Kamil Galeyev, a Russian researcher and analyst at the Wilson Center, explains in a new series of posts on Twitter what Westerners who pressure Ukraine to agree on peace terms and make concessions to Vladimir Putin do not understand.

“I think that supporters of Putin’s appeasement absolutely do not understand the motives of the Russians. The Russian invasion is motivated by domestic political problems. As long as they remain in force, the war cannot stop,” he says.

Galeyev reminds that the first decade of Vladimir Putin’s regime was marked by a rapid increase in world oil prices. Russia received a huge profit from this, and the standard of living increased every year.

And rising incomes and living standards of Russians strengthened Putin’s legitimacy.

“Thus, early Putinism operated mostly on the basis of economic growth, which brought greater legitimacy to Putin. It was not the only mechanism of legitimizing the regime (wars also played their role), but, objectively speaking, they were a more important component of this mixture,” Galeyev explains.

According to him, Russians associated the rise in the standard of living directly with the leader of the Kremlin.

The economic downturn changed the regime of Vladimir Putin

But after 2011 it started to stop working. First, the rise in oil prices stopped, which stopped the Russian economic boom.

“Secondly, and more importantly, the Kremlin saw that the attribution mechanisms were no longer working. People attribute their relative prosperity to grace [lui Putin] but starting in 2011, they began to think about it less and less,” says the Wilson Center researcher.

According to him, the symbolic turning point for Putin was the MMA fight in Moscow in 2011 between Russian Alexander Emelianenko and American Jeff Monson.

Putin was present at the match and immediately after Emelianenko’s victory, he took the microphone for a speech. He was booed by the 22,000 in attendance and forced to leave.

“This probably hurt: firstly, Putin does not appear in public much. Most of his public appearances are fake,” Galeev notes, recalling that in most of his visits he is accompanied by the same group of security officers dressed as fishermen, churchgoers, etc.

“Secondly, why did he actually go to fight? Most likely he suggested that the rotten intelligence might be against me, but at least my core audience, the “real men”, remain loyal to me. So I’m forced to gather them around me,” Galeyev says, adding that while that sounds good in theory, it clearly didn’t work for Putin.

And since 2011, the mix of components that the Kremlin leader began to rely on for legitimacy began to change rapidly.

The role of the economic “boom” as a source of legitimacy declined in the absence of economic growth, while the role of foreign policy began to grow rapidly, and escalation became a major component of Putin’s power demonstration.

What Western analysts do not understand when they talk about Russia

“What I find absolutely absurd when it comes to Putinology is that it tends to attribute Putin’s decisions to foreign policy interests, almost completely ignoring domestic politics,” Kamil Galeyev notes, adding that most foreign analysts only talk about “geopolitics.” and “geosecurity”. » when analyzing the actions of the Russian president.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Putin is an evil genius who controls everything. It’s the opposite. He follows public opinion, but not in the sense of what people say directly (no one cares), but in the sense of what they implicitly want. And people [în Rusia] they want war,” says an analyst at the Wilson Center, one of America’s most prominent think tanks.

He also claims that a Putin who appears peaceful and doesn’t start wars for too long will be seen by Russians as weak and ridiculous, but a Putin who is “at war with NATO” is really popular.

“And he wants to be popular. That’s why he is forced to start wars, because that’s what people want and that’s how they want to see him,” concludes Kamil Galeev.

Galeyev’s comments come in the context of what the American newspaper The Washington Post recently wrote, citing sources familiar with the discussions, that the privately democratic administration of President Joe Biden is asking the leadership in Kyiv to be open to the idea of ​​negotiations with Russia due to “war fatigue” in the United States .

In an analysis published last week, Australian General Mick Ryan said Western “fatigue” with the conflict in Ukraine amid rising energy prices and record inflation is Ukraine’s biggest vulnerability.

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