By the time this editorial is published Vladimir Putin may have appeared on Russian television in rude health to reassure his people that he remains master of the Kremlin. It would be the sort of political chess move to put a smile on his face, but it would be significant. As of yesterday the Russian president had not been seen on live TV since March 5. On Wednesday, a meeting between the president and the leaders of Kazakhstan and Belarus was cancelled. The day before a treaty-signing with South Ossetia was postponed. Mr Putin’s spokesman insisted his health is good and his handshake firm, but gave no reason for the cancellations.
Mr Putin has dragged the West back to cold war-style confrontation with Russia, but also to cold war-style Kremlinology. Rumours are rife in Moscow on the subject of his health and his security in office. Speculation that one of his most ruthless henchmen might be ejected from leadership of the country’s biggest state-run oil company only adds to a sense of uncertainty that Mr Putin detests.
This uncertainty is unlikely to pass soon. Moscow’s febrile political mood is a legacy of war, sanctions, the slump in world oil prices and the murder last month of the only prominent Russian politician who still dared to speak truth to power in public. Boris Nemtsov’s scandalous demise remains a mystery. What is clear is that tensions are building beneath the brittle exterior of the power structure in the Kremlin. These are tensions that the West should not hesitate to exploit as part of a determined strategy to punish Russia’s 21st century tsar and reverse his military incursions in Ukraine.
Specifically, western governments with information on the large personal fortunes of Mr Putin’s close allies should use the internet to disseminate it to ordinary Russians, as the foreign secretary mooted earlier this week. At the very least this would strike a blow for transparency in a propaganda war that Mr Putin, whose approval ratings stand at a record 87 per cent, is winning virtually uncontested. Second, the United States and European Union should heed the advice of the leading dissident Alexei Navalny and agree new sanctions on Mr Putin’s inner circle. The targets should be those who create Kremlin policies on Ukraine, not just those who enforce them. These are the elite whose children “fly to Paris for the weekend”, as Mr Navalny notes. So far sanctions have failed to force a rethink where it matters, while Greece and other European countries waver in their commitment to the strategy. This is no time for Europe to wobble.
Russia is richer by far than a generation ago but its economy is in free fall. Growth has slumped from 4.5 per cent in 2010 to a projected minus 4.5 per cent this year. Oil is trading at half the price Moscow needs for the federal budget to balance. Much of the corporate sector is unable to service its debts or raise new loans abroad. Dozens of regional governments are heading for bankruptcy and the Kremlin is having to draw heavily on its $400 billion of reserves to stay afloat.
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The pain felt by ordinary Russians is regrettable, but the way for them to end it is to seek new management. The West can help. Whatever is keeping Mr Putin indoors, Britain and her allies must not be distracted from the task of making him pay for his reckless adventurism in Europe.