Sham poll extends Putin’s power

Russia’s weekend presidential election set Vladimir Putin, 71, up for at least another six years in office. It put the Kremlin despot, who assumed supreme power in Russia on the last day of the 20th century, closer to his long-held ambition to match the 31-year reign of his tyrannical hero, Joseph Stalin. No one who values freedom and human rights should be sanguine about that prospect and what it could mean for Russia and for the rest of the world. In his ruthless oppression of Russia’s people, it is unlikely that Putin will achieve what The Times described as Stalin’s “stupendous body count”. Stalin’s rule was drenched in blood, marked by purges, arbitrary arrest, detention and execution. About 20 million Russians were murdered.

But Putin’s onslaught against Ukraine, and the deaths of opposition figures such as Alexei Navalny, show the threat Putin poses to humanity. He is, as The Times said, “like a Chicago hood, picking off enemies in vivid, selective hits: a radioactive poisoning here, a nerve agent attack or midair bombing (such as the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014) there … in his use of fear as a political weapon Mr Putin is Stalin’s rightful heir”.

Countries across Europe and beyond are deeply apprehensive about what the Russian ruler may do with his next six years in office, and possibly another six beyond that. Putin ran in the election without real opponents, after barring two candidates who opposed the conflict in Ukraine. Following the sham poll, the world must double down on its support for Kyiv and ensure Moscow does not get its way in Ukraine. The prospect that he will be in the Kremlin for many more years has made the fightback against Putin’s lawless invasion of Ukraine even more vital to the world’s democracies. The situation underlines the irrationality of isolationists surrounding Donald Trump’s campaign.

Whoever wins the White House in November must not allow Ukraine to fall to the Russian despot’s aggression. Abandoning a democracy to the mercy of a rapacious dictator who has been boosted by the prospect of another six or more years in power would be a devastating hammer blow to the West and its defences, such as NATO. It would strengthen the hand of not just Putin but of other authoritarian challengers to the global rules-based order. As The Wall Street Journal noted, failure for Putin in Ukraine could lead to failure for him at home. That is an outcome the West must be unrelenting in seeking.