Putin’s regime is not a classic dictatorship; it is something new: a fully fledged autocratic kleptocracy, a mafia‑style state built and managed for the sole purpose of enriching its leaders, with the added monomaniacal idea of rebuilding the Russian empire.
In the 1980s, as deputy mayor of Saint Petersburg, Putin issued export licenses for raw materials to be sold abroad in order to buy food. The money disappeared, diverted to the bank account of an obscure group of companies belonging to Putin’s friends. This system worked thanks to Western companies that bought the exported goods, Western regulators who were not bothered by dubious contracts, and Western banks that showed a strange lack of curiosity about the new flows of money entering their accounts.
More complex schemes quickly followed. They involved real estate in Russia, shell companies in Spain, Russian‑Finnish joint ventures, German intermediaries, and bank accounts in numerous countries…
The political system that would eventually become Putin’s Russia was the product of two worlds: on the one hand, the KGB milieu, with its long expertise in money laundering acquired over years of financing terrorists and undercover agents, and on the other hand, the equally cynical and amoral world of international finance.
In November 2013, in Ukraine, a wave of large‑scale protests was triggered by President Viktor Yanukovych’s sudden decision to suspend the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union and to strengthen ties with Russia. Protesters opposed widespread corruption, abuses of power, oligarchic influence, police violence and human rights violations. In short, they refused to see the Putin system take hold in Ukraine. In response, as early as 2014, Putin launched a hybrid war in the Donbas and seized Crimea. On February 24, 2022, he invaded Ukraine.
Putin’s case is not unique. The leaders of Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea know that the language of transparency, accountability, justice and freedom will always appeal to part of their citizens, and that to remain in power, they must undermine these ideas.
Anne Applebaum warns us: “If Trump manages to use federal courts and law enforcement against his enemies, combined with a massive trolling campaign, the blending of autocratic and democratic worlds will be complete.”
We already see this threat emerging with increasingly direct attacks by the U.S. government against the European Union and the increasingly determined support it provides to far‑right political parties in Europe. We must prepare ourselves: democratic and cooperative approaches are under threat everywhere.
Dominique Bénard
