Putin’s Grand Delusion

As this is written, Russia’s war against Ukraine is into its 16th month, with no end in sight. By March 2023, at least 500,000 Russians, and perhaps more than 1 million, had fled their country since the war began, in what the Washington Post describes as “a tidal wave on scale with emigration following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991” (Russians abandon wartime Russia in historic exodus). Within Russia, discontent and anti-war sentiment is visibly rising, despite Vladimir Putin’s laws providing for long prison terms for anyone convicted of spreading “false news” about Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. In June, one of Putin’s long-standing supporters, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the mercenary Wagner Group, attempted an armed rebellion, threatening to march his troops all the way to Moscow.

Meanwhile, the Putin regime continues to wage information warfare, both at home and abroad, using social media both as a shield and as a sword. “The Kremlin has long seen the internet as both a threat to regime security and a weapon to be used against Russia’s enemies” (No Water’s Edge: Russia’s Information War and Regime Security). To protect Russia’s view of itself, and maintain the trust of and control over its own citizens, the Kremlin spreads misinformation that portrays the West as an adversary perpetually trying to destroy Russia territorial integrity, political sovereignty and national identity. In the offensive mode, the Kremlin spreads misinformation in western countries in an effort to undermine the legitimacy of their governments and sow distrust and division among its citizens.

Is Russia a growing threat to the world order, a federation in decline, or both? Can Russia’s social media aggression topple America’s democracy? What is going on in Putin’s head?

For over two decades, Fiona Hill has been a scholar of Russia, and of Vladimir Putin. She has served both Republican and Democrat administrations as their Russia and Eurasia expert, where she “made a specialty of issuing warnings about the Russian leader that have gone unheeded by American presidents,” according to Robert Draper of the NY Times (This was Trump pulling a Putin). In 2015, she co-authored with Clifford Gaddy Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, in which they asserted that:

some observers [of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent annexation of Crimea] have several, potentially very dangerous, misconceptions about Putin. These fall into the category of underestimating him in a couple of important respects, and then overestimating him—or failing to understand his limitations—in others. First many in the West underestimated Putin’s willingness to fight, for as long and as hard (and as dirty) as he needs to, to achieve his goals. Vladimir Putin will use all methods available, and he will be ruthless. Second, Western observers misread his skill as a strategist. Putin is not, as some have said, a mere tactician. He thinks strategically, and he has great advantages over Western leaders in his ability to translate that thinking into action. What we often fail to appreciate, however, is how dangerously little Putin understands about us—our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values. Only by trying to appreciate how Putin sees us can we see the logic in his actions—the logic he follows—and therefore get some idea of what he wants, where he might be headed, in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe and Eurasia.

Dr. Hill will be joined by her Brookings Institution colleague, and Canandaigua native, Dr. Michael O’Hanlon in an exploration of the current (April 2024) state of Russian aggression and what a future Russian Federation might look like. We’ll discuss how Putin’s background as the grandson of Lenin’s and Stalin’s personal cook, and as a KGB officer, helped to form his view of Russia and its role in the world. We’ll consider the successes and failures of Western tactics to control, contain, and defeat Russia’s actions.