What will Vladimir Putin do next as president of Russia?

The dictator has secured a new six year term in the Russian election. Armed with the world’s biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons, he has the power to change the lives of everyone in Europe, if not the world.

Vladimir Putin had the constitution changed to allow him to rule until 2036, when he will be 83. Picture: Natalia Kolesnikova/Pool/AFP

When President Putin Vladimir was asked in 2018 if he planned to return to the Kremlin after his fourth term he described the suggestion as “a bit ridiculous”.

Ridiculous or not – and many would use stronger language – the Russian constitution was rewritten in 2020 to allow him to rule until at least 2036. On Sunday he secured a new six-year term in a poll designed to prevent any chance of an upset.

Armed with the world’s biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons and surrounded by sycophantic officials, Putin has the power to change the lives of everyone in Europe, if not the world. Six years ago no one could guess that he would launch the biggest war in Europe since World War II by invading Ukraine.

As he starts his new term, Putin is likely to prove as unpredictable as ever and will certainly do whatever it takes to remain in power.

He has described the war in Ukraine as a matter of life and death for Russia. In reality it is more a matter of political survival. Having sacrificed tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives in a senseless war he is thought to have believed would last less than a week, Putin is unlikely now to back down.

Voters lined up outside a polling station in Moscow at noon yesterday, part of a protest against Vladimir Putin. Picture: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP

By withdrawing without victory, Putin would risk a serious backlash at home, perhaps even an armed rebellion by hardliners, like the one last year by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group’s chief. It would also be a major blow to his hopes to go down in history as one of Russia’s most successful wartime leaders.

There are few incentives for Putin to end the war. A $US60 billion ($91.5bn) US package of military assistance for Ukraine has stalled and Europe has delayed delivery of artillery shells, handing Russia the initiative on the battlefield. “It would be ridiculous for us to start negotiating with Ukraine just because it’s running out of ammunition,” Putin told state media on Wednesday.

Ties between Moscow and Washington are now at their weakest since the darkest days of the Cold War. The return of Donald Trump as US president in November would probably be good news for Putin. Trump is understood to have said he will halt US funding for Ukraine once back in the White House. He has also refused to criticise Putin over the death of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, in a Arctic prison. Yet Trump is nothing but unpredictable. Russian officials cracked open the champagne after his election victory in 2016, but relations quickly soured.

Peter Nikitin, a Russian pro-democracy activist, holds a Russian flag with writting reading "Putin is not Russia" outside a polling station set up in a Russian Embassy School on the day of Russia's presidential election, in Belgrade. Picture: Oliver Bunic/AFP

Putin and other senior Russian officials have warned repeatedly that the Kremlin could use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine and Putin said last month that the involvement of US troops in the war could trigger a nuclear war that would destroy civilisation.

Such comments are usually viewed as an attempt to intimidate western countries into limiting their support for Kyiv.

However, many fear that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons – especially smaller, tactical warheads that are designed for use on the battlefield – is now dangerously low in Moscow.

Yet while guessing Putin’s intentions is difficult, his morbid fascination with the destructive power of Russia’s arsenal means that the nightmarish scenario of nuclear conflict cannot be ruled out.

The Times