To understand Vladimir Putin

By: Ricardo Israel - 03/06/2025

The prospect of Russia accepting the ceasefire offered by the US shouldn't have caused so much excitement, as it was objectively a good deal for them, and where, apparently, President Trump was the first to be surprised. Perhaps this happened because there was confidence that the Russian leader would do something different from his previous course; perhaps it was also a campaign promise to resolve the issue with a speed that no war allows. It's a shame, though, because there's no other possibility of peace these days.

A dialogue built on what Trump values most: personal contact (please read The Art of the Deal), while Putin is extremely formal (just look at the pomp of the place where he receives his visitors), unlike Trump, for whom his daily press conferences from the Oval Office are enough. One reads books, the other thrives on TV and social media. One thinks about history, the other about the future. One wants dialogue, a quick ceasefire, the other wants to resolve something unresolved since the end of the USSR. One believes in person-to-person negotiations (even with Kim Jong-un), Putin only in state-to-state negotiations.

What do they have in common?

The most important thing is that, throughout the world, both are experiencing the same thing. While they have loyal followers, they displease their detractors so much that they react emotionally, with their guts. This is understandable from an emotional perspective, but of little use to professional analysts, and especially to some major media outlets. Ultimately, it helps both, and is partly the reason for their success, because they end up aiming in the wrong direction, missing the target. In other words, they are allowed to play their game without considering that they always try to deliver what they've said, especially when they've promised it to their most loyal base.

In other words, whether you like it or not, you should always believe them, especially if it now coincides with a war that Putin is convinced he is winning. After the failure of the rapid takeover of kyiv, it has long been a terrible war of attrition, causing daily suffering for Ukrainians.

Something else they have in common is that they both dislike failure, and they aim to leave a legacy of their time in power. In this regard, regarding their relationship, many generally neglect the only real precedent for how a dialogue can unfold (it's not negotiation, at least not yet). Any analysis should begin by reviewing their relationship during the four years they were both presidents, which shows a normal relationship where, perhaps because of MAGA, contrary to what is claimed, there were no concessions from the White House on trade issues, nor on what Russia was most interested in, which was modifying arms control treaties dating back to the Cold War. Trump even advised Merkel not to rely on Russian gas, in addition to delivering Javelin portable missiles to Ukraine. The facts show this, as well as the fact that what existed was a personal sympathy between them, which Trump has acknowledged on many occasions, but apparently was less important to Putin.

What else could they have in common?

They both wish they hadn't been involved in something now acknowledged to have never happened, the so-called "Russian plot," that is, that Trump's election in 2016 was due to Putin's interference. This clashes with their high self-esteem, as both Putin and Trump are absolutely convinced they are providential men capable of fixing their respective countries, and everything indicates that their self-confidence is such that they could repeat, along with the French Sun King, "I am the State." Finally, they are similar in something else: that, without seeking it, they have followers and even imitators in other countries, which I don't think they particularly like, since what they aspire to is to be leaders of their countries, in which they both see much more than a nation, but rather a kind of unique civilization of their own.

Explaining everything happening in Russia through the figure of Putin is an exaggerated simplification. To understand him, we must look to his intellectual roots, not just his training in the KGB, which was a kind of elite, not just a repressive force in the Soviet era. To do this, it's important to read his favorite philosopher, Ivan Ilyin, who was present not only in his decisions but also cited at solemn ceremonies. He sheds light on his anti-communism, since Ilyin was born in 1883 to an aristocratic family, none other than the Rurik dynasty, that of the original Rus of Russia, that of kyiv, in the year 862. Ilyin died in exile in 1954 in Switzerland, and was a prominent critic of the Bolshevik revolution as well as an ideologue of its adversaries, the White Movement. He wrote several books, ranging from politics to spirituality, as well as on a subject little understood in the West, but highly relevant to people as different as Putin and Solzhenitsyn: the so-called "historical mission" of Mother Russia, an idea very present in the current government.

Putin follows Ilyin in holding Tsar Nicholas II responsible for the collapse of the empire, calling his abdication a crucial mistake, exemplifying the damage caused by weakness in the exercise of power, a recurring theme in Putin's life. Although Putin is not a model of religiosity, both are heirs to a tradition linked to the Orthodox Christian Church, both Russian and Slavophile. For both, the USSR was the form the Russian Empire took under communism.

