Putin signals readiness for sharp escalation as Russia pressures Ukraine — analyst
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Putin has recently been actively signaling that he is ready for a sharp escalation. It is a familiar posture: “Hold me back — I’m a crazy psychopath,” political analyst Ivan Preobrazhensky explains. (Photo: Getty Images)
Political analyst Ivan Preobrazhensky, who has lived in Europe for 14 years but remains one of the foremost experts on Russia, tells NV how he views recent events and what impact they could have in the future.
September meetings involving U.S. representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow and Kyiv revived trilateral talks among the United States, Russia and Ukraine.
Political commentator and Russia expert Ivan Preobrazhensky tells NV what the U.S. visits to Moscow ahead of Russia’s State Duma elections were about, how the Kremlin sees the next stage of the war in Ukraine and what to expect after Russia’s electoral spectacle ends.
— A new round of trilateral negotiations among the United States, Ukraine and Russia has begun. Under what conditions and with what positions did the Kremlin enter the talks? What purpose did the meeting serve for both sides?
— The main purpose of the meeting was to restart negotiations. Trump needs foreign policy successes before the elections, and he doesn’t have any. So he is wavering between Iran, Ukraine and, as a last resort, the Gaza Strip. If it is impossible to start some small victorious war somewhere, then it is worth trying to secure at least some kind of peace somewhere.
You can see that in what Witkoff and Kushner are saying as well — they want to get a trilateral meeting started in some form, any form. As before, there is this fixation on signing some kind of document and presenting it to the American establishment and the public.
As for Russia, it has been on the offensive all year, and the results have been negligible and in some places even negative. That is not at all what they would like to demonstrate. On top of that, the war has spread onto Russia’s own territory on a scale not seen at any point during the war.
That significantly changes the situation and has already prompted some adjustment in the U.S. position. Russia is now trying to convince everyone that this is temporary, that it will adapt and solve the drone problem with more advanced systems. And supposedly this winter will be the worst Ukraine has ever faced — whether to believe that, and depending on the answer whether to rush into negotiations, remains an open question. Putin has recently been actively signaling that he is ready for a sharp escalation. It is a familiar posture: “It’ll take seven of you to hold me back — I’m a crazy psychopath.” Either I am very afraid, or I hate you very much, and I am about to use nuclear weapons.
— Even before the U.S. negotiators visited, CIA Director Ratcliffe traveled to Russia. Could his visit be connected to this kind of behavior Putin is signaling, and to what extent did or do the risks of war in that case threaten not only Ukraine but other European countries as well?
— We do not know exactly what was discussed, but we can track what happened afterward.
Germany changed its position and acknowledged that it is a target of Russian attacks. In fact, there had been more than enough such provocations by Russia in previous years. Germany had ample reason many times to begin scaling back relations with the Kremlin and seriously address its own security.
They did not do that, but this time they immediately closed the Russian Cultural Center. After the Americans visited Moscow, they suddenly began taking measures and moving toward severing relations with Russia. This is unquestionably a political position, because they could have recognized Russian hybrid aggression earlier based on the totality of the evidence.
I think this was the result of that visit specifically. It is not as straightforward as people make it sound, as though Russia was preparing to attack someone and was almost ready to send in troops. More likely, Russia was told that its hybrid war was becoming intolerable. The Kremlin most likely gave its standard response — we know nothing about it, you didn’t catch us red-handed. That was followed by a reaction. If you won’t do this the civilized way, then we’ll do it this way.
Second, there were attempts to reach some kind of agreement on Iran. The results will probably become visible in one way or another, even if we cannot see them yet.
Third, the visit conveyed a message that the Americans need negotiations to resume. They are unhappy with Russia’s current position, which has been blatantly ignoring attempts to begin any kind of constructive dialogue. All of this ultimately made it possible to send Kushner and Witkoff again not only to Kyiv but also to Moscow, to create the appearance that some kind of negotiations are underway.
— Elections to the ninth convocation of Russia’s State Duma will be held in a week. What are elections about in a country without elections?
— Elections in Russia today are not any kind of turning point. Russian society has clearly shown that the only thing it truly cares about is ending the war.
As soon as the pseudo-party Yabloko entered the election with the slogan “For Peace!,” its name recognition immediately began rising sharply, regardless of who is in the party, what kind of party it is or the fact that a huge number of people had completely forgotten it even existed. It was obvious this could grow exponentially and Russian society could realize what really matters to it.
