As he begins another 6-year term, Putin is entering a new era of extraordinary power in Russia

There are only a few months left until a quarter of a century as leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday he will get his hands on a copy of the constitution and begin another six-year term as president with extraordinary power.

Since becoming interim president on the last day of 1999, Putin shaped Russia into a monolith – crushing political opposition, expelling independent-minded journalists from the country, and promoting a growing devotion to prudish “traditional values” that push many in society to the margins.

His influence is so dominant that other officials could only stand by on the sidelines while he launched a campaign war in Ukraine Despite expectations, the invasion would bring international opprobrium and harsh economic sanctions, in addition to costing Russia dearly in the blood of its soldiers.

With this level of power, what Putin will do in his next term is a daunting question, both at home and abroad.

The war in Ukraine, where Russia is making incremental yet consistent gains on the battlefield, is the main concern, and he shows no indication of changing course.

“The war in Ukraine is central to his current political project and I see nothing to suggest that will change. And that affects everything else,” said Brian Taylor, a professor at Syracuse University and author of “The Putinism Code,” in an interview with the Associated Press.

“It affects who is in what positions, it affects the resources available and it affects the economy, it affects the level of internal repression,” he said.

In his nation state address in February, Putin promised to fulfill Moscow’s goals in Ukraine, and do whatever is necessary to “defend our sovereignty and the security of our citizens”. He stated that the Russian military has “gained enormous combat experience” and is “firmly maintaining the initiative and conducting offensives in various sectors.”

This will come at a huge cost, which could drain money available for the extensive national projects and reforms in education, social assistance and combating poverty, which Putin spent much of the two-hour speech detailing.

Taylor suggested that such projects be included in the speech both for display and to indicate the real intention of putting them into action.

Putin “thinks of himself in the grand historical terms of the Russian lands, bringing Ukraine back to where it belongs, those kinds of ideas. And I think that trumps any kind of more socioeconomic type program,” Taylor said.

If the war ends in a less than total defeat for either side, with Russia retaining some of the territory it has already captured, European countries fear that Putin could be emboldened into greater military adventurism in the Baltics or Poland.

“It is possible that Putin has big ambitions and will try to follow up a costly success in Ukraine with a new attack elsewhere,” Harvard international relations professor Stephen Walt wrote in Foreign Policy magazine. “But it is also entirely possible that his ambitions go no further than what Russia has gained – at enormous cost and that he has no need or desire to gamble for more.”

But, Walt added, “Russia will not be in a position to launch new wars of aggression when the war in Ukraine finally ends.”

Such rational concern may not prevail, others say. Maksim Samorukov of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center said that “driven by Putin’s whims and illusions, Moscow is likely to make self-destructive mistakes.”

In a commentary in Foreign Affairs, Samorukov suggested that Putin’s age could affect his judgment.

“At age 71… your awareness of your own mortality certainly influences your decision-making. A growing sense of his limited time undoubtedly contributed to his fateful decision to invade Ukraine.”

Overall, Putin may be entering his new term with a weaker grip on power than he appears to have.

Russia’s “vulnerabilities are hidden in plain sight. Now, more than ever, the Kremlin makes decisions in a personalized and arbitrary way, without even basic controls,” wrote Samorukov.

“The Russian political elite has become more docile in implementing Putin’s orders and more subservient to his paranoid worldview,” he wrote. The regime “runs the permanent risk of collapsing overnight, as happened with its Soviet predecessor three decades ago.”

Putin will certainly continue his animosity toward the West, which he said in his state of the nation address “would like to do to Russia the same thing they have done in many other regions of the world, including Ukraine: bring discord to our country.” house, to weaken it from within.”

Putin’s resistance to the West manifests not only anger at its support for Ukraine, but also what he sees as a weakening of Russia’s moral fiber.

Russia last year banned the notional LGBTQ+ “movement,” declaring it extremist in what authorities said was a fight for traditional values ​​like those defended by the Russian Orthodox Church in the face of Western influence. Courts have also banned gender transition.

“I hope the role of the Russian Orthodox Church continues to be very visible,” Taylor said. He also noted the explosion of outrage on social media that followed a party hosted by TV presenter Anastasia Ivleeva, where guests were asked to appear “almost naked.”

“Other actors in the system understand that this has repercussions on Putin. … There were people interested in exploring things like that,” he said.

Although opposition and independent media outlets have all but disappeared under Putin’s repressive measures, there is still potential for further steps to control Russia’s information space, including advancing its efforts to establish a “sovereign Internet.”

The inauguration takes place two days before Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, which commemorates the capture of Berlin by the Soviet Red Army in World War II and the immense hardships of the war, in which the USSR lost around 20 million people.

The defeat of Nazi Germany is integral to modern Russia’s identity and Putin’s justification of the war in Ukraine as a comparable struggle.

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Associated Press writer Jim Heintz, based in Tallinn, Estonia, has covered Putin’s entire tenure as Russian leader.