Rusia Putin

Pada tahun 2015 Rusia dan cara pemerintahannya telah berubah secara mendalam sejak Vladimir Putin pertama kali menjadi presiden, pada akhir tahun 1999. Negara ini lebih makmur daripada sebelumnya sebelum Putin naik ke kekuasaan, tetapi masyarakat Rusia — walaupun lebih stabil daripada pada tahun 1990-an — telah menjadi kurang bebas dan kurang demokratik. Dalam tahun-tahun kebelakangan ini, lebih-lebih lagi, Rusia telah membangun reputasi sebagai anggota masyarakat antarabangsa yang semakin tidak dapat diramalkan dan mengganggu. Sejak aneksasi republik otonomi Ukraine Crimea pada tahun 2014, Rusia dianggap sebagai negara paria.

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Sejak awal penggal presiden pertamanya, Putin mengejar dua cita-cita. Tujuannya yang pertama dinyatakan adalah untuk memodenkan ekonomi Rusia dengan menjadikannya lebih mirip dengan negara-negara Barat yang terkemuka. Objektif keduanya adalah untuk mengembalikan Rusia ke status kuasa besar yang dilihat telah hilang berikutan kejatuhan Soviet Union pada tahun 1991. Sejak tahun-tahun awal kepemimpinan Putin, cita-cita itu berada dalam keadaan tidak selesa.

Ekonomi berkembang semasa dua penggal pertama Putin sebagai presiden, tumbuh pada kadar rata-rata hampir 7% setahun dari tahun 2000 hingga 2008. Pertumbuhan itu didorong terutamanya oleh kenaikan harga minyak, eksport utama Rusia, dan mengantarkan pada periode kemakmuran yang belum pernah terjadi sebelumnya. Pendapatan boleh guna yang nyata meningkat dua kali ganda antara tahun 1999 dan 2006. Orang awam Rusia, yang sangat mengingati pergolakan ekonomi dan ketidakpastian tahun 1990-an, mengakui kemakmuran baru dengan rasa syukur, dan penilaian persetujuan Putin melambung tinggi.

Dua cita-cita Putin digabungkan dengan tekad untuk menegaskan kembali kawalan terpusat dan atas ke bawah di Rusia. Mula-mula dia mengetatkan cengkaman negara di media massa. Seterusnya, ia merasionalisasi sektor-sektor penting ekonomi dan menjelaskan kepada para pengusaha terkaya di Rusia bahawa pemilikan harta mereka bergantung pada kesetiaan mereka kepada rejim dan tidak berpolitik. Kekuatan menjadi semakin diperibadikan, berpusat pada Putin sendiri dan sekumpulan kecil rakan dan rakannya yang dipercayai. Secara bertahap tetapi tanpa henti rejim mengetatkan sekatan terhadap masyarakat sivil dan hak politik. Penentangan yang luar biasa di Rusia menjadi hampir tidak ada. Pada Februari 2015, salah seorang pemimpin pembangkang Rusia yang paling disegani, bekas timbalan perdana menteri Boris Nemtsov, dibunuh di luar tembok Kremlin.

Meanwhile, Putin’s two ambitions—to modernize the economy and to restore Russia to great-power status—grew increasingly incompatible, and his determination to assert Russia’s power in the world became predominant. It was hard to date precisely when that shift occurred—whether it was with Putin’s Munich speech in February 2007, when he denounced what he depicted as the U.S. monopoly on world power and called for a new global-security architecture; with the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008; or with the military-reform program that followed that war, which culminated in the State Armaments Program launched at the end of 2010.

From 2008 to 2012 Putin served as prime minister, a post he had held in 1999 prior to his ascent to the presidency, but he remained the effective centre of power in the Kremlin. Following his return in 2012 for a third presidential term, Putin struck what was described as “a new social contract” with the Russian population. That move was prompted both by the collapse of Russia’s oil-price-propelled model of economic growth and by the perceived challenges to authoritarian rule presented by “colour revolutions” in other post-Soviet states and the Arab Spring of 2011. Putin himself was clearly shaken by public protests over alleged electoral fraud that erupted across Russia in December 2011. Since the regime could no longer promise growing prosperity in return for social acquiescence, it adopted a more-assertive and isolationist stance both at home and abroad. The state-controlled media projected an image of Russia as a besieged fortress surrounded by enemies determined to destroy the country and seize control of its raw-materials assets.

Putin’s new message, both to the Russian people and to the wider world, was that Russia was determined to reassert its leadership both in its “near abroad”—the former Soviet states on Russia’s borders—and more widely. In conveying that message, Putin took increasing risks. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its subsequent military intervention in southeastern Ukraine were seen as tearing up the post-Cold War European order. Putin himself invoked Novorossiya (“New Russia”), a tsarist-era term to describe a huge swathe of southern Ukraine, and state media regularly justified Moscow’s claim to the region. As a signatory to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and the Charter of Paris of 1990, the Soviet Union (to which Russia was the internationally recognized successor state) had pledged to respect the sovereignty of its neighbours, and under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, Russia, together with the U.S. and the U.K., had guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in return for Ukraine’s abandoning of its nuclear weapons. The annexation of Crimea broke those agreements, and it triggered a stronger Western reaction than Putin may have anticipated. It also left him with a difficult exit problem—especially in southeastern Ukraine, where he had always maintained that the Russian military presence consisted of “volunteers” on leave—underscoring the oft-repeated assertion that Putin’s leadership was strong on tactics but less adept at thinking strategically.

Russia’s launching of airstrikes in Syria in September 2015 helped restore relations with the West to some degree. However, it also created further risks for Russia. Those included the potential provocation of radicalization at home and jihadist strikes abroad, among which Russia counted the October 2015 downing over Egypt’s Sinai Desert of a Russian passenger plane, in which all 224 people on board were killed. Russia’s relations with Turkey, with which Moscow had until then enjoyed friendly relations, plummeted in November 2015 after the Turkish air force shot down a Russian fighter jet that Turkey claimed had entered its airspace.

Russia’s GDP growth began to slow in 2012, and since late 2014 the economy had been in recession. That plunge had multiple causes: oil was at its lowest price since 2009; Russia was suffering the effects of Western sanctions; Russia’s lack of functioning institutions and rule of law deterred investors; and the number of young people entering the workforce was declining, as was labour productivity. The current recession was not as deep as what Russia had experienced in 2009, when the country was hard hit by the global financial crisis, but it looked set to last longer, with a less-strong recovery in prospect. This time, moreover, the population was being hit harder. In 2015 GDP was expected to fall by 3–4% and household consumption by 8–9%. Even with the expected return of Russia’s economy to growth, the outlook was not encouraging.

The leadership knew what reforms would be needed to enable Russia to catch up with the rest of the world, but change was unlikely because members of the elite had powerful incentives not to try to establish the rule of law. Those who were unwilling to take the necessary steps included not only obvious beneficiaries of the existing system, such as the siloviki (present and former military and security officials), but also the so-called liberal insiders, members of the government economic team who had made their way into the elite through the corrupt system.

In summary, Putin came to power with two main ambitions. One was to restore stability and to reform the economy by modernizing it and integrating it with that of the West. The other was to return Russia to the world stage by challenging U.S. hegemony and presenting an alternative pole of international attraction. At first those ambitions appeared compatible, but over time they became less so. Unable to rally popular support with sustained economic prosperity, Putin was forced to appeal to patriotic fervor and to highlight Russia’s differences with the West. Gradually—but definitively by 2012—Putin shifted focus. His emphasis swung heavily toward reestablishing Russia as a great power. That shift was considerably risky, however, not only for Russia but also for the rest of the international community.