Finding a collective exit from this system is psychologically and politically impossible for the time being. There are no individuals or institutions that can unseat the president; there is no visible path toward terminating his rule or replacing it with something better. In these circumstances, we might see flickers of verbal opposition — like in response to the throttling of the internet — but with nowhere to go, they are easily extinguished.
Theorists of 18th- and 19th-century revolutions emphasized the importance of rising expectations as a catalyst. When people sense that a better future is possible, they act to expedite the process — as in the Eastern European revolutions of 1989, which followed Gorbachev’s promises of glasnost and perestroika.
Mr. Putin has been assiduous about ensuring Russians’ low expectations. The promise of a modern Russia, prosperous and open to the world, has faded into complacency and numb acceptance of dictatorship and forever wars. This uncomfortable equilibrium cannot last forever. The early promise of Mr. Putin and Putinism, after what he saw as the catastrophe of the collapse of the Soviet Union, was a comfortable predictability and an improved standard of living, efficient governance, if not freedom as such. But Russia’s president, who has become a superlative authoritarian over time, has shown himself to be a mediocre head of state, a poor caretaker of the Russian economy and the agent of a regional disorder that is boomeranging back into Russia. With each Ukrainian strike on Russian territory, the war is eroding the well-being of Russian citizens.
The path to competent Russian leadership now appears to require an unraveling of Putinism, and the less legitimate and effective the current system becomes, the fiercer the post-Putin battle for position will be. When it comes, his exit could well shatter the stability he sought to impose when he became Russia’s president more than 20 years ago.
Michael Kimmage is the director of the Kennan Institute and the author, most recently, of “Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability.”
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
