Furious Putin is trapped in a gilded cage. He will rule until his death

WHAT DOES PUTIN DO NEXT? Russia's leader is now a very different person to the one who took over from Yeltsin in 1999

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What does Putin do next? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our writers and experts take a deeper look at the future for the Russian leader. • Putin is getting more desperate. It won’t end well

When protesters staged the largest ever demonstrations of post-Soviet times in 2011-12, “Russia without Putin” was one of their favourite slogans. Fourteen years later, he’s still there. In theory, Putin can stay in office until 2036, when he will be 84. Can he? Does he want to?

Retirements have not really been a part of Russia’s history. Monarchs might be assassinated, like the reformist Alexander II, but as the last tsar, Nicholas II found when he abdicated, trying to pass the crown to his younger brother Michael, a legitimacy founded on divine right is not something you can pass around the family.

Soviet leaders essentially “retired” through death or ill-health, apart from Nikita Khrushchev, ousted by a political coup in 1964, or Mikhail Gorbachev, who voluntarily ceded power when he dissolved the USSR in 1991.

Boris Yeltsin, post-Soviet Russia’s first leader, did retire. In a carefully-choreographed operation at the end of 1999, his chosen successor was made prime minister, so when Yeltsin stood down, he became acting president and could stand for election with the advantage of incumbency. Of course, this was a gamble, relying on the gratitude and loyalty of the new president to look after his predecessor and his cronies.

That successor was one Vladimir Putin, and in fairness, he did hold up his part of the bargain. His very first decree was to grant Yeltsin and his family – around whom corruption claims had swirled for years – immunity from prosecution. Yet Yeltsin was ailing, a victim of his alcoholism and heart problems. He had little choice but to take that gamble.

Putin, though, is a different person, in a different place. He has in the past complained about the presidency, describing himself as a “galley slave,” even if few galley slaves could relax after their labours in any one of Putin’s six palaces. He seems to have toyed with retirement after his first two presidential terms (2000-8) and may again have been contemplating it in 2022 when he invaded Ukraine.

A quick and successful campaign bringing Ukraine back into the fold might have been the kind of triumph making Putin sufficiently revered that no successor could disown him. Of course, that didn’t happen.

For now, despite fanciful recurring claims about various fatal diseases, the 73-year-old Putin appears in relatively good health. At some point in the future he may become sufficiently infirm that he needs to pick a successor, but until that point, he seems unwilling even to countenance the idea. This is not, after all, a man who trusts easily. And his closest allies are all fellow septuagenarians.

To pick a successor is to begin to become a lame duck president. One thing that makes Putin furious – or terrified – is the sense that he is being ignored. If some thrusting up-and-comer became the heir to the Kremlin, the temptation for those courtiers who compete for Putin’s favour instead to cultivate the new man would become irresistible. In the words of a former Kremlin insider, as far as Putin is concerned, “there can only be one sun in the heavens.”

Besides, he may fear that an ungrateful successor might be tempted to hand him over to a war crimes tribunal in The Hague in return for some gold-plated concessions.

If Putin cannot or will not stand down or aside, then what are the odds of the Khrushchev or Alexander II options? There are certainly grumbles, both within the elite and the country at large: 1.3 million dead and wounded in Ukraine, an economy sliding into recession, public services under pressure as the war devours 40 per cent of the budget do not make for a comfortable environment. The shift of much of the economy to a wartime footing inevitably makes for a few winners and a lot of losers within the business elite, just as regional governors (significant power players in their own right) find themselves under constant pressure to do more with fewer resources.

Yet what can anyone do about it? At present there is no meaningful opposition to Putin within the country both because of thuggish repression and the destruction of organised political movements, and also the war. In the words of one Muscovite, no friend to Putin, “whatever you think of the old bastard, you still want to be a patriot.”

Nor – ironically unlike during the Soviet days – is there any real constitutional way to oust him. In theory, it’s possible, but requires impeachment by a two-thirds vote in the lower house of parliament, approval by the Constitutional Court, then another two-thirds vote in the upper chamber. Given that all three bodies are packed with Putin’s appointees, only a truly existential threat to them all might see them turn in such numbers. Besides, who starts the ball rolling? This is no time for any within the elite to even hint that they’re unhappy with the monarch, or fancy a turn as president.

How about something more direct? There may well be many who would like to see Putin dead, from bereaved Ukrainians to Russian nationalists who believe he failed his country at this crucial test. No security cordon is impenetrable – as Alexander II discovered – but the security structures protecting Putin are extensive, aggressive and depressingly competent, and the sheer scale and complexity of the precautions taken around him need to be seen to be believed.

If bespoke assassination and political defenestration are out, then that leaves the possibility of a coup. There seems little likelihood of one while the war is raging, but afterwards it’s not wholly inconceivable, given how disgruntled so many officers seem to be with its mishandling. A widespread military conspiracy would be hard to pull off, but when Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group mercenaries staged their mutiny in 2023, many army and National Guard units sat back, content to just wait and see who won. Maybe it would not need to be that extensive a conspiracy.

Much depends on the outcome of the war. If Putin can get a quick, advantageous deal then he can try to spin this into a triumph wrenched from a hostile Nato and its Ukrainian proxies. Yet if the war drags on, which may force him to field not just volunteers, but conscripts and reservists who never chose to fight, then anger at him for starting a war few Russians wanted and greedily squandering the golden opportunities for peace Trump offered him will likely grow.

Ultimately, though, none of these scenarios looks likely, at least for now. Instead, Putin is stuck in a gilded cage of his own making, too insecure to dare step away from it, but probably too secure to be removed by anything other than his own mortality. Asked about the succession on state TV back in March, Putin replied “I always think about it,” but is this with secret longing to be rid of the duties and dangers of the presidency or primal fear?