'Putin has accumulated more authority than any Soviet leader, save perhaps Stalin'

New Delhi, March 17 (IANS) Russian President Vladimir Putin has accumulated more authority than any Soviet leader, save perhaps Stalin, as there is no Politburo or institutional checks, and he possesses the personal power of Russia's strongest tsars, an analyst associated with American thinktank Rand Corporation says.

"He can claim to have restored Russia's position in the world, its military strength, and its cultural superiority. His messianic mission to restore its land continues and will require continuing resolve and sacrifice. Above all, it will require a resolute and disciplined society in line with Putin's ambition," Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the RAND Corporation chief, wrote in a commentary which originally appeared on The Hill.

"Which brings us back to the point of the election: It confirms that Russia is Putin. Putin is Russia. This is the roadmap for the future distilled in his fifth run for the presidency," he added.

Jenkins wrote that it is hardly a spoiler alert to say that Vladimir Putin will win Russia's forthcoming presidential election. If it reveals nothing else, the 2024 election will again make clear that Putin runs the show, he said.

In the 2000 presidential election, he received 53 per cent of the vote. In 2004, he got 72 per cent. The Russian constitution at the time prohibited him from serving more than two consecutive terms, but Putin continued to call the shots as Prime Minister between 2008 and 2012. In the 2012 presidential elections, Putin won 64 per cent of the vote, which increased to 77 per cent in 2018.

Russia's pollsters put Putin's current approval rating at around 80 per cent -- whether that reflects Kremlin instructions or citizen prudence when talking to pollsters. No serious opponent has been allowed to run against him, Jenkins wrote.

"An election in Putin's Russia is not a contest. It is an affirmation of Putin's authority -- a display of power, a choreographed spectacle like changing the guard in London," he added.

"His life and future were shattered in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Putin's mind, it was the 20th century's "greatest geopolitical catastrophe". It was, Putin said, the demise of "historic Russia".

Russians lost respect and territory. The country was impoverished. Putin, the KGB Colonel, was forced to moonlight as a taxi driver," Jenkins wrote.