In Russia, the pandemic has wrong-footed both the opposition and the authorities. The opposition, used to comparing President Vladimir Putin’s regime unfavorably with largely more effective democracies, must contend with the failures of Western countries such as the United States, which now leads the world in infections, deaths, and as Putin has pointed out, ineptitude. But Putin’s supporters can hardly claim that Russia furnishes an example of the benefits of the authoritarian model in a crisis. Rather, Russia briefly rose to number two in the world in cases (it ceded this place to Brazil just a few days ago) and has manifested a conspicuous absence of decisive central leadership. By the official numbers, even Ukraine—long Russia’s official example of a corrupt and dysfunctional democracy and a boogeyman for those who fear regime change—has done better than Russia in containing the pandemic’s spread.
Putin has neither covered his system in glory nor wholly discredited it by his management of the pandemic crisis. His supporters expected a strong show of leadership that never came; his detractors expected a display of mendacity and cruelty that Putin forwent. By the reticence of his response, Putin has lost some political advantage and even seeded future problems for his rule. Russia has not managed to make geopolitical use of the pandemic crisis, and domestically, the pandemic has weakened Putin’s vertical of power and intensified conflict within the country’s ruling elite.
