How Putin’s Regime Survivalism Drives Russian Aggression
Geopolitical and ideological motivations cannot explain the timing of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead,
regime preservation is both often overlooked in Western debates and has implications for the Kremlin’s future behavior, escalation risks, negotiation strategies, and war objectives. Ignoring this self-preservation motive could have catastrophic consequences, suggests Aleksandar Matovski in his
Washington Quarterly article. He analyses how the
regime preservation motive warps Russian foreign and security policies, and how it drives Russia’s aggression abroad; traces the origins of Putin’s conflict legitimation strategy to his initial rise to power and the invasion of Chechnya in 1999. In the two subsequent sections he examines how Russia’s conflicts abroad became the Kremlin’s most important safeguard against the growing threat of popular rebellion against Putinism, and discusses the policy implications of the regime preservation purpose of Russia’s aggression, and how it might shape the war in Ukraine.
https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.gwu.edu/dist/1/2181/files/2023/07/Matovski_TWQ_46-2.pdf
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