By Alfredo Toro Hardy
Vladimir Putin represents a fundamental benchmark for hard right populists. This includes not only European ones but also MAGA Republicans and Global South leaders like former presidents Jair Bolsonaro and Rodrigo Duterte.
The reasons behind their fascination for the Russian leader go in three different directions: first, by way of their gratitude for the Kremlin’s cyber-campaigns on their behalf; second, by their looking at Putin’s ideas as role models to follow; third, by their seeing of Putin’s Russia as a natural ally.
Cyber-campaigns
As Sholmo Ben-Ami put it a few years ago: “According to Gerard Araud, France’s ambassador to the United States, Russian electoral interference and manipulation, if left unchecked, could pose an ‘existential threat’ to Western democracies. In other words, an autocrat ruling over an impoverished country with an oil-addicted economy smaller than that of Brazil is supposed to be capable of bringing down the world’s major democracies (…) Russia’s cyber-campaign against the centrist Emmanuel Macron -meant to aid the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen- included everything from the publication of baseless claims that Macron is gay to the diffusion of fake documents claiming that he has an offshore bank account”. (Ben-Ami, 2018). The list of Russian cyber-campaigns interference on behalf of Western populist candidates has indeed been long. This, of course, included Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, as demonstrated by the 2019 Mueller Report.
Championing “morality”
On the other hand, Putin has articulated a group of conservative ideas that are seen as a paragon for Western’s extreme right populists. This includes, among many others, attacking the “fetishization” of tolerance and diversity, the excesses of moral relativism, and same-sex partnerships and marriages. In his state of the nation address on 29 February, 2024, Putin emphasized traditional family values: “Some countries deliberately destroy norms of morality, institutions and family, push whole peoples towards extinction and degeneration”. Not surprisingly, he has been downing successive laws or decrees to regulate morality. The year 2023 represented a spike in “morally” driven lawmaking in Russia, with the LGTB community being its main target. (Luchenko, 2024). This has transformed him into the undisputed champion of far-right ideas. In Franklin Foer words: “But right-wing leaders around the world -from Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines to Nigel Farage in Britain, to Donald Trump in the U.S.- now speak of Putin in heroic terms”. (Foer, 2017).
It has been argued, though, that Putin’s overtones in this regard are opportunistic in nature. Again, according to Foer: “After the global crisis of 2008, populist uprisings had sprouted across Europe. Putin and his strategists sensed the beginnings of a larger uprising that could upend the Continent and make life uncomfortable for his geostrategic competitors (…) With the traditionalist masses ripe for revolt, the Russian president had an opportunity. He could become… ‘the new world leader of conservatism’”. (Foer, 2017). Whereas opportunistic or sincere, these ideas have elevated his stature within the populist far-right pantheon.
Natural ally
However, the reason why Putin is seen as a natural ally by extreme right populists, transcends his “traditional family values”. As Ronal Brownstein expresses: “But conservative-populist nationalists in both the United States and Europe view Putin as a potential ally because they are focused on a sharply contrasting set of international priorities: resisting Islamic radicalization, unwinding global economic integration, and fighting the secularization of Western societies (…) European populist parties share a common set of priorities focused on restricting immigration, unwinding global economic and political integration (by renouncing the European Union, and, for some of these parties, NATO as well), taking tougher steps to fight Islamic radicalism, and, in most cases, opposing cultural liberalism and secularization at home. On all those fronts, they view Putin not as a threat, but as an ally”. (Brownstein, 2017).
Referring to the Trump-Putin summit, held in Helsinki in July of 2018, Robert Kagan argued: “What observers could not see, was that this was not a meeting between adversaries. It was a meeting between allies, with convergent interests and common goals. These, incidentally, have nothing to do with the 2016 election. They have to do with a common view of the liberal world order that the United States helped create seven decades ago. Both leaders seek its destruction”. (Kagan, 2018). Not surprisingly, even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Trump keeps calling Putin a “genius”, while his followers at Capitol Hill have been hindering America’s support to Kiev. Should they win next November, not only U.S. support for Ukraine would be doomed, but NATO’s future would be endangered. Indeed, pulling his country out of NATO seemed to have been one of Trump’s unfulfilled goals while in the White House, one that he may yet accomplish if reelected. (Baker, 2024).
Europe’s populist far right
It has to be added, though, that Russia’s invasion divided Moscow’s European allies. Far right populist parties within the European Union, indeed, reacted differently to it. Hungary’s Fidesz, Germany’s AfD, Slovakia’s Republika, Romania’s Alliance for the Union, Bulgaria’s Revival, Austria’s Freedom Party, Belgium’s Flemish Interest, Italy’s Northern League, Poland’s Party of Freedom or France’s Rassemblement National, are sympathetic to Russia and have refuse to vote within the European Parliament on policies that aim to punish or criticize Putin or Russia. With the exception of Hungary’s Fidesz (which has no grouping affiliation), all these parties are members of the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy (ID) group.
