Fareed Zakaria’s powerful commentary, “Putin’s Ruthless Rise to Power,” was not a casual geopolitical analysis. It was a direct and deliberate response to an interview with Steve Witkoff, a Trump-affiliated envoy, who had publicly praised Vladimir Putin and repeated narratives commonly pushed by the Kremlin. For Zakaria, the interview was more than troubling—it was emblematic of a broader shift in how influential voices in the United States perceive authoritarianism, and it demanded deeper reflection.
Rather than challenge Witkoff point by point, Zakaria used the moment to widen the lens. He traced the contours of U.S.–Russia relations over the past three decades, offering a historical and geopolitical perspective that reveals just how methodically Vladimir Putin consolidated power—and how dangerous his ambitions remain today. His message is clear: Western naïveté or complicity in amplifying authoritarian propaganda carries profound global consequences.
America’s Post-Soviet Overture: Goodwill, Not Hostility
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the West had a choice: isolate the fledgling Russian state or integrate it into the global order. The decision was clear. Contrary to the popular claim—often repeated by Russian officials and sympathizers—that the West sought to humiliate or encircle Russia, the reality tells a different story.
The United States, joined by European allies, launched one of the most significant economic and diplomatic outreach efforts in modern history. Between 1989 and 1998, the U.S. provided Russia with an estimated $66 billion in aid—massive even by Cold War standards. By comparison, this amount far exceeded what Israel received from the United States during the same period, despite Israel’s status as one of America’s closest allies.
Beyond financial assistance, Russia was welcomed into global institutions. The G7, originally an exclusive club of industrialized democracies, expanded to include Russia in 1997, forming the G8. This inclusion was symbolic and substantial—Russia’s economy was fragile, its political system shaky, and its civil society nascent. Still, the West took the gamble that engaging Russia, even under less-than-ideal conditions, would encourage its evolution into a stable democracy.
There was no “versus” in those early years. There was only “with.” And for a brief time, that cooperation seemed to bear fruit.
Filling the Void: Eastern Europe’s Fragile Freedom
The fall of the Iron Curtain didn’t only liberate Russia—it liberated dozens of nations that had long been tethered to Moscow’s will. From Poland to Estonia, former satellite states suddenly found themselves adrift in a security vacuum. They had tasted democracy and didn’t want to go back. But they also understood the risk: their newfound freedom was fragile, and Moscow’s history of reclaiming lost territory was well known.
Enter NATO.
The alliance, originally formed to counter Soviet aggression, found a new purpose: protecting democracies vulnerable to authoritarian resurgence. Eastern European countries clamored to join, not out of animosity toward Russia, but from a deep-rooted fear of history repeating itself. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were among the first to join in 1999, followed by others in the years that followed.
But even as NATO expanded, the West attempted to balance this move with gestures of reassurance toward Moscow. The “Partnership for Peace,” launched in 1994, aimed to build trust through joint military exercises, diplomatic forums, and confidence-building measures. This was not a zero-sum game. It was an effort to bridge old divides.
Nevertheless, Moscow saw NATO’s expansion as a betrayal. And in the eyes of a former KGB operative named Vladimir Putin, it became a rallying cry for restoration.
The Making of a Strongman: Terror, War, and Power
In 1999, Russia was in disarray. President Boris Yeltsin, once the symbol of democratic hope, had become a liability. Corruption ran rampant. The economy was in free fall. The public had lost faith in politics altogether.
Into this void stepped Vladimir Putin—a little-known bureaucrat with a KGB background and icy composure. His ascension was sudden, fueled by a wave of fear and violence. That fall, a series of devastating apartment bombings rocked Moscow and other cities, killing over 300 people. The government blamed Chechen separatists. But suspicions immediately arose.
Some Russian lawmakers, journalists, and former intelligence agents alleged that the bombings were staged by the Federal Security Service (FSB), Putin’s old employer, to justify war and enable his rise. While definitive proof remains elusive, the pattern was unmistakable: a national crisis had created a political savior.
Putin used the moment to launch the Second Chechen War—a campaign of brutal repression that razed Grozny to the ground and killed tens of thousands. It was a display of raw power, wrapped in the rhetoric of anti-terrorism. And it worked. Russians, desperate for order, saw Putin as the man who could restore national pride.
By the end of 1999, he was acting president. In 2000, he was elected in his own right.
Killing Dissent: The Long List of Silenced Voices
From the moment Putin took power, a new trend emerged—opposition voices began to vanish. Some disappeared from public life. Others vanished permanently.
