Putin's Russia: From basket case to resurgent superpower

Vladimir Putin and his Russia look more invincible today than at any other time in his 18 years in power.

FILE In this file photo taken on Friday, Dec. 31, 1999, Former President Boris Yeltsin smiles as he holds a door before leaving his study as then Russian acting President and Premier Vladimir Putin listens in the Kremlin, Russia. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

Since Putin last faced an election in 2012, Russians have invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, blanket-bombed Syria, been accused of meddling in the U.S. presidential election and claimed to have a scary new nuclear arsenal.

FILE In this file photo taken on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2000, Russian soldiers fire artillery at rebel positions near the village of Duba-Yurt, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of the capital Grozny, Russia. (AP Photo/Maxim Marmur, File)

"No one listened to us. You listen to us now," he said earlier this month, boasting about those weapons.

Putin will overwhelmingly win re-election as president on March 18, again. So why bother holding a vote at all?

FILE - In this file photo taken in Feb. 2000, Russian soldiers rest at Minutka square, in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia. (AP Photo/Dmitry Belyakov, File)

He disdains democracy as messy and dangerous — yet he craves the legitimacy conferred by an election. He needs tangible evidence that Russians need him and his great-power vision more than they worry about the freedoms he has muffled, the endemic corruption he has failed to eradicate, the sanctions he invited by his actions in Crimea and Ukraine.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014, Pro-Russian rebels fire artillery toward Ukrainian position at Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport outskirts the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, file)

"Any autocrat wants love," said analyst Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, and Putin gets that love "from high support in elections."

Expected to win as much as 80 percent of the vote, Putin will further cement his authority over Russia, a czar-like figure with a democratic veneer.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Friday, March 3, 2000, Acting President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with workers during his visit to an oil and gas field in Surgut, western Siberia, Russia. (AP Photo/Pool, File)

During his 14 years as president and four years as prime minister of the world's largest country, Putin has transformed Russia's global image, consolidated power over its politics and economy and imprisoned opponents. He has offered asylum to Edward Snowden, quieted extremism in long-restive Chechnya, hosted phenomenally expensive Olympic Games and won the right to stage this year's World Cup.

Now 65-years-old, he's not planning to leave anytime soon.

For 19-year-old art history student Maria Pogodina, "Putin is all of my conscious life, and so it's clear I have a lot to say thank you for."

FILE - In this file photo taken on Sunday, March 26, 2000, Acting Russian President and Presidential candidate Vladimir Putin talks with representatives of the news media at a polling station in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/ Alexander Zemlianichenko, file)

FILE - In this file photo taken on Tuesday, March 31, 2009, Former Yukos oil giant CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky smiles towards massed photographers from a courtroom glass dock in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File)

Yet Pogodina worries about some of his policies as she prepares to vote and hopes to see a gradual transformation.

FILE-In this Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012 file photo members of the Russian radical feminist group chant a prayer against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, file)

"I am not talking about revolution, no way," the teenager said, summing up the stance of many Russians of all ages. "I hope and believe it won't happen and that we can avoid civil conflict."

FILE - In this file photo taken on Friday, May 7, 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin walks through St.George's Hall to take part in an inauguration ceremony in Moscow's Kremlin, Russia. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File )

The election will confirm Putin's argument that to improve life in Russia, the country needs continuity more than it needs drastic change, independent media, political opposition, environmental activism or rights for homosexuals and other minorities.

Russia will remain disproportionately dependent on oil prices, and its 144 million people will stay poorer than they should be — and many will remain convinced that the world is out to get them.

FILE - In this Wednesday, June 26, 2013, file photo transit passengers eat at a cafe with a TV screen with a news program showing a report on Edward Snowden, in the background, at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)

FILE - In this file photo taken on Friday, Aug. 17, 2012, Feminist punk group Pussy Riot members, from left, Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova sit in a glass cage at a court room in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel, File)

Putin's most important mission in the next six years will be working out a plan for what happens when his next term expires in 2024: Will he anoint a friendly successor or invent a scheme that allows him to keep holding the reins?

FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2014, file photo International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the closing ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics, in Sochi, Russia. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, file)

Today's all-powerful Putin bears little resemblance to the man who took his tentative first steps as president on the eve of the new millennium.

Catapulted to power on Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation as president, Putin walked into his new office Dec. 31, 1999, in a suit that seemed too big for his shoulders. His low-level KGB background made him seem shifty, and many Russians regarded him as little more than a puppet of the oligarchs then pulling the Kremlin's strings.

