What Could Possibly Happen in Putin's Next Term?

It's chilling to imagine.

Putin being interviewed by Tucker Carlson in February. (Kremlin/Creative Commons 4.0)

On May 7, Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a fifth term as Russia's leader. Putin, 71, is Russia's longest-serving leader since Stalin. Like Stalin, it seems likely that Putin will die in office. Thus, the notion of terms is somewhat artificial: he pushed through a referendum to change term limits in 2020 to allow him to rule through 2036, or until he is 83. (Should he be alive then, it seems likely that he could change them again.)

However, there has been a clear progression while he is in power: the state has become more violent. Yulia Navalnaya, whose husband Aleksei died in a Russian prison in February, assessed it: "With each of his terms, everything only gets worse, and it's frightening to imagine what else will happen while Putin remains in power."

To look ahead at the next six years, it's worth examining what happened during Putin's last term, which began in 2018.