Forged in reaction to the humiliation suffered by Russia after the break-up of the Soviet empire, the image of a strong man cultivated by Vladimir Putin has increasingly turned into a caricature over the course of his reign. Today, the stature of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, overshadows the flayed face of his Russian attacker.
He trots on horseback and teases the bare-chested fish. He hunts the tiger, swims across lakes and brings up ancient amphorae to the surface of the Sea of Azov. He scores eight goals as soon as he puts on a hockey uniform and campaigns on a Harley: Vladimir Putin has cleverly cultivated his badass image since he came to power 22 years ago.
At that time, he was 48 years old, barely president and already promising to “kill the terrorists [tchétchènes] down to the toilets”. The rhetoric was not in the lace, the means either: the second war of Chechnya made more than 150,000 deaths, some estimate that it was about a genocide.
“Russia was an economic catastrophe in the grip of chaos,” recalls Professor Pierre Jolicoeur, of the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston. The GDP was in free fall, there were secession movements and the security problems were immense. »
The Soviet Union had broken up 10 years earlier, and Boris Yeltsin, a good-natured, sick, and alcohol-prone man, had never been able to restore Russia to its lost greatness.
Humiliation spared no one: Ferry de Kerckhove, a former ambassador who worked for 38 years in the Canadian diplomatic apparatus, remembers that his servant in Russia had a doctorate. “The second power in the world was going through a total rout,” he recalls. People no longer lived from day to day, but from hour to hour. »
It is in this context that “Vladimir Putin made his appearance by releasing the aura of a strong man”, explains Professor Maria Popova, of McGill University. With his youth and his black belt in judo, “he contrasted with the image of weakened power that stuck to Russia”.
A weakened colossus
Today, in 2022, Vladimir Putin goes back to war and promises the “denazification of Ukraine”. Twenty-two years have passed, and the strong man from Moscow sings the same warlike refrain as when he started out. His star, however, has faded: the colossus has feet of clay today, even at home. “Over the years, his cult of personality has become more and more grotesque and laughable,” argues Professor Popova. It is no longer the result of a coordinated effort: it is that of a man isolated from public opinion, overconfident, surrounded by lackeys unable to tell him how ridiculous he has become. »
Faced with a still timid anger, but which is expressed more and more openly in the street, Vladimir Putin has espoused a ferocious despotism, underlines Maria Popova. “Before, it flirted with authoritarianism, now it’s an assumed authoritarian regime, sometimes more repressive than the Soviet reigns of the 1980s.”
In Russia, the batons silence the demonstrators, and the serious opponents find themselves either in prison, or in the hospital after having swallowed poison, or in the morgue, like Boris Nemtsov or the journalist Anna Politkovskaïa.
The bulging muscles of the Russian president hide less and less well the setbacks of his society. Russia has the sixth largest GDP in the world thanks to its oil and gas exports, but ranks 159and rank for life expectancy. “Vladimir Putin would like to show that his country is a great power, but its economy says the opposite”, explains Mr. de Kerckhove.
Putin c. Zelensky
Now that his tanks are roaming the Ukraine, the Russian president finds a tough opponent in Volodymyr Zelensky. A week was enough for the Ukrainian head of state, mocked for his career as an actor who became president in 2019, to take on the appearance of a hero. “Zelensky is Putin’s male counterpart,” continues Maria Popova. Two images of leaders are clashing at the moment. »
The Ukrainian president, hounded by the world’s second-largest army, stands up to Vladimir Putin on social media and appears at night in downtown Kiev with members of his cabinet. “They smile and project an image of strength in unity,” says Professor Popova. This contrasts with Putin, who never smiles and who sits at tables several meters long, isolated, far from his advisers. He appears as a man who leads alone. »
The Russian people, weary of the long authoritarian reign of Vladimir Putin, could “very likely” be inspired in turn by Zelensky and the democracy he defends.
Already the strongman of Moscow has admitted that the “peacekeeping operation” he ordered has caused deaths in the Russian camp. “There are going to be bags with corpses coming back to Russia. There will be mothers who are going to have to mourn their sons… This is not good for a regime already worn down by power,” explains Professor Jolicoeur.
This is where a declining regime becomes dangerous, maintains Ferry de Kerckhove. “He can’t afford failure,” concludes the former diplomat. Putin has freaked out, it’s demonic, his business, and that’s why it’s terribly dangerous. »