FILE - In this Sunday, July 20, 2014, file photo Ukrainian Emergency workers carry a victim's body in a body bag as pro-Russian fighters stand guard at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, file)

Russia was still emerging from a tumultuous post-Soviet hangover. Contract killings dominated headlines, its army couldn't afford socks for its soldiers, and its budget was still dependent on foreign loans.

Eighteen years later, Putin's friends run the economy and Russia's military is resurgent.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the troops at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Pool Photo via AP, File)

An entire generation has never known a Russia without Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin in charge. And an increasing number of other leaders — President Donald Trump among them — are emulating his nationalist, besieged fortress mentality.

The once-feisty Russian media has fallen silent. Kremlin propaganda now has a global audience, via far-reaching networks RT and Sputnik.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Friday, July 7, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Yet while Putin looks invulnerable on the surface, he has reason to worry.

The Kremlin is lashing out at opposition leader Alexei Navalny's recent investigations of corruption, fearing they could spur public uproar. And the battle for succession threatens to cause damaging splits within Putin's inner circle.

Meanwhile, Russia's disillusioned youth could turn against him. Some have joined Navalny's protests; others just won't bother to vote, quietly sapping his power.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, attends a rally in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman, File)

As Putin faces challenges at home, expect more Russian chest-thumping abroad.

"The international environment is an instrument for him in managing those domestic challenges first and foremost," said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute in Washington. "He can declare something like a Syria intervention or something in the post-Soviet space."

And a newly elected Putin is likely to continue the Cold War-like relationship with Trump's the United States.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Friday, Feb. 23, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, attends a wreath-laying ceremony during the Defenders of the Fatherland Day at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

Russia sees the investigation into alleged meddling in the U.S. election as concocted — but also as a sign that Russia is important again, and that Americans are obsessed with weakening Russia at all costs.

"Does the U.S. treat Russia equally? Does it take Russia seriously? That's an enormously important benchmark" for Russians, Rojansky said. "They are not benchmarking themselves against China."

Ever since a leading U.S. diplomat was recorded giving instructions to Ukrainian opposition figures, Russians have been convinced that Washington caused the Ukraine conflict by messing in Russia's backyard and that America bears responsibility for the ensuing fighting. It has killed thousands and remains unresolved.

Russia's annexation of Crimea prompted U.S. and European Union sanctions, sending Putin's popularity skyrocketing.

Crimea is framed as Russia's biggest victory in the Putin era, a restoration of might and righting of historical wrongs. To drive the message home, the March 18 election is being held on the fourth anniversary of the takeover.

The last time Putin faced voters, he also was guaranteed victory but was on shakier ground. A movement led by Navalny had brought masses to the streets of Moscow and other cities, as the educated middle class chafed at Putin's backward-looking vision.

Since then, Navalny has been arrested repeatedly and is barred from running for president for criminal convictions that are seen as politically driven. Other opposition figures also have been sidelined, such as onetime billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent 10 years in prison for tax fraud charges seen as punishment for political ambitions. He now lives abroad.

Meanwhile, Russia's problems persist.

Putin has barely bothered with campaigning. When he does, he promises a brighter future, implicitly acknowledging a lackluster present.

With around 20 million Russians currently living below the official poverty line of about $180 a month, he pledges higher wages and pensions. He wants better health care to boost life expectancy from 73, several years below European levels. Recent space launch failures have drawn attention to troubles with the struggling aerospace industry, once a pillar of Soviet pride, and he wants Russia to catch up on robotic technologies and artificial intelligence.

"To put it mildly, Putin will have plenty to do in his next term," Kolesnikov said.

Notably, he must ensure that his country can outlast him.

Political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin asked, "sooner or later there will be no Putin, and at that point, what will we do with Russia?"

LYPIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside.

Almost 100 residents sheltered in a basement chapel at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary while Russian troops occupied the village in March 2022 as they closed in on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, 40 miles (60 kilometers) to the east.

“The fighting was right here,” the Rev. Hennadii Kharkivskyi said. He pointed to the churchyard, where a memorial stone commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed in the battle for Lypivka.

“They were injured and then the Russians came and shot each one, finished them off,” he said.

The two-week Russian occupation left the village shattered and the church itself — a modern replacement for an older structure — damaged while still under construction. It’s one of 129 war-damaged Ukrainian religious sites recorded by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization.

