by Keith Brown, Director, The Melikian Center
In 2015, political scientist Karen Dawisha published a World Affairs article entitled “The Putin Principle,” in which she highlighted the key concept of bespredel. Originating in prison slang, it described the “limitless and total lack of accountability” exhibited by the gang leader who comes to believe he is above all constraints. Putin rose to power as self-styled champion of the "dictatorship of law" that would end the era of bespredel; but Dawisha and others have diagnosed the realities of his kleptocratic system, which operates under the adage attributed to Brazilian politician Getulio Vargas: "For my friends, anything: For my enemies, the law!" Over the past quarter-century, courageous Russians who have called out Putin’s utter disregard for ordinary Russians’ lives and his looting of the country's resources have been targeted by bullet, poison or imprisonment. So passed journalist Anna Politkovskaya (2006), accountant Sergei Magnitsky (2009), politicians Boris Nemtsov (2015) and Alexei Navalny (2024) and many, many more.
Vladimir Putin has not yet eliminated, seduced or cowed the people of Ukraine, who have been standing up to his effort to export the Putin Principle westward for over a decade. When in 2013 then-President Viktor Yanukovych refused to ratify parliament’s decision to sign an EU accession agreement, Ukrainians launched the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. When Russia then illegally annexed Crimea and deployed over 50,000 soldiers into Eastern Ukraine, Ukrainians fought to protect their country’s sovereignty.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inherited this “frozen conflict” when he took office in 2019, after winning 73% of the vote. From day one, he pursued the goal of securing Ukraine’s future against Russian aggression. In his first year in office, he entered peace negotiations with Putin, despite popular criticism. By 2020—well aware that Ukrainian neutrality had provided no shield against Putin’s expansionist foreign policy—Zelensky signed a new National Security Strategy which prioritized Ukraine’s relations with NATO. Recently, Zelensky reaffirmed his commitment to peace over power, stating he is 'ready' to resign if it would bring peace or secure Ukraine's path to NATO membership—an extraordinary contrast to the bespredel mindset of leaders like Putin.
A group of people in Phoenix Arizona hold up flags and signs to show their solidarity with Ukraine on the 3-year anniversary of Russia's invasion. Photo by Keith Brown
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zelensky has been the face of Ukrainian resilience. His leadership has inspired ordinary people all over the world. Among them is Dan Oved, an Arizonan musician who traces his own ancestry to Jewish grandparents, driven out of what is now Ukraine by the Russian pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th century. So Dan saw in Zelensky (a Jewish Ukrainian) a powerful symbol of resistance to aggression and hate. And he found Zelensky’s backstory fascinating: a TV actor who played an everyman, called out corruption, lawlessness and bullying, and was elected president, first in art, then in life.
I first heard Dan play his acoustic version of the TV theme song of “Servant of the People” at Thanksgiving in 2022, at Camp De Benneville Pines in California. During 2023, Dan graciously agreed to come up from his home in Tucson to Tempe to record the song, as well as the story of why he was inspired to translate it, and to add a new verse. Visit Dan's page in our Creative Horizons series to explore his artist statement and the inspiration behind his work.
Zelensky’s stand against authoritarian overreach is now under threat from the West as well as the East. The Putin Principle, and bespredel, now have adherents and enablers in a number of NATO countries. Whether suffering from amnesia, enslaved by kompromat, or hooked on cruelty, they ignore the facts. Since February 2022, Russia’s criminal aggression has killed 45,000 Ukrainian soldiers and wounded 390,000 more. 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted and are held captive in Russia, and over 6 million Ukrainian civilians are refugees in Western Europe. Russia occupies 20% of sovereign Ukraine.
Zelensky’s youth, his moral clarity and his willingness to speak truth to power remind us of what courageous leadership looks like in a democracy under assault.