FP: It’s striking to think that Putin would be worried about reelection. He’s an authoritarian leader; he seems to have coup-proofed himself. He controls the media, especially television. Why do you think that he would be fearful of 2024?

FH: Because he’s fearful of a repetition of what happened when he last returned to the presidency in 2011 and 2012, where we had protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other major [Russian] cities. Putin knows that there is a lot of dissatisfaction hidden beneath the surface. People seem to be supportive of this special military operation as long as the children of the elite are not being sent off as cannon fodder to the front lines.

We’re starting to see some backlash from the marginal areas of Russia: Buryatia, for example, where there’s been an awful lot of Buryats sent to the front lines. You start to see protests of women wanting their husbands and sons brought home. They’re starting to have a hard time recruiting in places like Dagestan, not so much as Chechnya, where there’s a lot of compulsion for people to fight in the war. Putin knows that this grind is having an impact.

We have to look out for when things start to hurt people in their pocketbook. The biggest demonstrations or protests in Putin’s long tenure as president and prime minister of Russia since 2000 have been over economic issues. And then also over this sense of unfairness of him keeping himself in power. He’s not that popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When you get down into the depths of the polling, it looks a little bit like the new polling about Donald Trump right now. People would actually like an alternative.

Russia is often ripe for protests, particularly on socioeconomic issues. Putin’s going to worry about that as we get towards 2024 for another reason: There are people around Putin who believe he’s not justified in having this next set of two terms.