TWO YEARS HAVE passed since Russia invaded Ukraine. As the war entered its third year, the presidential election in March was a largely ceremonial exercise to further cement Vladimir Putin’s power. The international community reacted with cynicism, as if the outcome had already been decided. The election, over three days from March 15 to 17, was merely a further confirmation of Putin’s stranglehold on the Kremlin. The other three candidates were mere window dressing. 

With Putin’s unrivaled hold on power and seeming popularity, there was considerable concern on the Kremlin’s side that the Russian public would not show any interest in the polls. This is why various election methods were mobilized, including online voting, absentee voting, early voting, remote voting, multi-day voting and the expansion of polling stations. Thanks to organized state intervention, the election results surpassed expectations by a significant margin. With an all-time high turnout rate of 77.44 percent and 87.28 percent of the votes cast in his favor, Putin easily coasted to his fifth six-year term in power. Allegations of voter fraud did nothing to change the outcome.1 

What are the political implications of Putin’s victory? How did he win such a landslide in the face of heavy human and material losses following the invasion of Ukraine, international isolation and a declining quality of life due to economic hardships? What can we expect from Russia’s foreign policy now, and how will it be projected in Northeast Asia? These questions naturally pique our intellectual curiosity, given that Putin’s Russia is fixated on great power politics and that the world and the Korean Peninsula will have to deal with it until at least 2030. 

Putin’s Growing Hold on Power 

Putin’s victory has several important political implications that set it apart from past triumphs. For starters, it is the first presidential election under the 2020 constitutional amendments, passed in a referendum. Presidents had been prohibited from serving more than two consecutive six-year terms; the new constitution, however, included a special provision exempting the current president from term limits by discounting previous terms. In other words, Putin was free to run again and will also be eligible to run for a sixth term, which would let him continue in office until 2036, when he would be 84. 

Second, Putin’s victory officially legitimized the war of aggression in Ukraine. Given that the 2024 Russian presidential election took place against the backdrop of Putin’s war against Ukraine, the Kremlin was extremely concerned about voter participation and turnout. According to the Russian polling center, Vchiom, Putin’s approval rating was 67.2 percent on Feb. 20, 2022, just before the war began, but rose to 76.2 percent on Feb. 2, 2024, two years later.2 Putin’s electoral landslide may indicate that Russians recognized the legitimacy of his “special military operation” and actively supported it. 

Third, Putin will be the longest-serving leader in modern Russian history, including the Soviet era. Since assuming the presidency on Dec. 31, 1999, following the early departure of former President Boris Yeltsin, Putin has held office for 24 years.3 When he completes his fifth presidential term in 2030, he will surpass Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin’s record of 29 years in power (1924-53). Given that he can run in the 2030 presidential election, he could extend his rule until 2036. If he manages 36 years in power, he would surpass the 34-year reign of Catherine the Great in the 18th century, leaving Peter the Great (39 years) as the only person to have ruled Russia longer than Putin has. 

The turnout and vote total records, of course, may be substantially fabricated and they certainly raise questions about the fairness of the process. Perhaps the Kremlin’s compulsion to cover up and dilute the public’s fatigue with Putin’s long-running dictatorship played a role in the overkill. However, it would be a stretch to describe Putin’s election victory as purely the product of Kremlin manipulation. While Putin’s long rule has been characterized by authoritarian traits, including media control, human rights abuses, and political purges, it is also true that his success has been based on widespread support and the endorsement of the status quo by the public. Aside from whether the public judgment is seen as right or wrong, it is undeniable that Putin is held in high esteem by much of Russian society.4

Defending Fortress Russia 

Putin’s victory can be explained on various levels. First, there is the so-called patriotic marketing that Putin has utilized in every election. The key point is to appeal to a dual psychological structure embedded in Russian consciousness: anxiety and aspiration. Anxiety due to a traditional security obsession with Western threats — in short, the “besieged fortress theory” (Концепция осажденной крепости),5 while “aspiration” refers to an “imperial syndrome” that can be summarized as restoring Russia’s international stature as a great power.6 

The Russian public is obsessed with a sense of victimization by the West, which is seen as relentlessly trying to surround, blockade and crush the country. They see NATO’s continued eastward expansion and the spread of “color” revolutions in the post-Soviet era as clear evidence of this. Stoking the collective hysteria against Western threats, Putin has appealed to national unity to defend fortress Russia; he has succeeded in securing political support as the perceived sole leader able to defend the homeland. 

Looking back over the past 24 years of Putin’s presidency, it is clear that whenever a high-profile military conflict with the West is on the horizon, the deployment of anti-Western, besieged-fortress rhetoric has been useful in strengthening Putin’s power base and boosting his approval ratings.7 British scholar Richard Sakwa calls this phenomenon “Putin’s Paradox,” whereby Putin’s approval ratings increase when the West isolates Russia.8

Restoring Russia’s damaged national pride is also an important factor in Putin’s popularity. Since coming to power in 2000, Putin has expanded his projection of power and influence, building on confidence in political stability and economic growth, and has succeeded in restoring some of Russia’s traditional spheres of power through a muscular military presence. Examples include neutralizing the deployment of US military defense in Poland and the Czech Republic, winning the war in Georgia, annexing Crimea from Ukraine, ousting US troops from Kyrgyzstan, intervening in the Syrian civil war, reestablishing influence in the Middle East and Africa and launching the invasion of Ukraine. This has slaked Russian thirst for past superpower glory. 

