What does President Putin aim to achieve during his next term?

Editor's note: Andrew Korybko, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a Moscow-based American political analyst with a Ph.D. in political science from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Russian President Vladimir Putin won re-election for another term in his office. According to information provided by the Russian Central Election Commission, Putin secured 87.32 percent of the vote following the counting of 95.04 percent of all ballots.

Western media sought to discredit the people's will in the run-up to last weekend's polls from March 15 to 17 by framing the process as unfair, unfree, and undemocratic, although that was to be expected.

For example, the Associated Press shared "a timeline of restrictive laws that authorities have used to crack down on dissent in Putin's Russia," while The Guardian cited allegedly leaked Kremlin documents to report that the state invested millions of dollars into promoting President Putin's re-election. Meanwhile, CNN dramatically alleged that "as a fifth term for Vladimir Putin looms, Russia is stepping up its war on its own people." These claims and others were an attempt to manipulate foreign perceptions of the vote.

It was therefore predictable that official Western reactions would explicitly reinforce their media's provocative claims. The U.S., UK, and EU united in condemning the vote in those ways, which was intended to double down on the false "democracy-dictatorship" dichotomy between the West and Russia. This is meant to legitimize the former's attempted "containment" of the latter, but this motive is exposed when reflecting on the following facts. 

The Russian Public Opinion Research Center's poll from March 6 which was published five days later predicted an expected turnout of 71 percent with the incumbent obtaining 82 percent of their vote, which showed how popular Putin was in the run-up to the latest elections. Russians sincerely support him since he tangibly improved their socio-economic standards after the chaotic 1990s that followed the Soviet Union's collapse. They also appreciate his defense of traditional values and his focus on national security.

All three of these were on display during his address to the Federal Assembly on February 29, which could be considered his detailed election manifesto that was broadcast live throughout the country. Beginning with the economy, he announced the creation of five new self-explanatory national projects: Family, Russia's Youth, Personnel, Long and Active Life, and Data Economy. These are intended to establish the foundations for robust socio-economic development across the coming years.

On the cultural front, Putin promised that Russia will keep fighting against the West's destruction of the family in all respects, which he's been doing for over a decade already since restricting what the state regards as "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" to minors in 2013.

Finally, the national security part of his address saw him pledge to continue building up the armed forces out of self-defense due to growing NATO threats, stay the course in what Russia calls its special operation, and remain open to dialogue with the U.S. on issues of strategic stability. Putin oversaw the stabilization of his country's troubled autonomous Chechen Republic during his first two terms, so people trust him since he has a track record of success in tackling difficult security challenges.

His planned implementation of these socio-economic, cultural, and national security policies will solidify Russia's standing as one of the leading states in the emerging multipolar world order. The first of these three pillars will improve its competitiveness in the sanctions era, the second will retain its cohesiveness by preventing fringe issues from dividing society like has already happened in the West, while the last will ensure its stability. Russia's global role will increase as it becomes stronger through these means. 

From the Kremlin's perspective, the West has waged an unparalleled proxy war against it since the special operation began two years ago, which sought to worsen Russia's socio-economic standing via sanctions, weaken its internal cohesion via information warfare, and threaten it via hybrid warfare. Each of President Putin's three re-election pillars can therefore be considered responses to these forms of aggression and pragmatic ways of retaining the international balance by preventing Russia's decline.

He's repeatedly accused the West of wanting to weaken Russia through what can objectively be regarded as their proxy war in and around Ukraine in order to restore the U.S.'s declining unipolar hegemony. They failed to inflict their desired strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield, but if Putin had just rested on his laurels, then its decline might have still become inevitable. That's why he's so focused on comprehensively strengthening Russia through the three pillars of his re-election platform.

Provided that he succeeds, and there shouldn't be any doubt about that given how much multifaceted aggression Russia has already withstood, then it's expected that his country's ongoing geostrategic reorientation to the Global South will accelerate. Trade and financial ties with China, India, and the rest of the newly expanded BRICS will continue growing, and this multipolar integration association will accordingly expand its network of mutually beneficial partnerships across Afro-Eurasia and beyond.

President Putin's grand strategic goal is for Russia to help friendly countries more confidently flex their sovereignty through these and other means, which he envisages as enabling them to more effectively resist the West's neocolonialism upon which a lot of his geopolitical rivals' wealth is derived. As the multipolar world order gradually unfolds, those Western stakeholders in the fading unipolar one will weaken, which could prompt them to recalibrate their policies in a positive way for all.

These larger plans didn't figure into the Russian leader's re-election platform since average folks all across the world tend to care more about having their immediate socio-economic, cultural, and security needs met, but they're still the reason why their country will continue playing this role. If it wasn't for them democratically re-electing Putin to his unprecedented fifth term at this crucial point in the global systemic transition, then the future wouldn't be as bright as it's now poised to eventually be. 

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