Page 7 - Russia OUTLOOK 2022

president Viktor Yanukovych jailed her on trumped-up charges. When she was finally released after Yanukovych fled the country following the EuroMaidan revolution in 2014 Tymoshenko was well received by the crowd, but had clearly lost her authority and much of her popularity.
Given the furor that Navalny’s arrest caused it seems the Kremlin decided that if it was going to get tarred as repressive then it might as well go the whole hog and use the incident to clean the house of all opposition forces as any additional damage this caused to its reputation was incremental.
Falling popularity & 2024
Another reason for the crackdown is Putin’s popularity is falling slowly as society matures slowly. This is a long slow process and while his personal approval ratings remain high in the mid 60s, his trust rating is sinking slowly.
There is now a whole generation that was born after the fall of the Soviet Union which had its 30th birthday in December this year and were children in the hell of the 90s. This more worldly generation are relatively comfortable and starting to demand more from government in terms of services, opportunity and want more say in government.
Analysts argue that the start of the fall in Putin’s popularity began in 2018 when pension retirement ages were raised which destroyed the classic Putin-era social contract: “you provide for us and leave our Soviet-style social handouts alone, and we’ll vote for you and take no interest in your stealing and bribe-taking.” A high level of support for Putin in the 2018 presidential elections was mistakenly interpreted by the authorities as real political credit, rather than indifference and mostly symbolic trust.
While purely political opposition remains stunted, protests on quality of life issues can become large and vocal, which the Kremlin is struggling to contain. It is clear that this dissent will eventually transform into large-scale popular unrest, but for the moment Russians feel they have more to lose than to gain from a colour revolution, with Ukraine providing the object lesson to curb their revolutionary zeal. That gives Putin years to deal with the problem, but in the meantime he is already shoring up his control to buy more time.
The other key recent change was the change to the constitution in June-July 2020 that allows Putin to stand for two more terms. His current term expires in 2024, but he could stand again and stay in office until 2036 if he choses. (He has not confirmed that he will run in 2024.)
The change was designed to prevent the inevitable jockeying amongst the Kremlin fractions to find an acceptable replacement for Putin. He himself said in November that the uncertainty over his candidacy brings stability to Russian politics as that jockeying won’t start until it is clear that he is leaving. The danger is that the jockeying would destabilise domestic politics and reduce his power.
New security deal
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