Putin’s presidential victory was also due in large part to the growth of the Russian economy. Despite the harsh sanctions imposed by the West after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Russian economy seems to be largely intact. Russia’s economic growth rate fared well with -2.1 percent in 2022 and 3.6 percent, the highest in Europe, in 2023. Its GDP reached US$2.24 trillion, ranking eighth in the world. GDP per capita has also been near record levels, reaching US$15,345 in 2022. This remarkable economic growth may have been the catalyst for Putin’s rising approval ratings. The success of the invasion in the face of NATO’s opposition is another factor in Putin’s increasing popularity. Over time, the expansion of the occupied territory of Donbas in eastern Ukraine and current favorable battlefield conditions also played a role in Putin’s victory. 

Putinism and the Great-Power Path 

The key takeaway from Putin’s fifth presidential victory is that “Putinism” is still valid and functions as a national and social system. Putinism, in short, is the Russian embrace of market democracy to become a global superpower with a Eurasian identity and a unique model of national development. This is how Putinism, which is a combination of sovereign democracy and state capitalism, works. Putin’s strong leadership is given credit for bringing order, stability, and economic growth domestically and securing Russia’s status as a great power externally. In this system, political and civil rights, freedoms and market principles can be put on hold. With elections just a procedural exercise, the people have seemingly accepted this “Putin Contract” — a trade-off between stability and arbitrary state power. 

The tacit consensus that began at the start of the Putin era in 2000 has been characterized by the belief that even a flawed dictatorship is preferable to chaos. This suggests that with Putin 5.0 the country will likely continue to operate under his centralized power structure without significant changes to either governance or socioeconomic institutions and in a way that pits the country against the West. 

In short, Putin will likely use his historic election win to concentrate on industrializing and reviving the economy at home in an effort to quell potential domestic unrest, while simultaneously pursuing his aggressive and interventionist foreign policy. More specifically, Russia will intensify its aggressiveness in Ukraine, block NATO’s eastward expansion, strengthen its control over the post-Soviet region, further expand the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), activate co-operation mechanisms with the BRICS-SCO, strengthen strategic ties with anti-American and anti-Western powers (China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc.) and expand its influence by forging stronger ties with the Global South. It would benefit from a multipolar international order, and would seek to build an international security order that both reflects and protects Russia’s security interests. 

An Intensified Pivot to Asia 

A key aspect of Putin’s foreign policy in his fifth term will be the intensification of the so-called pivot to Asia as an alternative to overcome Moscow’s growing disconnect with the West. Historically, Russia has been prone to altering its views and policies on Asia in reaction to shifts in its standing within Europe. For example, the realpolitik motivation of Asia as a way of “overcoming Europe” has been a core focus historically when it has sought to redirect the growth and expansion of the Russian state if it feels outnumbered or frustrated with Western powers.9 

Putin’s pivot to Asia is in line with Russia’s traditional orientation. Following its victory in the Napoleonic Wars (1812-14), Czarist Russia emerged from the periphery of Europe to become a major power and a key actor in the European order. The country would later lose the confrontation with European powers. After losing the Crimean War (1853-56) to the Western Allies (the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, France and Sardinia) over control of the Black Sea, Czarist Russia turned its attention to Asia and intensified its eastern expansion. The annexation of Yantai through the Treaty of Peking in 1860 and the expansion into Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula can be considered significant accomplishments of this eastward policy. 

When military intervention by Western imperialist powers threatened the survival of the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviet government turned to Asia. In the revolution’s early years, Asia was perceived as a “deficit” because its underdeveloped societies could not apply the industrial basis of Marxist theory.10 But as communist revolutions in Europe stalled, Soviet leaders recognized Asia as an important region of interest and began to officially support Asian revolutions. In other words, the aim was to broaden the USSR’s ideological horizons by venturing into Asia as a backbone for the worldwide proletarian revolution. 

The Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev government also sought a breakthrough in Asia when it found itself at a disadvantage in its long-term competition with the US and Western Europe. The Vladivostok Declaration (1986) and the Krasnoyarsk Declaration (1988), which laid out the principles of the New Foreign and Security Policy and declared its intention to strengthen relations with Asian countries, are representative examples. 

Russia is expected to use its New East Policy to strengthen co-operation with countries east of Eurasia as a kind of compensatory mechanism to offset losses in Europe. The North Korea-China-Russia triangular co-operation system, as well as Russia’s strategic proximity to North Korea, are the main concerns of specialists on the Korean Peninsula. The prolonged war in Ukraine has strengthened co-operation among the three authoritarian states, all of which are subject to US sanctions or steep tariffs in the case of China. Of particular concern are dangerous military deals between North Korea and Russia that jeopardize the security environment in Northeast Asia beyond the Korean Peninsula. 

