Testing the West, pushing back NATO, living out cravings for great power or establishing historical justice: there are many reasons that explain Putin's attack on Ukraine. Another motive is often forgotten, however, because it falls completely outside of the West's system of values: It could be time again to consolidate the power of the Putin circle. After all, the war was intended as a blitzkrieg, and no vehement counter-offensive by the brave Ukraine was calculated.
A defense of the kind now suggested was certainly not part of the Kremlin's mind games. Instead, an old secret service logic that Putin has often used should work: use violence to stay in power.
Think of the time before the second Chechen war. Later there was increasing evidence that the then head of the domestic secret service (FSB), Putin confidant and current Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev is said to have been behind the series of attacks on residential buildings in autumn 1999. The deaths of hundreds of civilians would have been accepted. Chechens were held responsible at the time. And thus justified the unscrupulous actions of the then unknown Prime Minister Putin in the second Chechen war. It gave him a popularity that made his election as president possible in the first place.
Even with the later terrorist attacks, such as in Moscow's Dubrovka Theater (October 2002), when hundreds of citizens also died, there were serious suspicions and conclusive explanations that Russian secret services could be behind it.
In Germany, high government officials resign if they are on vacation at the wrong time. In Russia, the FSB prevents real investigations and launches state propaganda. It always worked: the support of the people could always be secured. That is necessary again and again. Because Russia has almost nothing to offer incapacitated citizens. There is basically no welfare state, salaries have been falling for years to below 900 euros on average, private loans are often the only way out.
The country is ruled by a gang of criminals who fear for their power again and again. With an ex-secret service man at the top who emancipated himself to be their boss: Vladimir Putin. The whole secret service mafia and their financial courtiers, known as oligarchs, who administer the clan's wealth, are forced to rule forever.
So does Putin himself. Everyone knows from the other how much blood is on his hands, how many millions he stole, or how much cash he brought out of the country. Everyone has “Kompromat”, as they say in snitch Russian, ready to hand on top of the other in their drawer.
Many of Putin's pioneers have already been dumped. Those who filled the black community coffers, with the help of which he rules, were also destroyed. In a normal country, none of those involved could avoid prison.
Putin's file is particularly long. Mysterious corpses lie along the way from Dresden to Moscow. It swarms with black money scams, half-world figures, ominous asset managers and shell companies.
He never shied away from cooperation with the mafia and organized crime. Expropriation, intrigue and lies mark his ascent. The British journalist Catherine Belton, who spoke to many of those involved and insiders, explained that and how the KGB network was systematically maintained and expanded, also in the West, and how the secret service got hold of the media, the judiciary, the economy and the political system presented in her book "Putin's Net" in a gripping and comprehensible manner.
From the point of view of Putin's men, the mafia system that has been created, which many equate with Russia, must never go under. In the end, any means is right for them. A quick war as the next diversionary maneuver is therefore absolutely within the realm of possibility. And, strictly speaking, a sign of weakness.
Because the neo-Tsarist empire fears for its power in cycles. The proverbial perseverance of the Russians really does exist. Nobody there would beg for a relief package, but would suffer for the fatherland. This is a key advantage of Russian authoritarianism, which has been reinforced by the harsh repressions of recent years. The West has a strategic disadvantage here due to its prosperity.
But is the capacity to suffer limitless? The clique around Putin is plagued by paranoia. She plays it safe and, every few years, resorts to bigger projects, such as Crimea, in order to arouse or increase pride in her country. Human lives are completely equal to the regime. The main thing is that it stays in power, can continue to get rich and work on the restoration of the empire.
As Russians' modest wealth has dwindled for years, the Kremlin must whitewash the devastating economic decline to stay in power. He needs to play the imperial card more decisively, summoning the Russian world with Ukraine at its heart. The narrative of Putin as a bringer of wealth has long been passé.
There has been hardly any economic growth in the last ten years. Previously, only the oil price concealed miserable management and performance. The system has trapped itself with nationalization and expropriation. Nobody in the secret service apparatus has any idea about progressive economics. There are only state corporations and inept ex-spies at the control centers of the economy. KGB leaders like Rosneft boss Igor Sechin, without ideas and drive for innovation. All just siphon off raw material rents.
There was also less and less investment. Who wants to invest in a country where expropriation and corruption reign supreme. Russia has sent too many dire signs to investors, starting with the fall of Yukos in the mid-noughties, which ended Yeltsin's “Wild East” era and ushered in state capitalism.
The then richest man in the country, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had his company snatched away in an unprecedentedly constructed process and incorporated into the criminal state. Khodorkovsky himself ended up in a penal camp for a decade. For years, the Kremlin took strategically important companies at will - with increasing routine and increased cunning. He occupied the executive chair from his own ranks. The judiciary and law enforcement agencies were forced to assist.
In addition, the system has choked off any form of modernization and diversification of the economy: Russia is still an economically developing country based solely on the sale of raw materials. It has no further processing to show and has been robbed for 22 years by a mafia-like ex-KGB troupe, which in turn claims to save Russia.
The war and the sanctions should now conclude this downward economic spiral. But first he has consolidated power again, the people are united behind Putin. The Levada Center reports approval rates of 83 percent for June 2022, compared to 65 percent in December 2021 before the start of the war.
Even if many in the West will say again: "The many dead Russian soldiers must cloud Putin's popularity rating." So many other atrocities should have achieved that. The hope remains that this time they are right and the system has indeed gone too far.
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