Vladímir Vladímirovich Putin (Leningrad, Soviet Union, October 7, 1952) always wanted to be a spy. As a child he would not stop watching movies of the genre, and very young, still pre-teen, he approached a KGB office and asked them directly “What do I have to do to work here?”. They told him to study law. And that he did. Raised in a poor family, he went to work for the KGB in Germany in 1985, where he gained a comfortable life, a car and riches. But he was never the ‘James Bond‘ that he dreamed of becoming, rather he was a boring clerk, but one with a luxurious life who was beginning to weave an interesting network of contacts.
Ultranationalist, ultraconservative and president of a kleptocracy called Russia. These are the poles that define the leader who has made the decision to invade Ukraine under false pretenses such as the “denazification” of the country or recover the glorious past of the USSR. How is Putin? Where does he come from? Why has he entered a war? What he wants? The president grew up under the wing of Boris Yelstin, quickly got rid of disaffected oligarchs and his concern about the advance of the West has multiplied in the last decade. He also cracking down on the citizens of him. He defends himself before his own as a guarantor of security and stability in the country. Just what he didn’t have as a young man.
Leendert Johannes van Voorst He is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Human Rights of the University of Valencia (UV) and specialist in the field. «Putin lives from Germany how the USSR disintegrates, and for him it is something very painful. In 1992 he returns to St. Petersburg to work at the city hall. It was the door of access to the mayor, any businessman, citizen or leader, had to go through Putin first. There it is said that he began to take advantage of bribes to give access », he explains. Vladimir quickly settles in Moscow as director of the FSB (successor organization of the Soviet KGB). From there he enters Yelstin’s personal circle. Years later, in his last speech, he appointed Putin as his successor, in 1999. And in 2000 Vladimir won his first elections, which keep him in power until today. And it doesn’t look like he wants to leave any time soon.
In 2008 he gives clues to his figure. As Van Voorst explains, the president came across the law that prevents the repetition of mandates. “He saw that he could not be president anymore, so he changed positions with the prime minister, but in practice he was still in charge. Then he did the same thing in 2011. Until now,” he explains.. In 2019 he amended the Russian Constitution to change the term limit and allow him to remain in power until 2036, when he would be 84 years old. In Russia life expectancy is 79.
“He wants to stay in power all his life. But there is also another question. He is aware that he greatly jeopardizes his safety if he leaves his chair. You are in danger of losing your wealth, your stability, and even your life. And that fear was confirmed in a former republic like Kazakhstan, where in January 2022 protests led to a change in the president. He knows that staying in power is essential for him, because otherwise he would lose all the wealth he has gained in recent decades through patronage networks,” explains Van Voorst.
AND wealth in Russia is synonymous with oligarchs. A very small group of people who ‘inherited’ the large public companies during the dismantling of the USSR. Here Putin has had a lot to say. “The oligarchs had accumulated so much power that they came to decide the future of many presidents. Without them the leader had nothing to do. Now it is the opposite. Putin has managed to control the oligarchs and eliminate (even physically) those who could be a threat to him. The rich know that Putin can take away all their power if he wants,” says Van Voorst.
Putin has gone from liberal to autocrat. In his early years “he surrounded himself with economic experts in an attempt to reform the economy and bring stability to the country. The truth is that he succeeded and won the support of the Russian people,” says Van Voorst. But the support was running out. The year 2011 brought the first major protests over electoral fraud. And an enormous police repression against those who raised their voices. Putin showed the true face of him.
To the first great protests against his re-election were added the Arab springs and the hangover of several revolutions such as the one in Georgia. “It was the same period in which he died Gaddafi in Libya. Putin began to see people protesting as a serious threat to his stability,” says Van Voorst. On the other hand, as he explains Jordi Calvo, coordinator of the Center Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau and doctor in peace, conflicts and development, “it is also true that NATO began to have a presence in those areas previously considered neutral. The Alliance took advantage of Russia’s military weakness to advance. And Putin knew it. At the Munich conference in 2007 he already made a speech calling for Russia’s area of influence to be respected. I don’t think we should forget this either.” The pressure is increasing from all sides, and therefore, the internal repression against dissidents, especially against the LGTBI collective.
Alona Malakhaeva She is a Russian LGBTI activist. She works as a translator in Valencia, welcoming refugees who, like her, came fleeing the Putin regime. She lived in the flesh how the Russian population became intolerant overnight. She calls it “learned homophobia.” “It came out of nowhere. I can tell you because it was there. In 2011 we were kissing in the main square and the next day all the news started saying that gays wanted to destroy our country,” she recalls. It is no coincidence that it arrived at the same moment that Putin begins to repress. “An artificial homophobia was created. Putin needed to feed a discourse against NATO and the West because he felt attacked. But those countries are very far away, it’s hard to hate the US being in Russia. So he needed an enemy within who represents the West to hit.” . And it was us. If it became Japan it could have been anime fans, it doesn’t matter. Since then, those of us in the lgtbi collective have become agents of the West, or else victims of Western propaganda. And the repression began, ” bill.
They were forbidden to demonstrate, teach sexual education of non-heterosexual relationships to minors and carry out “any form of propaganda”. Everything comes in here, “holding hands or kissing is already considered propaganda. We are walking propaganda there,” says Alona. If you do, you expose yourself to fines of 500 euros (5,000 if you are a media outlet) and even jail in serious cases such as teaching minors. Imagine an educator in a school giving a talk on sexuality and it occurs to him to talk about non-traditional relationships. That can be a prison sentence, “she explains.” In fact, she continues, in many cases what we call ‘dirty setups’ are made in which people are accused of pedophilia. Even if it isn’t proven later in court, your reputation is tarnished forever, it’s horrible,” he laments. To these ideas should be added a clique of supporters, led by the Defense Minister and the leader of the FSB spies, very similar to the Putin himself.”They are all the same age and they all think like him. There is a great closure in the Russian governmentDice Van Voorst.
The escalation of repression and Putin’s nervousness, which has separated (many physically) opponents who could overshadow him, contrasts with the reality of the country. As Calvo explains, Russia’s GDP has been reduced from 2.2 billion to 1.2 billion since 2013, and investment in weapons has not stopped falling, curiously since the seizure of Crimea in 2014.
“It didn’t look like he was going to be preparing for a military adventure on this scale.“, he comments. Although the reasons for the war are very complex, Calvo points to one that also adds up: “When we talk about armed conflicts we always say that foreign policy responds to the needs of domestic policy. Putin is using an aggressive foreign policy with an imperialist overtone that is explained as a way to return power to ‘great Russia’. Nationalism and populism to recover popular support because it is an easy speech. But this is not Russia’s heritage, it is frequently done by the US and many other countries. Putin does not want to lose his seat, on the contrary, generations change and he is still there. Like in the Russia of the tsars.”