Putin’s darkening shadows

As winter draws near, Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself surrounded by darkening shadows of the existential kind. Traditionally throughout Europe, the winter solstice marks the beginning of ghost storytelling and deadly fairy tales — most based on elements of truth. In the 15th century it was Vlad the Impaler, the real-life Dracula. Today, it is “Mad Vlad” who is imperiling the West and in need of a wooden stake being driven into the heart of his Kievan Rus’ dreams of a renewed Russian empire. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO are doing their collective best to drive that stake into the core of Putin’s military in Ukraine, particularly in the Donbas and in the Kherson Oblast where, reportedly, deaths of Russian soldiers now top 100,000 overall. Putin’s end and that of his demigod-like oligarchs are drawing near under the deepening shadows gathering over the Kremlin. We are, in Richard Wagner Germanic operatic terms, in Götterdämmerung — the twilight of the gods. 

NATO and its Article 5 “collective defense obligations” — alongside its nuclear capable umbrella — is the largest shadow looming over Putin. As Moscow registers continued retreats after defeats in Ukraine, NATO, in partnership with Washington, London and the European Union, steps ever closer to being “all-in,” save boots on the ground. Moreover, as a direct unintended consequence of Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, NATO and the shadow it casts on Russia soon will be significantly larger — and more powerful — with the addition of Sweden and Finland into the alliance.

Ominous shadows coming from unexpected directions and putative allies — including Chinese President Xi Jinping — also are encroaching on Putin. During a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Xi declared that the global order must “jointly oppose the use of, or threats to use, nuclear weapons.” Putin was clearly Xi’s intended audience after a month of Russian false-flag claims and gamesmanship about Ukrainian “dirty bombs.”

Even the Union State between the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation is being besieged by darkening clouds that are likely to cast a shadow on Putin’s winter. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is not popular — nor is his support of Putin’s war in Ukraine. Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is actively at work in Lithuania plotting Lukashenko’s ouster and reportedly orchestrating acts of sabotage in Belarus to undermine Russia’s military machinations against Kyiv. If Tsikhanouskaya wins — not unlikely given the seeming death spiral Lukashenko is caught in with Putin — the Union State is likely headed toward disunion.

Other external clouds and shadows loom as well. Cracks are forming in the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Comprising six former Soviet Union-era states — Armenia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — only Minsk has directly supported Putin’s military war machine. Fear of Western sanctions such as those imposed upon Belarus looms large and, by example, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov canceled a joint military training exercise entitled, ironically, “Indestructible Brotherhood,” and was a no-show for Putin’s 70th birthday bash in St. Petersburg.

Not one to lose an opportunity to goad Putin at his own game, especially after the sham referenda in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, Zelensky recently instructed his Ministry of Foreign Affairs to craft a draft proposal to recognize the “independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.” Zelensky was also taking dead aim at Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been Putin’s staunchest foreign supporter of the war. The Ukrainian Parliament recognized Ichkeria’s independence in October. 

Domestically in Russia, the shadows are quickly growing darker and deeper. Poetically, one such shadow is materializing from another “Wagner” — the Wagner Group, and predominantly in the form of its founder and chief benefactor, Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Russian oligarch publicly displayed anger over Russia’s repeated military failures in Ukraine and purportedly vented his frustration directly to Putin — and in the process, set himself up as a potential domestic political rival inside and outside of Moscow. 

Prigozhin, notably, in emerging from his own shadowy existence, no longer is simply interfering in U.S. elections, as he admitted earlier this week — he is, according to retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, setting up his own “independent power base” in Russia. In Dickensian terms, the ghost of Putin’s future is taking shape and form. 

Russian milbloggers, largely, are fueling (if not prompting) Prigozhin’s rise from the shadows. As Petraeus noted, the loose coalition of “siloviki” — former Russian military, police and intel veterans such as from the Federal Security Service — are now to the right of Putin and calling for Moscow to take an even harder line against Ukraine. They are attacking Putin’s military leadership team on Telegram and on Grey Zone and, in outflanking the Russian president, are finding a kindred spirit in Prigozhin. 

Even the 22 republics forming the Russian Federation are said to be “restive” and questioning Putin’s faltering war. In Dagestan, questions such as “Why are you [conscripting] our children? Who attacked who? Isn’t it Russia that attacked Ukraine?” are openly bandied about. Discontent is growing and building upon antiwar protests that broke out early on in the war, in March, including in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus with a majority-Buddhist population. 

Deepening global and domestic shadows from the east, west and south are closing in on Putin — and arguably from the north, as well, once Finland and its 830-mile arctic border with Russia officially joins NATO. Winter is a time of ghost storytelling, and the ghosts are coming for Putin and his regime. 

In the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, a gothic soap opera — “Dark Shadows” — was once the bubblegum rage of American TV. It spun the tales of vampire Barnabas Collins and his various supernatural travails, including interacting with a parallel universe. Collins found redemption; Putin likely cannot. Not after all the war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Not after killing and maiming the sons of Russian mothers and fathers. 

Putin’s own parallel dystopia is likely to soon come to a Wagnerian operatic end. The Grim Reaper has unlocked gates of Valhalla — and they are being held open by global and domestic forces beckoning for Putin to come in, and out of the “dark shadows” foretelling his demise. Hopefully, but not likely, in time for his Ghost of Christmas Present to turn into the free world’s and that of Ukraine’s Ghost of Christmas Past, come Christmas Eve.

Mark Toth is a retired economist, historian and entrepreneur who has worked in banking, insurance, publishing and global commerce. He is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis, and has lived in U.S. diplomatic and military communities around the world, including London, Tel Aviv, Augsburg and Nagoya. Follow him on Twitter @MCTothSTL. 

Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. His background includes tours of duty with the 101st Airborne Division and the Intelligence and Security Command. He led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012-14, working with NATO partners in the Black Sea and Baltics. Follow him on Twitter @JESweet2022.