At the New York Times A a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and an expert on Russian politics, identifies Putin’s Achilles Heel.
Indeed, Mr. Putin’s entire political career has been a search for a source of legitimacy deeper than the law itself, a personal obsession with proving his authority. This, as much as conquest, is what drives his war on Ukraine: The aim is to turn military victory into Russia’s return ticket to the club of the world’s great powers. But that remains impossible without recognition from the West. And increasingly, that seems like something Mr. Putin can’t get.
Legitimacy is a perennial problem for dictators. However strong they may appear, they always suffer from a deficit of it. …For many dictators, credibility truly comes on the world stage. Official visits and summits, along with successful military campaigns, are proof of their legitimacy.
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[O]ver the past three years, Russia — despite the Kremlin’s reluctance to fully mobilize the whole nation — has become a country at war. The enemy has become mythic evil; soldiers are heroes; more are dead and wounded than in any war since World War II; the war economy is whirring; dissent is quashed. Even Mr. Putin often speaks of the “war,” not “special military operation.” The longer and broader the war effort, the more convincing the outcome must be.
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This lies behind the recurring dream in Moscow of a “new Yalta”— a formal stamp of legitimacy for Russia’s claims today. Yet what few recall is that Yalta failed. Rather than harmony, it ushered in the Cold War. Stalin, after hesitating between legitimacy and force, chose the latter. The world was divided.
Mr. Putin appears to be caught in the same dilemma, between seizing as much as possible and legitimizing at least part of what has been taken. Like Stalin, after similar doubts, he is likely to make the same choice — trusting only in force, not the West, to secure his gains. That might be a victory of sorts. But it wouldn’t be what he wants.
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