January: Presidential campaign without real opponents Putin is running for a fifth term as president, but most of his leading opponents have been imprisoned or exiled abroad. But in a rare gesture of defiance, thousands of Russians lined up in the January cold to sign a petition calling for an unlikely challenger. Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old parliamentarian and war critic, collected the 100,000 signatures needed to be placed on the ballot, but election authorities ultimately banned his candidacy. Still, the support he received reflected anti-war sentiment and a public yearning for political competition that was embarrassing for Putin.
February: Alexei Navalny dies in prison On February 16, Putin’s longtime enemy Alexei Navalny was arrested in the North Pole while serving a 19-year sentence on charges widely seen as politically motivated. He died in a local prison. News of his death at the age of 47 shocked the world and captivated opponents of one of the most charismatic leaders. The exact cause of death was not disclosed, and his family and allies blamed the Kremlin, which denied any involvement. Tens of thousands of mourners attended his funeral in Moscow two weeks later in a show of defiance.
March: Concert massacre casts cloud over Putin’s election victory On March 17, following the harshest crackdown on opposition since Soviet times, Putin secures an expected election victory and remains president until 2030. It was decided that he would remain in the position. Five days later, gunmen attacked a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, killing more than 140 people and setting the venue on fire. Officials from the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Kremlin, without evidence, tried to blame Ukraine for the deadliest attack on Russian soil in nearly 20 years. The attack shook the capital and reignited memories of other attacks early in Putin’s presidency.
June: President Putin visits North Korea to forge closer ties President Putin visits North Korea for two days in June for the first time in 24 years, as relations between the two countries deepen in the face of intensifying conflict with Washington. I did it. The agreement signed by President Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un envisages mutual military assistance in the event either country is attacked. The new agreement represents the strongest ties between the two countries since the end of the Cold War and has further heightened concerns in Washington and South Korea. July: Reporter Gershkovich found guilty after false accusations Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March 2023 and charged with espionage, was found guilty in a speedy trial. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. His employer and the U.S. government denounced the process as a sham and rejected the charges as fabricated. Authorities claimed, without providing evidence, that Mr. Gershkovic was collecting classified information for the United States. Mr. Gershkovitch, the American-born son of Soviet immigrants, was the first Western reporter arrested on suspicion of espionage in post-Soviet Russia, sending a chilling signal to international journalists. August: Ukraine’s entry into Kursk results in mass prisoners of war On August 1, Washington and Moscow completed the largest East-West prisoner exchange in post-Soviet history. Those released included prominent Russian dissidents such as Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, as well as Gershkovitch and fellow American Paul Whelan. The multilateral agreement resulted in the release of 24 people, including Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for killing a former Chechen militant in Berlin.
Also in August, Ukraine launched a surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region in the largest cross-border raid by Kiev forces. This exposed Russia’s vulnerability, dealt an embarrassing blow to the Kremlin, and caused tens of thousands of civilians to evacuate the region. Most of the Russian army was engaged in eastern Ukraine, leaving few troops to defend the Kursk region. Russian forces have since regained control of part of the territory, but so far have not been able to completely eliminate Kiev forces.
September: Putin visits Mongolia without fear of arrest In September, Putin visits Mongolia in what is widely seen as an attempt to counter Western efforts to isolate Putin over the war in Ukraine, a regional ally. visited Mongolia. Mongolia is one of the countries that ratified the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for President Putin in 2023 on suspicion of war crimes in Ukraine. Mongolia ignored calls for the Russian leader’s arrest and welcomed him with a red carpet, and the two countries signed an agreement on energy supplies and the renewal of power plants.
October: US announces North Korean troops are stationed in Russia In October, the Pentagon announced that North Korea had sent approximately 10,000 troops to Russia to participate in the fight against Ukraine. Western leaders said the move would escalate the war and undermine relations in Asia. Moscow and North Korea have remained tight-lipped about their claims of deployment.
Putin also hosted a BRICS summit attended by leaders and representatives from 36 countries, which many saw as an attempt to highlight the failure of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia.
November: AT Victory and Russia’s New Deadly Missile Former President Donald Trump won a new term in the White House in November, even as his administration cut military aid to Ukraine and began negotiations with Russia. There were growing concerns that the government would force the government to do so. Current President Joe Biden has authorized Kiev to use long-range weapons supplied by the United States to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Russia responded by firing a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile called Oreshnik into a city in central Ukraine. President Putin boasted that the missiles could not be intercepted by air defense networks. He warned that Russia could use this to launch further attacks on Ukraine, as well as attack military facilities in NATO countries that provide military aid to Ukraine.
December: Allies fall, bombs rock Moscow, plane crash apologizes Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapses after a blitzkrieg attack by rebels. Putin granted asylum to Assad, a longtime ally of Moscow, and his family, but failed to prevent his ouster nine years after the Kremlin intervened militarily to shore up his rule. This exposed the limits of Russia’s power and reduced its international influence at a crucial stage in the Russian war. Ukraine.
Then an embarrassing attack once again brought war to the streets of Moscow. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, commander of Russia’s radiological, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed along with his deputy in a bomb planted outside their apartment building. President Putin said Kirillov’s killing was a “grave failure” by security services.
Over the last weekend of the year, President Putin apologized for what he called a “tragic incident” in Russian airspace involving the December 25 crash of an Azerbaijani jetliner that killed 38 people in neighboring Kazakhstan. His statement came amid mounting suspicions that the plane was shot down by Russian air defenses attempting to thwart a Ukrainian drone attack near Grozny, in the Russian republic of Chechnya. Russian officials acknowledged that their air defense systems were working, but Putin’s apology to the Azerbaijani leader stopped short of saying Russia was responsible.