Strategic proximity to North Korea 

During the Putin-Kim summit at the Russian Far Eastern spaceport of Vostochny in September last year, there was reportedly a subterranean agreement for Russia to hand over advanced military technology, including reconnaissance satellites and nuclear submarines, in exchange for North Korean supplies of artillery shells and missiles. In November last year, two months after the summit, North Korea finally succeeded in launching a military reconnaissance satellite, the Malligyong-1, after two failed attempts, and there is a compelling case to be made that Russian technical aid and advice helped make this possible. Russia’s transfer of advanced military technology to North Korea will inevitably increase military tensions on the Korean Peninsula as well as raise South Korea’s security costs. 

The main question for experts on the Korean Peninsula is to what extent Russia will increase its strategic co-operation with North Korea. While it is impossible to be certain, Russian-North Korean military solidarity since the war in Ukraine can be compared to a political marriage based on mutual temporary needs. While Putin’s invitation to Kim Jong Un at this geopolitically sensitive time is both practical and strategic, his core intentions appear to lie elsewhere. The deteriorating US-Russia relationship due to the Ukraine war has aggravated South Korea-Russia relations. In other words, Putin is warning President Yoon Suk-yeol against an excessive tilt to the US and intervention in the Ukraine war. 

The message is that Russia does not want to see a severe deterioration in relations with South Korea, which is a crucial partner due to its geopolitical position in the Asia-Pacific region and its economic development. 

Here, the staging of the Vostochny Summit and the highly publicized technical advice to North Korea can be interpreted as the first step in a proportional response to South Korea’s indirect artillery support to Ukraine and President Yoon’s visit to Kyiv in July last year. The next level of enhanced countermeasures could include a Putin visit to Pyongyang, Russia’s provision of advanced military technology to North Korea, and joint Russia-North Korean military exercises. In this regard, the level and intensity of Russia’s future strategic engagement with North Korea will be determined by the extent of South Korea’s participation in the Western-led sanctions against Russia and its involvement in the war in Ukraine. Seoul’s recent announcement of sanctions to be imposed against Russian vessels carrying military cargo to North Korea, was labeled as “unfriendly” in a tempered response by Moscow.11 

Reviving the North Korea- China-Russia triad? 

The prolonged war in Ukraine has also cast the shadow of a new Cold War over Northeast Asia. As Russia elevates its strategic co-operation with China to the level of a quasi-alliance to counter the US and NATO and intensifies its military engagement with North Korea, it raises the possibility of a revival of the North Korea-China-Russia triad as a counterweight to the US-Japan-South Korea triad. While the possibility of a New Cold War cannot be ruled out, it seems unlikely at least for now. 

While the three countries have a shared interest in checking US hegemony, they have different opinions over a “one-team” collective confrontation against the US. The three countries are only interested in using each other and do not genuinely want to sharply deteriorate relations with the US. This is based on the sober strategic judgment of the trilateral leadership that it is in their geopolitical interests to reduce tensions with the US. Rather, strengthening bilateral relations within the tripartite structure helps increase their bargaining power with Washington. Thus, each of the three countries expects the other to spearhead the anti-American front and tries to take advantage of deteriorating relations to secure strategic benefits from Washington. Such views are a key factor inhibiting more robust trilateral co-operation.

For Moscow, establishing a true trilateral system would do more harm than good. During the war in Ukraine, Russia has no reason to widen the front or further expand military tensions. Moreover, given that containment of China is at the heart of US strategy in Northeast Asia, Russia has no need to engage on that issue as that could hamper Moscow’s Far East development and drive for foreign investment. 

China, meanwhile, is uneasy about being too closely identified with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which could tarnish its international reputation. Building a strategic triangular co-ordination system with Western-sanctioned countries, including North Korea and Russia, limits the scope for diplomatic engagement and is also counterproductive to economic growth. It would also lead to a further military build-up by the US, South Korea and Japan, which could threaten Chinese security. 

For North Korea, the institutionalization of a trilateral partnership could contribute to its security and create an environment in which Russia and China would tolerate its nuclear program. But on the other hand, if North Korea were to align itself with a new Cold War order, it would not only face restrictions on its diplomacy but also lose the opportunity to build an eventual relationship with the US. Being lumped in with China and Russia could also lead to it being subordinated to the US economic and security conflict against China and Russia. 

In sum, the trilateral system’s organic functioning depends on the degree of US interventionist and hegemonic behavior, but it is a worst-case scenario and a purely tactical option. The geopolitical options shared by the three countries can be summarized as strengthening mutual strategic ties and reducing the international status of the US, while carefully avoiding deteriorating relations or military conflict with Washington. 

출처: The Putin Paradox and Russia's Pivot to Asia > Articles | (globalasia.org)