And if these elections were real elections, the main choice would be between continuing the war and ending it, and more than half of Russia’s population would unquestionably support ending the war. Just as Russians once supported and strongly sympathized with Donald Trump when he was trying to start the so-called negotiations and there was hope he would force Putin to end the war.
But what happened to Yabloko — the party was barred from the election and its candidates are being arrested in the regions — shows that there is no choice. So the public is not interested in these elections, does not respond to them and has developed a sense that it is impossible to influence the situation — the war will continue. Even other issues that concern Russians, such as fuel shortages and rising fuel prices, cannot be made part of the election. The result is general passivity toward it.
The current election is not even a poll on support for the war. It is an oath-taking ritual — we, those who voted, will accept that the war will continue and will share all of its risks.
It certainly has a mobilizing function. Beyond that, some administrative functions remain within this electoral spectacle, and power is being redistributed.
Regional elites still decide among themselves whom they will delegate to the State Duma. Factions around Putin — the FSB or his own presidential administration — will still compete for control of the Duma, decide whom to send there, whose people will sit there and who will collect the money contributed by a significant share of those who pay to take part in the election.
— A symbolic renewal of power through elections usually provides political capital for unpopular decisions. Which ones is the Kremlin likely to make — mass mobilization, tax increases?
— The first thing that will definitely happen is an intensification of repression inside Russia itself and in the occupied territories. But the pace will depend directly on who retains control over domestic politics after the elections — the FSB or the presidential administration. If it is the FSB, repression will most likely accelerate and become harsher.
The second issue is mobilization. The number of people mobilized will increase. I still believe, of course, that this will by no means be an openly declared new wave of mobilization, and one genuinely is not needed. The only thing that makes me doubt that is Putin’s public statement that there will be no mobilization, because Putin always lies.
There will be roundups, some people will indeed be prevented from leaving the country, but nothing additional will be announced. More military summonses will simply start arriving. I think military mobilization will be combined with societal mobilization. In other words, Putin’s circle is still persistently trying to build a proper totalitarian society rather than this postmodern thing they keep ending up with.
They want people to obediently march in proper formation, as in the Soviet Union during their childhood and youth. Time and again, they try to recreate that model, even though smart people inside the system explain to them that it can no longer be recreated. But I think that concerns them least of all in this case.
— What could turnout be in an election with no choice?
— I would base it on the closest thing to actual turnout during another electoral special operation, when Putin reappointed himself president.
At the time, I tried to analyze it seriously and calculate it. My estimate was that actual turnout at polling stations, given the scale of fraud and how widespread electronic voting had already become, was between 12% and 17–18% of voters.
Everything else was fabricated. That includes voting at businesses where nobody went anywhere and ballots were marked, perhaps not even by the people recorded as voting.
Military units, psychiatric hospitals — and that’s not even counting teachers. And of those 12–17%, about half were the nominal opposition, who are unlikely to vote actively in the Duma election, especially after Yabloko was barred.
There is no point trying to vote for some other party. There is no “against all” option, and there is no point throwing away ballots either. Most importantly, the current system has become almost entirely electronic. And even calling it electronic is somewhat nominal. It does not matter who votes or how — the system can easily display any result.
So turnout will be even lower, somewhere around 10–12% actually coming to polling stations across the country.
The authorities are perfectly happy with that because they need to create the appearance that something happened and then begin the fight over how to interpret the result. Interpreting the results is always one of the most important processes in all these electoral spectacles. Because even though there were no real elections, and most of society rationally understands that, society still has to be convinced that people came out and voted and that most of society still supports the current authorities. And supports them not passively, by sitting at home, but actively. That’s it. And that’s an important process.
Russian analysts say 15% is the limit for election fraud, but that is the limit in places where elections actually take place. In Russia, what is happening is no longer an electoral process.
— Russia after the elections. What should Ukraine expect?
— Ukraine should obviously expect Russia to try to make life as difficult as possible this winter and pressure it into capitulation or defeat. They — Putin, at least — genuinely believe he has such a chance. So watch how Russia is arming itself, what is happening with Belarus and whether Russia has succeeded in incorporating it into a potential offensive force. And whether Russia is preparing some new move to change the course of the current positional war. Because as long as the war remains positional, trying to win it is pointless.
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