{"id":667549,"date":"2026-01-01T20:37:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T20:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/667549\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T20:37:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T20:37:32","slug":"putin-believes-2026-is-his-year-so-long-as-he-shows-no-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/667549\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin believes 2026 is his year \u2014 so long as he shows no weakness"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Kremlin clock tower rang in the new year, President Putin marked 26 years in power, bringing him closer to overtaking Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, as Russia\u2019s longest-serving ruler since the tsarist era.<\/p>\n

Yet Putin, who likes to think of himself as a historian, will be keenly aware that another, more awkward, date is approaching. On January 12, Russia will have spent 1,418 days trying in vain to defeat Ukraine<\/a> on the battlefield \u2014 exactly as long as it took the Soviet Red Army to vanquish Nazi Germany\u2019s troops.<\/p>\n

Stalin\u2019s soldiers fought their way from the Volga river to the heart of Berlin, but Putin\u2019s army is still bogged down in the Donetsk town of Pokrovsk, an advance of around 30 miles since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine started, in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

The impact of the conflict on Pokrovsk in June<\/p>\n

KOSTIANTYN LIBEROV\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

For Putin, who has made the Soviet Union\u2019s victory over Hitler\u2019s forces a cornerstone of national ideology, his own army\u2019s underperformance is an unwelcome reminder that his war machine, modernised and equipped over the years with energy revenues from western countries, is not as well-oiled as he had been led by military officials to believe.<\/p>\n

However, neither the massive casualties the Russian army has incurred for such modest progress, nor the growing economic difficulties caused by western sanctions, show any sign of persuading Putin to compromise on his ultimate aim of forcing Kyiv back into Moscow\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

According to Roman Badanin, the editor-in-chief of Proekt, a Russian investigative journalism website banned by the Kremlin, Putin is now \u2014 like Stalin during the Second World War \u2014 playing a direct role in military planning while trapped in an echo chamber of his own making.<\/p>\n

\u2022 From Ukraine to Gaza, 2026 is likely to be a turbulent year in geopolitics<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone with even a slightly critical perspective has disappeared from his circle,\u201d Badanin said. Those who remained, he added, include \u201cclearly deranged\u201d people such as Mikhail Kovalchuk, head of the Kurchatov nuclear research institute.<\/p>\n

\"Russian<\/p>\n

Mikhail Kovalchuk with Putin in February 2025<\/p>\n

GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Kovalchuk, who has been described as one of Putin\u2019s closest associates, recently told teachers in Moscow that the West was planning to unleash a virus to kill off most of humanity, leaving a tiny elite whose needs would be serviced by robots. Badanin said: \u201cIf you mainly talk to such people, of course, your worldview changes in a bizarre way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Russia deploys \u2018unstoppable\u2019 hypersonic missiles to Belarus<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

As the US tries to strongarm Ukraine into withdrawing its troops from the Donetsk region in exchange for an end to the invasion, Putin has refused to budge on the demand he made in June 2024 that Kyiv give up the entirety of four regions in the east and south of Ukraine, including key cities that it still controls.<\/p>\n

In a televised new year message to Russian troops<\/a> on Thursday, Putin said: \u201cWe believe in you and our victory!\u201d<\/p>\n

He had ordered them to advance<\/a> in the northern Sumy and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine, and praised their efforts to capture the city of Zaporizhzhia. <\/p>\n

However, some Russian opposition figures and analysts say that Putin sees the capture of Ukrainian land as a secondary issue. In speech after speech, he and his senior officials have spoken about the need to eliminate the war\u2019s \u201croot causes\u201d, a byword for the pro-western government in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Mikhail Kasyanov, who was prime minister under Putin between 2000 and 2004 and has lived in Latvia since Russian bombs started falling on Kyiv, told The Times in an interview<\/a>: \u201cPutin doesn\u2019t need territory. He has set himself the goal of destroying Ukraine\u2019s independence and he can\u2019t back down.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kasyanov also said that the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to achieve peace<\/a> were crippled by its misunderstanding of the nature of the war. He said that the US viewed it as simply a conflict between \u201ctwo regional leaders who need to be reconciled\u201d, rather than as an all-out crusade by Putin to impose his will on Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\"Russian<\/p>\n