One of the most tragic and emblematic cases was that of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist who dared to report on the atrocities in Chechnya. She was shot dead in her apartment building in 2006. The message was clear: truth would not be tolerated.
Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister turned critic of Putin’s regime, was gunned down just steps from the Kremlin in 2015. Alexei Navalny, perhaps the most prominent opposition figure of the 2010s, was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent in 2020 and later imprisoned. He died in a remote penal colony in 2024 under suspicious circumstances.
These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a systemic pattern. Journalists, activists, whistleblowers, and political challengers have all faced the same fate. Under Putin, criticism is not countered—it is eliminated.
The Imperial Dream: Russia’s Historical Obsession
Putin is not merely a nationalist. He is a revivalist.
He has repeatedly called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” But his nostalgia goes even deeper—past the Soviet era, to the age of the Czars. He envisions a Russia that is not just a powerful state, but a civilizational empire—sprawling, dominant, and feared.
This imperial mindset explains much of Russia’s foreign policy under Putin. It is not driven by communist ideology or even traditional geopolitics. It is driven by identity. By history. By revenge.
Putin sees millions of ethnic Russians living outside the country’s borders—in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Baltic states—and views their existence as proof that Russia has been diminished. His mission is to correct that.
And he’s willing to use any means necessary to achieve it.
Ukraine: The Heart of the Storm
No country has borne the brunt of Putin’s ambition more than Ukraine.
In 1991, more than 90% of Ukrainians voted for independence, including majorities in regions now occupied by Russian forces. The message was clear: Ukraine was a sovereign nation. But for Putin, this was unacceptable.
Over the next two decades, Russia interfered incessantly in Ukrainian politics—poisoning pro-Western leaders, funding pro-Russian candidates, and spreading disinformation. In 2010, Moscow successfully backed Viktor Yanukovych, a pliant president who tried to block Ukraine’s ties to the European Union.
But the Ukrainian people resisted. In 2014, massive protests—known as the Maidan Revolution—toppled Yanukovych. Rather than accept the loss of influence, Putin responded with force. Russia invaded Crimea and annexed it. Then came the war in Donbas, where Russian-backed separatists waged a bloody insurgency.
In 2022, Putin escalated once again—launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His justification? That Ukraine was a fake state, run by Nazis, threatening Russia’s security. The real reason? Ukraine was drifting westward—and proving that a Slavic, post-Soviet country could thrive as a democracy.
That, more than anything, threatened Putin’s worldview.
The Nuclear Betrayal: A Broken Promise to the World
In 1994, the world celebrated a landmark achievement: Ukraine, inheritor of the third-largest nuclear arsenal on Earth, agreed to disarm. In return, it received security guarantees from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom under the Budapest Memorandum.
It was hailed as a victory for nonproliferation. A world without more nuclear powers. A safer planet.
But in 2014, Russia shattered that agreement by invading Crimea. In 2022, it demolished the last illusion of restraint by launching a full-scale war. The message was devastating: nuclear disarmament might bring international praise, but it won’t guarantee protection.
This betrayal has global implications. Countries like Iran, North Korea, and others now view nuclear weapons not as liabilities, but as insurance policies. And the world is more dangerous for it.
The New Cold War: Democracy vs. Autocracy
Fareed Zakaria’s central warning is not about Putin alone. It’s about what Putin represents.
We are living in an era of revived autocracy. Around the world, strongmen are rising—Xi Jinping in China, Erdoğan in Turkey, Orbán in Hungary. Putin is their archetype. A master manipulator who blends nationalism, disinformation, and brute force into a singular, potent model of governance.
And now, disturbingly, parts of the West are beginning to echo that model. When American envoys praise Putin or repeat Kremlin talking points, it’s more than political theater. It’s the normalization of authoritarianism.
Zakaria urges us to remember what’s at stake. The battle is not just for Ukraine. It is for the future of liberal democracy. For a rules-based order. For the idea that power must answer to the people—not the other way around.
The Final Warning: Empires May Fade, But Ambition Does Not
History, Fareed Zakaria reminds us, is not a straight line. Empires fall. Tyrants die. But the forces that drive them—fear, pride, vengeance—do not disappear. They resurface in new forms, in new centuries, wearing new masks.
Vladimir Putin is not the last autocrat the world will face. But he may be one of the most dangerous. Because he understands power. Because he manipulates narrative. And because, for too long, he was underestimated.
Zakaria’s message is sobering. The fight for freedom is not over. It has just begun again.
