As Vladimir Putin approaches New Year’s Eve, the 23d anniversary of his appointment in 1999 as acting Russian president, he appears more isolated than ever.
When Vladimir Putin visited Minsk last week to discuss deepening cooperation, a sarcastic joke by his host, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, seemed to ring all too true. “The two of us are co-aggressors, the most harmful and toxic people on this planet. We have only one dispute: Who is the bigger one? That’s all,” Lukashenko said.As Putin approaches New Year’s Eve, the 23d anniversary of his appointment in 1999 as acting Russian president, he appears more isolated than ever.
Even the Pope, who at the beginning of the war appeared to take care to accommodate Kremlin views, this month compared the war in Ukraine to the Nazi genocide of the Jews. “In the address, there should be a plan. But there is no plan. I think they just don’t know what to say,” the billionaire said. “He is in isolation, of course. He doesn’t like speaking with people anyway. He has a very narrow circle, and now it has gotten narrower still.”
Alexandra Prokopenko, a former adviser at Russia’s Central Bank who resigned and left Russia in the weeks after the start of the invasion, said in an interview that her former colleagues “try not see the war in terms of winners and losers. But they know there is no good exit for Russia right now.” Even though recent polls show Putin retains the support of the vast majority of the population, who for now continue to accept Kremlin propaganda, the overwhelming perception among the elite is that next year, things could become more precarious.“We don’t know what will happen in the future,” said a longtime member of Russian diplomatic circles, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for“There might be another wave of mobilization.
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