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10 OPINION maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 20 MARCH 2024 IN perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian bal- lot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He will serve for six more years. He will be 77 years old in 2030. According to the constitution, which he re-wrote to his bene- fit in 2020, he then could stand again for a further six-year term. To put that in perspective, Putin already has ruled Russia as pres- ident or prime minister for 24 years, or the equivalent of eight Australian parliamentary terms. In that period, Australia has had eight prime ministers and changed governing party three times. The United States has had five different presidents; the United Kingdom seven different prime ministers. In contrast to elections in the West, where the outcomes are genuinely in the hands of the vot- ers and adjudicated by independ- ent electoral commissions, Russia is different. As the former UK ambassador to Moscow, Laurie Bristow, wrote: "In Russia, the purpose of elec- tions is to validate the decisions of its rulers, not to discover the will of the people." Putin's jaded view of the West Putin now will appoint a new government. His picks will be intensely scrutinised for clues to a succession plan and future pol- icies. Although he is a master of surprise, we should not count on Putin leaving any time soon. On- ly four leaders of modern Russia and the USSR have left the top job alive; the rest have died in of- fice of natural or other causes. Moreover, Putin's actions over the past two years have been di- rected at moving Russia from authoritarianism to semi-totali- tarianism. The Carnegie Endow- ment's Andrei Kolesnikov has written persuasively of these tec- tonic shifts that recall the darkest years of Soviet Stalinism. Putin has explicitly presented his war of choice in Ukraine as a proxy for a wider, long-term con- flict with the West. He believes the West is irresolute, in decline, and easily distracted and deflected. Former US President Donald Trump's "have at them" attitude towards US allies and partners, and the woeful Western vacilla- tion over further military aid to Ukraine, will only embolden Pu- tin further. Buoyed by his ritual success in this weekend's elec- tion, he will embark on further risky and provocative adventur- ism. Consequently, Putin – and the ideology of "Putinism" – pose a serious challenge for Western governments and policymakers who are genuinely accountable to their electorates, the party room, the parliamentary opposition, a vocal and inquisitorial media and an independent judiciary. As exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar has argued, part of Putin's statecraft is directed at making common cause with ultra-conservative Western po- litical elements to contest global "wokeness", demobilise support for Ukraine, and dull resistance to Russian territorial ambitions in its neighbourhood. How democratic governments need to respond Putin is well aware that the in- herent fractiousness of democra- cy and the need to court the fickle voters hobbles democratic gov- ernments' long-term planning. Moreover, our political cul- ture is predisposed to wanting to "solve" issues. Sometimes, though, problems of the scale posed by Russia or the Middle East can only be managed, not solved – and then only through joint efforts with like-minded al- lies and partners. That requires persistence and resilience to rise above short-term politicking and the twitches of our "instant ex- pert" social media culture. It also demands constant in- vestment in building and sustain- ing public understanding of what really is at stake, beyond the bor- ders of Europe that were drawn in the bloodshed and misery of the second world war. This is difficult anywhere, not least in the West, where we have had it comparatively easy for most of the post-second world war era. We need stalwart and principled leadership now more than at any other point in the last 50 years. Most of all, we need ongoing serious and informed public conversations about what we value in and wish for in dem- ocratic societies, and the price we are willing to pay to attain and preserve that. That sort of discourse can be hard to generate in our politically rather apathetic society. Howev- er, it is vital when the institutions of our democracy are barraged by foreign information manipula- tion and interference designed to sow doubt and distrust and cor- rode popular faith in the integrity of our form of government. Especially in Australia, we have allowed our already limited pool of Russia expertise to atrophy to near-extinction. It is well past time to re-invest, modestly but purposefully, in Russian language and associated studies at our uni- versities. We need to boost "Rus- sia literacy" and comprehension of a country that will remain a significant and disruptive play- er in the world. This matters to countries that matter to us. Here's how the West should handle six more years of Vladimir Putin Peter Tesch is Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University Peter Tesch A screen showing preliminary results of the presidential election in Moscow