unsurprisingly, the non-public part of this meeting is the one that draws the most interest. It is safe to suggest that various aspects of military and technical cooperation between the Islamic Republic and Russia were discussed during the meeting. It is unlikely, though, that the sale of the Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drone was the sole theme of their meeting. Raisi and Putin likely discussed Russia’s efforts to launch its own production of Shahed drones after evidence emerged that Russians built a plant capable of producing Shaheds in Tatarstan. In addition, it is likely that Russia hopes that the Islamic Republic will agree to supply its ballistic missiles to Moscow. The issue of Tehran providing ballistic missiles in exchange for modern Russian Su-35 jets has already been raised several times. Here, Ukraine does not have enough options to prevent such a scenario, choosing instead to discuss the possibility of hitting the plant in Tatarstan.
- Politically, Russia and Iran have further reasons to deepen their bilateral cooperation within the BRICS – Tehran will become a member of this organisation in early 2024. It has already been mentioned that Russia will potentially attempt to reconcile Iran with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which will also become the BRICS members.
