Covid-19 puts Putin's power plans on hold and economy in peril
If all had gone to plan, Vladimir Putin would have marked Victory Day in Red Square this weekend, hosting Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping as columns of soldiers and artillery passed by to honour the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The 9 May celebrations would have crowned a historic political season in Russia, including a symbolic referendum to amend Russia’s constitution and reset Putin’s term limits, allowing him to remain in the Kremlin until 2036.
Instead, the coronavirus pandemic has brought on Russia’s toughest crisis in years, scrapping the Kremlin’s political agenda and putting the country’s economy in peril amid a collapse in oil prices.
Since boldly donning a hazmat suit to visit a coronavirus hospital in March, Putin has largely made his public appearances from a windowless room in his residence, a beige backdrop that has been panned as his “bunker”. There is no indication that Putin has been infected with the virus.
“This was supposed to be a grandiose political show,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst and former Kremlin adviser. “They had portrayed this as the central political event of this year, a culmination of his two decades in power. And none of it has gone as planned.”
Russia has the highest growth rate of infections in Europe and as of Thursday has the fifth highest number of cases in the world, surpassing Germany and France. Mikhail Mishustin, the Russian
prime minister, and two other cabinet members have fallen ill.
Putin’s approval ratings have dropped to their nominal lowest in 20 years, the independent Levada Centre said, and the IMF has forecast that the country’s economy will contract by 5.5% this year. Russia’s official death toll has remained mercifully low for the number of cases, although medics are dying at worrying rates.
In discussions with his subordinates, Putin at times has looked deeply bored. As his health minister discussed regional payouts on Wednesday, the president distractedly rolled a pen back and forth across his desk, lost in a moment of reverie broadcast nationwide.
“Putin not only doesn’t control the situation but he cannot even plan how to change the agenda,” said Nikolay
Petrov, a senior research fellow at the British thinktank Chatham House. “He cannot adjust … I think partly Putin’s lack of activism is connected to the fact that he is out of his normal position.”
He has sought to regain the initiative by holding televised briefings and promising economic stimulus to Russians hit by the economic downturn, while soliciting timetables for business to reopen. But the measures have been underwhelming and the virus’s long horizon has meant Putin takes a back seat while local officials – such as Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin – lead the fight against the virus.
“Putin wants to become a ladder out of the crisis: Sobyanin makes rules and Putin will cancel them; that’s a positive role,” noted Pavlovsky. “But there’s no way out of this crisis, this pandemic, yet. Things are still getting worse and more dangerous.”
The Kremlin’s desire to carry out its political programme has appeared at odds with its response to the epidemic. Putin held off on cancelling the symbolic vote until late March and the Victory Day parade until mid-April, with thousands of soldiers being sent into quarantine as a preventive measure.
“It appears the Kremlin was too focused on the constitutional and political reforms and not the epidemic,” said Petrov. “The epidemic came later to Russia and it was possible to be better prepared.”
One thing is clear: this is not the time to hold a public vote that could backfire over the Kremlin’s response to the epidemic. Analysts have suggested that it could be cancelled entirely, or de
layed until the autumn when political conditions are more favourable.
State television serves as a window on what could have been. On Sunday the lead segment on Channel One’s flagship news programme, Vremya, was not an update on the country’s battle with the virus but a 13-minute report marking 20 years since Putin’s first inauguration on 7 May 2000. It felt like a time capsule from before the epidemic.
“The very existence of the country was under threat,” read Yekaterina Andreyeva, the well-known anchor. “Over two decades, Russia has once again become a strong country that is once again reckoned with in the world and which is able to solve the hardest problems and overcome any obstacles.”
The political risk to the Kremlin is limited. Putin’s approval ratings remain high, at 59%, and he has no true political rivals to present an alternative. The regional officials taking the lead in the fight against coronavirus owe their positions to him.
But the Kremlin does closely follow its polling numbers, which have shown two years of sliding approval for Putin, mainly due to the economy. And the loss of this spring’s political calendar has robbed the Kremlin of a chance to recharge his image as he begins a third decade in power.
“People aren’t so scared of coronavirus as its economic consequences, salaries, redundancies,” said Denis Volkov, the deputy director of the Levada Centre. “And secondly, it is exhaustion with Putin himself … there are no expectations of anything new from him.”
The next stage of the crisis will take place as the scale of the epidemic becomes clear in Russia’s regions, indicating whether Russia may be looking at an extended health crisis and how much longer the economy will remain shuttered. Already, a number of coronavirus hotspots have appeared at farflung oil and gas fields and at regional hospitals.
“The whole management system looks inefficient,” said Petrov. “The regions are far less prepared in general to face the crisis than Moscow … I am afraid that they will suffer more.”