For all these reasons, it is not surprising that Putin was personally involved, both in the publication of the 23 volumes of his complete works and in the return of his remains and the consecration of his tomb. Historians of the future, when trying to understand Putin, will be faced with choosing which tsar he should be compared to: the Westernist orientation of Peter the Great or the Asian orientation of Ivan the Terrible. The correct answer would be a mixture of both.

However, I think they will have fewer doubts about where their greatest geopolitical influence comes from, the discipline that deals with the life and history of peoples in relation to the territory they occupy, in the Russian case, an immense one, with no fewer than eleven time zones.

Their geopolitical vision is dominated by Eurasianism, a movement both cultural and ideological that emerged in Russian émigré communities beginning in the second decade of the 20th century, whose main theorists were Nikolai Danylevski and Konstantin Leontiev. After the fall of the USSR and the subsequent failure of economic liberalism (without whose crisis, Putin's rise cannot be understood), it reappeared strongly in the 1990s as a Russian Eurasianism, a school that emerged as a counterpart to so-called Atlanticism, which included European dependence on the United States in those years. In Russia, it emerged as an illiberal movement, radically removed from liberalism but also from communism, critical of both democracy and modernity. Alexander Dugin gained prominence, more in the media than in actual power, although given his past fascist flirtations, I allow myself to doubt his true intellectual or political influence on Putin.

Just as Putin has an ideology and a philosopher, he also has, especially in the war in Ukraine, a general. This is Valeri Gerasimov, whom I have been following since he published his 2013 essay entitled "The Value of Science in Anticipation." This work went largely unnoticed among defense analysts until the invasion of Crimea, where Gerasimov led the so-called "little men in green," who conquered it without firing a shot, a tactic that has become popular under the name "hybrid warfare," although the name is not a Russian invention. Even before that essay, he had already attracted attention in the previous decade, so much so that I recall a seminar organized by the International Political Science Association, the global organization for the field, in which I participated in my capacity as president of the specialized Committee on Armed Forces and Society.

Today, Gerasimov is the person primarily responsible for the Russian invasion, Putin's general, with the position of Chief of Staff, where two political decisions are both true, that Russia is solely responsible for invading Ukraine, which should not be forgotten, as well as mentioning that there was an unfulfilled promise to Gorbachev - probably to get him to accept German reunification - that there would be no NATO expansion into the Warsaw Pact countries, which happened despite Kissinger's critical warnings, being the work of then Secretary of State Madelaine Albright, in the Clinton administration.

I am convinced that Gerasimov influenced Putin in the idea that international interventions had become paradigms of regime change and 21st-century war, citing in his writings cases such as Libya and the invasion of Panama under Noriega as a foretaste, and that both the Arab Springs and the so-called Color Revolutions in the former republics of the USSR would be forms of hybrid war, in the second case, blaming the West directly for causing them.

Furthermore, according to them, the origin of the war in Ukraine was not its invasion, but that it was the West that provoked it with the unrest on Maidan Square in kyiv in 2013, and the subsequent resignation of President Yanukovych on February 22, 2014, for them a parliamentary coup, due to the decision to get closer to Russia and move away from Europe, a coup for which they hold a US diplomat responsible by name and surname, just as they blame the US for the subsequent failure of the Minsk agreements and for having pressured Ukraine to reject Moscow's conditions for withdrawing its troops, at the meeting that both countries held in Istanbul in 2022, through the mediation of Türkiye shortly after the invasion.

Without a doubt, Gerasimov also played a role in the nuclear threat becoming Russia's main deterrent, after the invasion did not proceed as quickly as expected and its stagnation demonstrated that the lion was not as fierce as it was painted.

Of course, Putin is an autocrat, and in this regard, it's enough to observe his treatment of dissidents and what happens with the elimination of adversaries. But to understand this, in addition to believing what he says and/or what is announced in his name, we must see how he is influenced by the end of the USSR, what he has called "the worst geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century." Not so much the reestablishment of communism as the resurgence of a project that dates back to the Tsars: that of Great Russia. It's striking that Putin is followed by the right in Europe, while in Latin America, he appeals to Castro-Chavismo. However, within Russia, there is no confusion, since his is a conservative revolution, not only in the identity imprinted on the country, but in the defense of traditional values, in his opposition to gender ideology, and, above all, in his fight against a New World Order that overrides national identities.

