After Momentous 2020, Putin in Russia enters the New Year as strongly as ever

He advocated greater restrictions on the Internet and made it more difficult to organize political protests. On Friday, Russian lawmakers approved a bill, with the Kremlin supporting the designation of people and groups engaged in political activities and receiving funds from abroad as “foreign agents”, subjecting them to greater restrictions.

Even if Mr. Putin makes the Russians guess his plans for the end of his current term in 2024, these moves show that the Kremlin is preparing to defend itself against threats to its power, analysts said.

“Next year, Putin will enter as a brutal, unwilling autocrat, ready to isolate Russia to an even greater extent,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a Russian domestic policy expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center. And the more challenges there are for his regime, the harder and more “sovereign” he is. No sign of symbolic liberalization. “

The adoption in July of amendments to the nation’s constitution in the 1990s marked a key moment for the Russian leader. This reflects the Kremlin’s belief that Mr Putin enjoys popular support for an expansion of his power, despite polls showing an erosion of enthusiasm for his leadership, said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R.Politik, an independent political analysis firm.

“He could finally realize his dream of creating a real Putin regime with his own constitution and system,” she said.

Even though Mr Putin has moved to consolidate his power this year, dissent has caught fire. Massive protests in the Far Eastern town of Khabarovsk in July over the arrest of a popular regional governor quickly turned into a growing expression of dissatisfaction with declining revenues, quality public services, including medical services, because the country was hit by the coronavirus, and Mr. Putin’s rule.

On Saturday, Russia registered 29,258 new cases of coronavirus, according to the Russian government, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to just over three million – the fourth largest number in the world after the US, India and Brazil.

Mr Putin waited for the protesters, and the crowds dispersed. But the anger reflects a rift between the Kremlin and ordinary Russians.

“The gap between the Kremlin and society is widening,” Mr Kolesnikov said.

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, has sought to capitalize on public frustration by pursuing investigations into allegations of corruption and excessive government and helping to organize anti-Kremlin voting strategies in regional elections.

But in August, Mr Navalny fell ill after being exposed to what European doctors said was exposure to the nerve agent Novichok – a substance that only state actors could have had access to, analysts and intelligence officials said.

Mr Navalny and his supporters believe the Kremlin has come up with a failed plot to assassinate him. Moscow has denied any involvement. Mr Putin said earlier this month that if Russian intelligence had wanted to kill Mr Navalny, “we would have done it”.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on members of Mr Putin’s inner circle in response. Russia responded in kind.

“What I see is that the regime has lost any ability to compromise, to tolerate any criticism, and it has lost the ability to deal with any political risks in a peaceful manner,” Ms Stanovaya said. “The only way he knows how to behave is to use repression.”

In the coming year, the Kremlin could continue to encourage Russia’s so-called systemic opposition or opposition groups and government-tolerated political parties. Meanwhile, opposition groups such as the one led by Mr Navalny will be suppressed – or possibly destroyed, analysts say.

The Kremlin has denied claims it is trying to quell dissent. In a March interview with the state news agency TASS, Mr Putin said opposing voices were essential.

“There has been and always will be a certain part of society in any country that does not agree with the authorities in power,” the Russian leader said. “And it’s very good that such people exist.”

In this year’s global arena, Mr Putin extended a political lifeline to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who, following a failed presidential vote on August 9, faced protests demanding his resignation. The Russian leader has assumed military and financial support for his Belarusian counterpart.

Mr Putin also concluded a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan in November over disputed territory in Nagorno-Karabakh. The agreement supports the Kremlin’s status as a regional power broker and provides its leverage over both countries. Russia already had a military base in Armenia, with which it also shares economic ties, but the peace agreement places Russian forces in Azerbaijan for the first time.

Most former Soviet states “are our allies,” Mr Putin told his national security council in August. “Our interests coincide in many ways, both economically and politically. This is undoubtedly one of our foreign policy priorities. “

In an interview, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that this year’s crises, as well as Western sanctions and a “continuous unfriendly environment,” require decisive action by Moscow.

The crisis “required the president to be tough, to make decisions quickly,” he said. “Overall, of course, we are convinced that the main task has been to maintain stability in all its directions. [and] it has been preserved ”.

Russia has reached agreements to sell its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to other countries, which analysts said could allow Moscow to exercise light power over host nations, especially in South America and the Middle East.

Next year, Mr Putin could demand income from the aid he provided, analysts said. He is likely to demand that Mr Lukashenko relinquish the Kremlin’s long-term efforts to draw his smaller neighbor closer into its orbit. The Armenian and Azerbaijani governments are likely to be more deferential to Russia, as they depend on Mr Putin to stop the resumption of fighting in the South Caucasus.

Tensions with the West are likely to continue this year, especially with the arrival of the Biden administration. This month’s revelations about an alleged Russian cyber attack on the US federal government that violated at least six cabinet-level departments have further affected relations between Moscow and Washington.

But antagonism to the West could work to Mr Putin’s advantage at home, according to his supporters.

The perception is that “if Putin had been bad for Russia, he would not have been attacked like that,” said Sergei Markov, the pro-Kremlin director of the Moscow Institute of Political Studies. “The more the enemy gets angry, the further we go on the road to a brighter future. For Putin, there is nothing special here. [It is] a natural process of attacks on a successful Russian president. “

—Nonna Fomenko contributed to this article.

Write to Ann M. Simmons at [email protected]