Mikhail Kasyanov and Putin in 2001<\/p>\n

MAXIM MARMUR\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst from Moscow and an expert on Putin, said that even if Ukraine ceded land to Moscow, Putin would not be satisfied with leaving any part of Ukraine as \u201cindependent, strong and combat-ready\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin wants a peace settlement on his own terms,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if that doesn\u2019t work out, he is prepared to continue fighting. For him, the rapid seizure of territory is not a matter of principle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis idea is that Russia is forced to take more land because Ukraine is not capable of making a deal. But taking territory is leverage, not a goal. And so it doesn\u2019t matter to him that Russia\u2019s army only got as far as Pokrovsk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanovaya, who has been designated a foreign agent by the Kremlin, portrayed Putin as \u201ca prisoner of his own delusions\u201d who was obsessed with trying to ensure that Ukrainian politicians who were \u201cfriendly\u201d towards Moscow eventually come to power in Kyiv.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a strong rational core in Putin,\u201d she said. \u201cHe can be a very explicit pragmatist. But he also has a clearly irrational core, which we see when he wants something that he will never obtain.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said that Putin was convinced that Ukrainians were \u201cwaiting\u201d for Russia to take control of their country and that his armed forces were going out of their way to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is not ashamed of this war. He\u2019s surrounded by people who nurture this conviction in every way possible. No one can come to him and say, \u2018Look at the destruction\u2019, because he\u2019ll be perceived as a traitor. I understand how awful this seems, but if we want to understand how Putin sees things, this is how.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly before President Trump of the US and President Zelensky of Ukraine met in Florida on December 28, Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, said: \u201cWe would like to see Ukraine become a country that is friendly towards Russia. I think Ukraine will eventually come to this. We just need to work hard to bring this moment closer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"US<\/p>\n

President Trump and President Zelensky in Florida<\/p>\n

JIM WATSON\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s irrationality has not only resulted in the Kremlin turning down a US-backed peace deal that was favourable to Moscow. It also means that the economic downturn is unlikely to lead to peace in the immediate future.<\/p>\n

Although western sanctions took time to bite, they are now having an effect. Oil and gas revenues slumped by just over 20 per cent in 2025, even as the Kremlin\u2019s spending on the military and state security is set to rise to 16.8 trillion roubles \u2014 \u00a3152 billion \u2014 equivalent to 38 per cent of the state budget.<\/p>\n

\"Russian<\/p>\n

Putin inspects weapons during Russian-Belarusian military drills in September 2025<\/p>\n

SERGEY BOBYLEV\/AP<\/p>\n

Although restaurants in Moscow are still packed, the economic uncertainty has created fear of a return to the social instability that swept Russia in the 1990s. In a nationwide poll, \u201canxiety\u201d was voted the word of 2025, state media reported in December.<\/p>\n

Sergei Novikov, a Kremlin official, said last year that about half of all Russian soldiers who had returned home, including violent criminals who had been given pardons in return for six months at the front, had failed to find legal employment. \u201cThere is no data on how they are earning a living,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The central bank, thought to be nervous about a new crimewave, is planning to provide firearms training for some of its employees, public procurement records showed in November.<\/p>\n

For Putin and his inner circle, though, ensconced in their luxurious residences, the economic struggles of the Russian people are an acceptable sacrifice for victory in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Inside Putin\u2019s secret clifftop palace in Crimea<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Alexandra Prokopenko, a former adviser to the Russian central bank and now an analyst at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, said: \u201cPutin has demonstrated a willingness to accept economic stagnation and declining living standards indefinitely. The Kremlin has prioritised war spending over everything else and shown it can manage unrest. Economic pain is a constraint, not a dealbreaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin isn\u2019t worried enough about protests \u2014 he\u2019s worried about appearing weak. Social discontent is real, but it\u2019s fragmented and directionless. There is no internal pressure on the Kremlin. If economics mattered, he\u2019d already be negotiating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s confidence in his ability to keep waging war in Ukraine has also been boosted by in-fighting among the exiled opposition movement and the crushing of almost all political dissent within Russia. Although parliamentary elections are scheduled for September, they are unlikely to be a real opportunity for Putin\u2019s political opponents to weaken his grip on power.<\/p>\n

There are occasional signs of simmering discontent, however. Last month, Alexander Sokurov, an acclaimed film-maker<\/a> and a member of the Kremlin\u2019s human rights council, told Putin that his intolerance of opposition views was a \u201cserious blow\u201d to the lives of Russia\u2019s most talented people, and that such policies were leading the country into a \u201cdead end\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump and his envoys may misunderstand Moscow\u2019s motives for the war in Ukraine, or may simply not care, but James Rodgers, author of The Return of Russia, an upcoming book about Russia\u2019s relations with the West since the 1990s, believes that Putin is certain the White House has come round to his way of thinking and is likely to be planning accordingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin is counting on that remaining the case in the coming year,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cHe thinks things are going his way. Putin wants a world in which Moscow and Washington decide on European security matters. with European countries themselves, especially Ukraine, having little or no say in the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we know from Putin\u2019s frequent references to his country\u2019s history \u2014 as far back as medieval chronicles \u2014 he\u2019s thinking about much more than the next deal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Kremlin clock tower rang in the new year, President Putin marked 26 years in power, bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-667549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115821769686475730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}