In the year before the invasion, Russia was ranked 124th out of 167 countries in The Economist’s 2021 Democracy Index as “authoritarian,” bad by Scandinavian standards. But it’s also true that despite the war and the repression of dissidents, Russia enjoys more freedoms today than at many other periods in its millennia-long history. It also ranks poorly on international corruption indices. Significantly, its average ranking on both democracy and corruption indices over Putin’s quarter-century in power is not much different from Ukraine, which is also plagued by its own “oligarchs.”

Putin is a difficult negotiator, always seeking to impose his terms, and internally, his approach is not only authoritarian but also popularly supported nationalism. It must not be forgotten that his rise and consolidation of power cannot be explained without adding the failure of political and economic liberalism and the crisis of the Yeltsin years. Besides rampant corruption and alcoholism, what is most remembered in Russia is the way poverty increased in a country that had been a world power, as well as how a few acquired public companies in the post-Soviet chaos, for which many Russians continue to blame the West in general, and the US in particular.

There is no doubt that Putin has been helped rather than harmed by the policy of cancellation, not only of himself but of Russia in general, which has been extended to artists, athletes, and oligarchs who own football teams in England. Not only were the US and NATO wrong in this, as the sanctions have not worked, at least not in halting the war machine. For their part, the press and analysts were wrong to announce so many times that he would fall, the end of his absolute power or that of his government, since even his moment of greatest weakness ultimately resulted in the nationalization of the Wagner group, as demonstrated by its deployment at the service of the Kremlin in French Africa, where Macron suffered another defeat. Therefore, today it is 100% an instrument of Russian foreign policy, not just partially.

In conclusion, the question is only one: can one negotiate with Putin? The Israelis found a favorable response in Syria with Netanyahu, a response that has continued to this day, where there was more dialogue than negotiation. In Syria, despite being on opposing sides, Russia and Israel were able to reach mutually beneficial agreements, understand each other's strategic needs, and, as in the Cold War, avoid direct confrontations. Russia never intervened on the various occasions when Israel attacked Iran or the Assad regime.

However, limited dialogue takes on a different meaning in the case of the US. As a superpower, Putin doesn't want dialogue, but rather negotiation, something similar to what existed during the Cold War, where, after Cuba, the US patiently negotiated with the USSR, establishing the new policy of peaceful coexistence that would become known as "détente." Since the USSR collapsed so quickly, he wants the US to negotiate with Russia the borders that divided the former empire. He wants it to be with the US and only with the US, as he sees himself as the defender of the Russian minorities who remained living elsewhere in the former USSR.

What would the US gain? Two things: preventing further invasions and resolving future hotspots of conflict in places like Kaliningrad or Moldova, and, above all, the possibility of Russia withdrawing from something that has never existed before, not even under communism: an alliance with China, where Russia is the junior partner. It might be in the US's interest not to further deepen that dependence, since one of the biggest mistakes under Biden was practically handing Russia over by cutting off all meaningful exchanges with Moscow, despite the fact that under communism the relationship was never broken.

This is what Putin is looking for, and to make his point, he did not travel to Turkey to meet with Trump and Zelensky, even though he himself had requested such a meeting. That's why he is doubling down by sending the same officials as last time. That's why he not only rejects a ceasefire, but also a reasonable proposal, which would otherwise give Russia exactly what Ukraine, on the advice of the US, rejected in 2022 also in Istanbul, namely Crimea and Donbas. However, none of this seems to be on the US radar today, so all that remains is the frustration that Putin turned a deaf ear, betting on Europe's irrelevance and on Western fatigue setting in if the US ends its peace attempt.

However, Putin is mistaken, as there is no indication that the US wants to repeat, in reverse, Nixon's 1972 trip to China, to prevent that country from falling into Soviet hands after the failure of the Cultural Revolution, even though it had unwittingly become its only true rival in the 21st century.

For now, to analyze Putin, it helps to see what Goethe (1749-1822), who shaped German culture more than anyone else, wrote long ago: “Man was not made to see the light, but only the things that light illuminates.”

Master's and Doctor (PhD) in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Laws (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

@israelzipper

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