“It’s solid concrete,” the priest said. “But it was pierced easily” by Russian shells, which blasted holes in the church and left a wall inside pockmarked with shrapnel scars. At the bottom of the basement staircase, a black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down.

But within weeks, workers were starting to repair the damage and work to finish the solid building topped by red domes that towers over the village, with its scarred and damaged buildings, blooming fruit trees and fields that the Russians left littered with land mines.

For many of those involved — including a tenacious priest, a wealthy philanthropist, a famous artist and a team of craftspeople — rebuilding this church plays a part in Ukraine's struggle for culture, identity and its very existence. The building, a striking fusion of the ancient and the modern, reflects a country determined to express its soul even in wartime.

The building's austere exterior masks a blaze of color inside. The vibrant red, blue, orange and gold panels decorating walls and ceiling are the work of Anatoliy Kryvolap, an artist whose bold, modernist images of saints and angels make this church unique in Ukraine.

The 77-year-old Kryvolap, whose abstract paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, said that he wanted to eschew the severe-looking icons he’d seen in many Orthodox churches.

“It seems to me that going to church to meet God should be a celebration,” he said.

There has been a church on this site for more than 300 years. An earlier building was destroyed by shelling during World War II. The small wooden church that replaced it was put to more workaday uses in Soviet times, when religion was suppressed.

Kharkivskyi reopened the parish in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and set about rebuilding the church, spiritually and physically, with funding from Bohdan Batrukh, a Ukrainian film producer and distributor.

Work stopped when Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Moscow's forces reached the fringes of Kyiv before being driven back. Lypivka was liberated by the start of April.

Since then, fighting has been concentrated in the east and south of Ukraine, though aerial attacks with rockets, missiles and drones are a constant threat across the country.

By May 2022, workers had resumed work on the church. It has been slow going. Millions of Ukrainians fled the country when war erupted, including builders and craftspeople. Hundreds of thousands of others have joined the military.

Inside the church, a tower of wooden scaffolding climbs up to the dome, where a red and gold image of Christ raises a hand in blessing

For now, services take place in the smaller basement, where the priest, in white and gold robes, recently conducted a service for a couple of dozen parishioners as the smell of incense wafted through the candlelit room.

He is expecting a large crowd for Easter, which falls on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different method of calculating the date for the holy day that marks Christ’s resurrection.

A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, though the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with which the Lypivka church is affiliated. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until splitting from Russia after the 2022 invasion and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians.

Kharkivskyi says the size of his congregation has remained stable even though the population of the village has shrunk dramatically since the war began. In tough times, he says, people turn to religion.

“Like people say: ‘Air raid alert — go see God,’” the priest said wryly.

Liudmyla Havryliuk, who has a summer home in Lypivka, found herself drawn back to the village and its church even before the fighting stopped. When Russia invaded, she drove to Poland with her daughters, then 16 and 18 years old. But within weeks she came back to the village she loves, still besieged by the Russians.

The family hunkered down in their home, cooking on firewood, drawing water from a well, sometimes under Russian fire. Havryliuk said that when they saw Russian helicopters, they held hands and prayed.

“Not prayer in strict order, like in the book,” she said. “It was from my heart, from my soul, about what should we do? How can I save myself and especially my daughters?”

She goes to Lypivka’s church regularly, saying it’s a “place you can shelter mentally, within yourself.”

As Ukraine marks its third Easter at war, the church is nearing completion. Only a few of Kryvolap’s interior panels remain to be installed. He said that the shell holes will be left unrepaired as a reminder to future generations.

“(It’s) so that they will know what kind of ‘brothers’ we have, that these are just fascists,” he said, referring to the Russians.

“We are Orthodox, just like them, but destroying churches is something inhumane.”

Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yehor Konovalov contributed to this story.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Supervisor Olena Trykoz works at the under construction new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Christian Orthodox murals of the under construction new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary are seen in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

An Ukrainian flag waves next to the old, right, and new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Flowers and a helmet rest at the memorial stone that commemorates the death of six Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, in the yard of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A builder works at the new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under construction in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A builder works at the new Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary under construction in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Local resident Liudmyla Havryliuk stands next to a memorial stone that commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, in the yard of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down at the entrance of the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A Christian Orthodox woman attends a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Christian Orthodox priest Hennadii Kharkivskyi leads a service at the chapel basement of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Christian Orthodox worshippers leave the chapel basement after attending a service at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in, Lypivka, near Lviv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 28, 2024. This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago it also provided physical refuge from horrors outside. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)