This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘What Putin’s victory means for Russia’
Sonja Hutson
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, March 19th, and this is your FT News Briefing.
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Nvidia is launching a so-called super chip. And we look ahead to the next six years of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Plus, the FT’s Heba Saleh tells us about Gaza’s lost generation. I’m Sonja Hutson and here’s the news you need to start your day.
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Nvidia unveiled its latest artificial intelligence chip yesterday. The company says it’s way cheaper and more powerful than its current leading hardware. Nvidia has been dominating the AI chip market, and this new super chip is expected to cement that position as AI development shifts into its next stage. Up until now, the focus has been on training AI models, and the next step is practical application of the technology. Nvidia’s new chip is set to become available later this year.
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Vladimir Putin cruised to victory over the weekend in Russia’s presidential election. He was re-elected with a record 87 per cent of the vote. Now, obviously, there was never any doubt that Putin would win, but the elections still serve as an important marker for the direction that Russia is heading. Here to talk to me about that is the FT’s Courtney Weaver. Hey, Courtney.
Courtney Weaver
Hey, Sonja.
Sonja Hutson
OK, so we know that Putin’s win was a foregone conclusion before the election even happened. But what, if anything, did we learn from the last few days of voting?
Courtney Weaver
Yeah. So just to step back, obviously, Putin has won a lot of elections in Russia, but this was the highest percentage ever. It’s also been a very different election than some of those other elections. So in the past, you know, the Kremlin has allowed opposition candidates to run against Putin, but not any opposition candidate who would have any chance of winning. But in this election, they really took it a step further. So there were two candidates who were professed to be anti-war, and they basically made it so they couldn’t compete at all. And actually the candidates that were allowed to compete, all of them basically said they had no dream of even winning and basically were endorsing Putin. So I think it tells you a couple of things. One, yes, there is high support for Putin in Russia, but two, there is no alternative to Putin in Russia. And that’s obviously deliberate. That’s exactly the way the Kremlin wants it.
Sonja Hutson
So after, you know, barring any legitimate candidates from running, I guess I’m wondering why Putin bothered with the election at all. I mean, what was he hoping to get out of this?
Courtney Weaver
Right, I mean, I think, you know, what a lot of political experts will tell you is it’s not really right to call it an election. It’s more like a referendum, a yes or no question. Do you support Vladimir Putin or do you not? And basically what the Kremlin wanted to show was that the Russian public is behind the president, and they’re behind the war in Ukraine. But, you know, if you go kind of deeper into the polling outside the election itself, you know, there’s this interesting research group in Moscow, an opposition group who’ve been asking questions about the Russian population. Do you support Putin? Do you support various policies of his? And you’ll see this kind of interesting divergence, where on the one hand, people say they do support Putin, but on the other hand, they want Russia to restore relations with the west. They want peace in Ukraine, and they don’t necessarily think that Putin is gonna do that. So I think it kind of highlights the delicate balance the Kremlin is trying to play. Yes, on the one hand, they’re becoming even more authoritarian than ever, you know. But on the other hand, they’re definitely aware of how tenable, how fragile the situation could be.
Sonja Hutson
Yeah. OK. So given that, has Putin indicated how he’s gonna balance the two, you know, this very real support that he has. But at the same time, knowing that Russians don’t necessarily agree with all of his goals, you know, particularly in Ukraine?
Courtney Weaver
So he gave us a little hint of it on Sunday night after the election was over. He basically said, I feel like I have a pretty good team, a pretty good cabinet. So he’s hinted that there’s not going to be any major reshuffle among the top, you know, people in his government. At the same time, I think the thing now that most people are worried about is obviously mobilisation, you know, something we haven’t seen since September 2022. Russia’s had some small gains on the battlefield in Ukraine in recent months, and reportedly tens of thousands of casualties that happened as a result of that. So I think people are still worried, you know, will Putin call another mobilisation something that obviously would be easier to do now that the election is out of the way? Another thing people are worried about is the rouble. There’s this kind of psychological barrier of 100 roubles to the dollar that the Kremlin does not like to get past. That didn’t happen before the election, with the exception of a brief moment last year. Are they going to be willing to let the rouble slip past that barrier now that the election’s out of the way? I think those are the main things we’re looking at.
Sonja Hutson
Based on everything we’ve been talking about. What position do you think Putin is entering his next term of office in?
Courtney Weaver
I think he feels pretty good. I think the Kremlin feels pretty good. They really have laid the groundwork over the past few years, even before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, to really stamp out the opposition, to stamp out free media in the country, whatever free media existed before the war started. I think they feel like they have the leverage to kind of take any policy decisions needed to keep the economy under control, keep the war under control. You know, for all intents and purposes, it seems like Russia is kind of continuing on the same course it was before the election.
Sonja Hutson
Courtney Weaver is the FT’s special correspondent for eastern Europe. Thanks, Courtney.
Courtney Weaver
Thanks.
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Sonja Hutson
The war between Israel and Hamas has been raging for more than five months now. And for most people in Gaza, the biggest concern has just been survival. But even after the fighting ends, the future looks pretty bleak, especially for Gaza’s young people. Here to talk to me about that is the FT’s Cairo correspondent, Heba Saleh. Hi, Heba.
Heba Saleh
Hello.
Sonja Hutson
OK, Heba, so when it comes to this idea of a lost generation, what concerns are we talking about specifically?
Heba Saleh
We are concerned about the total devastation of the educational system in Gaza. Of course, there’s been no teaching at all at schools and universities since the start of the war, but it’s not a question of a temporary interruption. Almost all of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed or damaged to some degree. Many schools, hundreds of schools have been destroyed or damaged. And people, displaced people, are living in remaining schools because their homes have been destroyed. Of course, more than 30,000 people have been killed from all walks of life, teachers at schools, professors, thousands of students. And then you add to this cultural figures, doctors, many people who contributed to Gazan society.
Sonja Hutson
Wow. So put together this physical destruction of infrastructure and the loss of life that we’re talking about. What’s the outlook for the educational system in Gaza?
Heba Saleh
It’s a kind of brain drain through death, as one person described it to me. Then there is another type of brain drain that is expected because the education system has been destroyed, because there are no schools to go back to, nor universities to teach at, many people will want to leave if they can once the war has ended.
Sonja Hutson
So Heba, what do you think it would take to reverse this educational destruction and rebuild it? Is that even possible?
Heba Saleh
I think the first thing to say is that the future of Gaza is very uncertain, because the political arrangements that will govern this future are unknown. But Israel has made clear it plans to reoccupy Gaza. It plans to exert both administrative and security control over the enclave. And this is without thinking about the cost of all this. We’ve heard from a senior Palestinian official at Davos that the estimate for how much it would cost to rebuild just housing is $15bn. And right now, it is not clear where this will come from and whether Israel will allow materials like cement to enter the territory, because building materials in general have been restricted in Gaza even before this war.
Sonja Hutson
And what are the risks, then, to this massive brain drain and the difficulties and costs of rebuilding?
Heba Saleh
Gazans are very angry at Israel. And this war was the level of devastation, was the number of people killed, with entire families dying under the rubble of their homes. I think what we are hearing from experts from Palestinians is that this is going to create a radicalised generation. Maybe Hamas will be degraded or maybe it will disappear. But the idea of fighting against Israel is probably not going to die, and they expect it to become stronger and more radical and more extreme generation of Palestinians.
Sonja Hutson
Heba Saleh is the FT’s Cairo correspondent.
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Before we go, we have an offer for you to get access to even more FT journalism. You can get up to 40 per cent off a standard digital subscription until April 4th. Just go to ft.com/briefingsale for more details. We’ve got a link to that in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.