However, the far right European Conservatives and Reformist (ECR) group, home to Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, is supportive of sanctions against Russia and aid to Ukraine. Within this latter group, and besides Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, we also find Poland’s Law and Justice, Spain’s Vox, Sweden’s Sweden Democrats or Romania’s Alliance for the Union of Romanians. However, and notwithstanding this division between the ID and the ECR groups in relation to Ukraine’s invasion, they both aim to a different degree at deconstructing the Western’s democratic post-war establishment. In this regard, it could be said that even the ECR’s members retain a significant convergence of interests with Putin. (Lindstaedt, 2024; Van Rij, 2024).
Hungary, where Fidesz is the ruling party, holds as from July 1 2024 the six-months rotating presidency of the European Union Council. Meanwhile, far right parties have surged in the recent European Parliament election. In spite of the ECR group’s antithetical position in regard to Russia’s invasion, it could be said that Putin has strengthened his position in relation to the European Union as a result of these two events. As Natasha Lindstaedt says: “Vladimir Putin looks to be the big winner from the far-right surge in the recent European Parliament election”. (Lindstaedt, 2024).
Latin America’s extreme left
Very curiously, while Putin’s ideas are clearly in line with far-right populism, he has also become the darling of parts of the Latin American left, with very particular reference to the radical left trilogy of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. This process began when Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega, at the end of the first decade of the new century, identified with the growing anti-U.S. posture of the Russian leader and with his calls for a multipolar world order. Not surprisingly, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), the cherished child of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, served as Russia’s first gateway to the region. Venezuela and Nicaragua were among the very few countries that promptly recognized Moscow’s supported independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On the same token, and together with Evo Morales’ Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua supported the Russian position on the Crimean Referendum.
More recently, and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua have stood by Russia, both rhetorically and in continued economic relations. Moreover, in 2024 Russian warships visited Cuba and Venezuela before and after its military exercises in the Caribbean, which had the intention of sending a message to Washington. However, these three countries did not outright reject U.N. Resolution “Aggression against Ukraine”, and instead chose to abstain or remain absent. In successive voting within the U.N., they have never condemned or sanctioned Russia.
As in the case of the far right populists, Latin America’s far-left trilogy shares with Putin’s Russia a geopolitical world view. Moreover, commonalities exist between these two extremes of right and left in their aim of deconstructing the Western’s democratic post-war establishment. As the assertion says, extremes frequently overlap each other.
Revisionism and autocracy
However, these Latin American countries go further than the populist far right, as they are active members of the revisionist axis that openly confronts the American led one. Together with Russia, China, Iran and others, they sustain a crusade to throw back America’s power and re-write the rules of the prevailing international order. According to Hal Brands: “For a generation after 1991, the world saw historically low levels of geopolitical and ideological competition, mostly because Washington and its allies had such a decisive advantage. That’s changing as revisionist actors -principally China, Russia and Iran- try to throw back American power and create their own spheres of influence (…) connections between revisionist actors are stronger than at any time in decades” (Brands, 2023).
But these connections transcend common objectives regarding a new international order, and also respond to what Anne Applebaum has called “Autocracy Inc.” That is, the presence of a sophisticated network of autocracies that share resources and support each other. A network bound not by ideology but by the aim of keeping its members in power (Applebaum, 2024). As a matter of fact, Biden has emphasized an almost existential confrontation between democracies and autocracies.
In sum
In a paradoxical way both the far right and the far left seem to share a common love for Vladimir Putin. For both extremes, indeed, he remains an undisputed hero. Something that, in most cases, has not been affected by his country’s invasion of Ukraine.
References:
Applebaum, Anne (2024). Autocracy Inc. New York: Doubleday.
Baker, Peter (2024). “Favoring Foes Over Friends, Trump Threatens to Upend International Order”. The New York Times, February 11.
Ben-Ami, Sholmo (2018). “The threat to Western democracy starts at home”. The Strategist. Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 31 March.
Brands, Hal (2023). “The Next Global War”. Foreign Affairs, January 26.
Brownstein, Ronal (2017). “Putin and the Populists”, The Atlantic, January 6.
Foer, Franklin (2017). “It’s Putin World”, The Atlantic, March 2017.
Kagan, Robert (2018). “The United States and Russia Aren’t Allies. But Trump and Putin Are”, NPR, July 17.
Lindstaedt, Natasha (2024). “European populists back Putin as they roll out their anti-Ukraine positions”, The Conversation, June 14.
Luchenko, Ksenia (2024). “Conservatism by decree: Putin as a figurehead for the global far right”, European Council on Foreign Relations, 1 March.
Van Rij, Armida (2024). “The pro-Putin far right is on the march across Europe – and it could spell tragedy for Ukraine, The Guardian, 11 April.
Author: Alfredo Toro Hardy, PhD – Retired Venezuelan career diplomat, scholar and author. Former Ambassador to the U.S., U.K., Spain, Brazil, Ireland, Chile and Singapore. Author or co-author of thirty-six books on international affairs. Former Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Princeton and Brasilia universities. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and a member of the Review Panel of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).