Russia’s War in Ukraine

Understanding the conflict four years on.

Every few months, a new rumor emerges from Moscow suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin may finally be vulnerable. A loyalist is arrested. A senior official disappears. Reports circulate of growing dissatisfaction and unrest among the Moscow elite or fractures inside the Kremlin. A fresh crackdown on Russia’s internet suggests nervousness at the highest level. Whispers of defections spread through intelligence circles, with one deputy government department head allegedly fleeing to the West. And just a few days ago, Putin looked uncharacteristically dejected at Moscow’s lackluster Victory Day parade. To outside observers, these moments can look like the first cracks in a weakening regime.

But after 25 years in power, Putin has built a system designed precisely to survive rumors, dissent, and internal intrigue. In fact, many of the developments now interpreted as signs of weakness may actually be used by the security services to reinforce more harshly the very same methods that have kept Putin in power for decades.

Every few months, a new rumor emerges from Moscow suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin may finally be vulnerable. A loyalist is arrested. A senior official disappears. Reports circulate of growing dissatisfaction and unrest among the Moscow elite or fractures inside the Kremlin. A fresh crackdown on Russia’s internet suggests nervousness at the highest level. Whispers of defections spread through intelligence circles, with one deputy government department head allegedly fleeing to the West. And just a few days ago, Putin looked uncharacteristically dejected at Moscow’s lackluster Victory Day parade. To outside observers, these moments can look like the first cracks in a weakening regime.

But after 25 years in power, Putin has built a system designed precisely to survive rumors, dissent, and internal intrigue. In fact, many of the developments now interpreted as signs of weakness may actually be used by the security services to reinforce more harshly the very same methods that have kept Putin in power for decades.

The reality is that Putin has spent his career mastering the mechanics of authoritarian survival. Whereas dictators and strongmen such as Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, and Iran’s Ali Khamenei have faced uprisings, isolation, or instability, Putin entered office already steeped in the culture and operations of the Soviet and post-Soviet security services. He was not simply a politician who learned authoritarianism after taking power; he was a career KGB officer who came to power understanding mass surveillance, coercion, and elite control from the inside. In his years in power, Putin has learned from other dictators’ failures. In a hypothetical “World Dictators and Autocrats” course, he would have gotten straight As for the past quarter century.

As head of the Federal Security Services (FSB)—the successor to the Soviet KGB—under President Boris Yeltsin in the late 1990s, Putin was already an expert in monitoring and suppressing domestic dissent. Yeltsin elevated him to prime minister in part because the Kremlin establishment believed that Putin could protect the........

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