Putin may have recognized that playing with a chaotic civil war involves not only the risk of becoming hostage to the racketeering of maverick warlords but also the direct danger of spill-over into the critically unstable North Caucasus. Last week, he suddenly relieved Aleksandr Khloponin, his authoritative special envoy to the region, of his duties and created a new ministry for the North Caucasus similar to the one for Crimea established a few weeks ago (Novaya Gazeta, May 16). Most of the new appointees come from the military or Ministry of Interior, which indicates a change of strategy to a more forceful “pacification” of Dagestan and other “hot spots,” necessitated by the fact that resources for investing in far-fetched tourism projects and for buying the loyalty of local elites are becoming limited (see EDM, May 16; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 13). Simultaneously, a series of resignations (including Vladimir Kozhin, who served as the head of the Presidential Property Management Department since 2000) and criminal cases in the top echelons of law enforcement in Moscow showed that Putin has launched a severe reshuffling of the key elites (http://www.gazeta.ru/social/2014/05/12/6027941.shtml).
Back-pedaling on the Ukrainian crisis may indeed be the most reasonable course for the politically censured and economically vulnerable Russia, but it goes against the wave of wide-spread jingoism. PutinÂ’s approval rating has sky-rocketed, but it can easily follow the trajectory of the unfortunate Proton-M and come crashing down as patriotic disillusion follows the pains of shrinking personal incomes. Caution can perhaps secure against really punishing sanctions, but key European states have acknowledged the risks associated with RussiaÂ’s export of corruption and will continue to put a squeeze on it. Large segments of the Russian middle classes have rallied around PutinÂ’s counter-revolutionary flag. But as the heat of emergency dissipates, they are set to rediscover the lack of perspective in the environment of bureaucratic predation. On the road to Beijing, Putin has to come to some senses, but those can hardly help in restoring viability to his exhausted enterprise.