StemCell Therapy

Vladimir Putin has contended with a nod to the chaos swirling in the West and to Russia's tumultuous history that the most precious thing a leader can offer his country is stability.

Why it matters: Putin has not made Russia rich, free or particularly happy. But he imposed stability and has maintained it for two decades through his own blend of force and skill. Putin's current term expires in 2024, and the constitution bars him from seeking another.

Zoom in: Dmitri Trenin, director of Carnegie Moscow and a former Russian military officer, does not believe Putin will change the constitution to become "president for life." Thus, he says, 2024 will be the last year that Vladimir Putin will be president of Russia."

Two specific methods have been floated, beyond a constitutional change:

1. Putin forms a commonwealth with Belarus, maintaining presidencies in both countries but placing himself above them.

2. Putin builds himself another powerful role like chair of the National Security Council and oversees a staged transition from that perch.

Where things stand: Putin will be 71 when his term expires. He told the FT in June that he had been thinking about succession "since 2000."

The big picture: The "mafia-esque structure" Putin has built requires loyalty within elite circles and support from the public, says Alina Polyakova of Brookings.

Zoom out: The Russian system collapsed twice in the 20th century, in 1917 and 19891991.

The bottom line: "This transition will never be very smooth and will never be very happy even," says Trenin. But history will judge Putin on its outcome.

Putin has left the Kremlin once before, when he first ran up against term limits in 2008 and became prime minister.

Behind the scenes: "We always had an assessment, perhaps exaggerated, that Putin was the main decision-maker and [Dmitry] Medvedev was just a figurehead," says Michael McFaul, who was Barack Obama's Russia adviser and later ambassador to Moscow.

Flash forward: We always thought Putin was coming back," McFaul continues, "but there was enough ambiguity that you could hold open the possibility that maybe Medvedev would stay.

The bottom line: [Putin], like a lot of autocrats, convinced himself that he was the indispensable player and that Russia needed his strong hand in the Kremlin," says William Burns, who was then deputy secretary of state.

McFaul originally thought Putin was exaggerating both the threat to his regime during the 2012 protests and the role he attributed to the U.S.

Behind the scenes: He had no incentive to tell [national security adviser] Tom Donilon or [Secretary of State] John Kerry that were trying to overthrow the regime. Thats supposed to be for the workers and the peasants. But in those conversations, I heard a level of suspicion he just assigned all kinds of power to the United States and especially the CIA that they dont have."

"I think psychologists would call it projection," Burns says, noting that Putin had suspicion drilled into him as a KGB officer.

Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is more blunt. "One of his objectives is to screw us. That, unlike Syria or nuclear proliferation, is not an area where I am willing to reach common ground."

The bottom line: "Declining powers in a lot of ways as Putin reminded us can be at least as disruptive as rising powers," says Burns.

Putin issued that reminder in 2014 when he annexed Crimea and launched the war in eastern Ukraine.

The big picture: Putin views Ukraine as firmly within Russia's sphere of influence, and he saw Kiev's sudden shift toward the West as an existential threat.

Behind the scenes: We didnt have the resources devoted to Russia that we needed to understand what Russia was doing under Putin," says Michael Morell, a former CIA deputy director, noting that the invasions of Ukraine and of Georgia in 2008 took Washington utterly by surprise.

The bottom line: Just a few years after being dismissed by Obama as a "regional power," Russia was being discussed in Washington as one of three key players in an era of "great power competition."

Two of those three powers inaugurated a 1,800-mile-long symbol of their burgeoning partnership yesterday.

Driving the news: The Power of Siberia pipeline will deliver Russian gas to China and is expected to generate $400 billion for Russian state coffers, per Reuters.

The big picture: Asked about the relationship with his giant neighbor, Putin told the FT, "We have sufficient eggs, but there are not too many baskets to put those eggs in."

Between the lines: He's squeezing everything he can out of a relationship that currently provides massive economic and strategic benefits, but is also increasingly imbalanced.

The bottom line: Right now its a pretty strong marriage of convenience," says Burns, "born of a shared interest in chipping away at an American-led order."

Putin looks at China's rise, Trump's election and Europe's identity crisis and reaches a provocative conclusion: "the liberal idea has become obsolete."

Why it matters: Putin's alternative path has been embraced by high-profile politicians and a widening slice of the European electorate:

Zoom out: Putinism is a new set of ideas that is exportable," McFaul says, noting the rise of Europe's far right. Hes not alone in this fight.

The little-known KGB veteran who thrived in the shadows, underestimated and overlooked, has grown into a giant.

He's not only one of the world's most powerful men, he may be one of the richest. Anders slund of the Atlantic Council pegs his net worth at $100 billion to $160 billion, including a $1 billion palace on the Black Sea.

After 20 years at the top of that pyramid, with all the wealth and all the enemies he's accumulated along the way, leaving power would be perilous.

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20 Years of Putin: The pinnacle of power and the fear of losing it - Axios

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