When Vladimir Putin first came to power in Russia nearly 20 years ago, he was widely seen as a possible saviour for his country. The government of Boris Yeltsin, whom he replaced, had plunged Russia into chaos. Social unrest, a debt crisis, widespread corruption, crony capitalism and an ever dwindling role on the world scene were hallmarks of the Yeltsin years. Lack of discipline and general incompetence were also characteristics of the Yeltsin government. When he took over, Putin was viewed as a tough, no-nonsense politician who would tackle Russia’s many problems, bringing order and discipline to an erratic state enterprise. And observers were not disappointed. He instituted much-needed reforms and brought into office a cadre of efficient operatives. And as order was progressively restored, Russians came to value Putin for his accomplishments. In polls, his popularity ratings reached levels that most leaders could only envy and dream about.

But if reform and order were characteristics of the early years of Putin’s presidency, so, too, was authoritarianism. Putin had spent his early years as an officer in the KGB, the Soviet Union’s civilian security and intelligence agency. The KGB was, among other things, a results-oriented organization. It was determined to achieve its ends with little regard for the rule of law or accepted civilized conventions. It was ruthless in its pursuit of political dissidents and those it viewed as traitors. And it played fast and loose with the truth as it carried out assassination plots and disinformation campaigns at home and around the world. This was the organization in which Putin got his training during his formative years and it has come to prominence during his time in office.

Fairly early on, Putin made a point of appointing former KGB officers to key positions in his government and in state enterprises. These were people on whom he could rely for complete loyalty and unquestioning obedience. And he has got it. He also gave rein to his anti-democratic instincts by changing the rules for the selection of regional governors. These had previously been elected by the population of each region. Putin abolished the system and henceforth all governors were to be appointed by him alone. He also created a political party of his own to contest elections to the Duma or national parliament, and was thus able to further expand the powers of the presidency.

Russia’s young and flawed democracy has suffered devastating blows at the hands of Putin and his associates. While presidential and parliamentary elections continue to be held, these have become progressively more farcical and meaningless. Opposition parties are denied access to the mostly state-run media, and their candidates are routinely harassed, beaten up or arrested by the security forces. Many opposition politicians and journalists have died under mysterious circumstances. In the last presidential election, the only viable opposition candidate, Alexei Navalny, was arrested, tried and jailed on trumped-up charges. The simple fact is that now Vladimir Putin is an elected but unconstrained autocrat.

Putin’s tendency to want to eradicate anyone he sees as an opponent has not been confined to Russian soil. In 2006, Russian operatives murdered a former KGB agent by the name of Alexander Litvinenko, who was living in London at the time. When the British authorities identified the perpetrators of this crime, the Russian government not only refused to extradite them, but awarded one of them a medal for “services to the motherland.” In 2018, two agents of the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, used a chemical poison in an attempt to kill a former GRU officer living in England. They managed to inflict serious damage on the man, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, but did not kill them. The British government, after a painstaking investigation, clearly identified the perpetrators and concluded that the operation was almost certainly approved at a senior level of the Russian state. Putin has denied any Russian involvement.

Putin has been far more forthright about some of his other foreign adventures. In 2014, Russian forces invaded and occupied Crimea, and following a rather truncated referendum, Crimea was incorporated into the Russian state. And taking advantage of the discontents of Russian speaking minorities in eastern Ukraine, he encouraged them to raise the flag of rebellion and secession against the Ukrainian state. He provided the rebels with a lot of material assistance, including advanced weapons systems, and went as far as to infiltrate disguised Russian soldiers to aid them in their fight. The fighting in eastern Ukraine goes on sporadically to this day and has produced thousands of casualties. Putin’s actions in Ukraine represent not only serious violations of international law, but also a breach of the agreements reached following the end of the Cold War for the creation of a new European security architecture. His actions have created a heightened sense of apprehension among western European countries and have led to suffering for the Russian people because of the western economic sanctions they provoked.

Putin has long been a supporter of the blood-stained Syrian regime of President Bashar al Assad because it represents Russia’s only remaining political and military asset in the Middle East and because its survival is key to Putin’s ambition to reassert Russia’s importance as a world power. In the early years of Syria’s civil war, Putin contented himself with providing political support and selling weapons to the Assad regime. When it became apparent in 2015 that there was a real risk that the regime would collapse, Putin adopted a far more proactive stance. He dispatched troops to Syria to train and aid the Syrian army. More momentously, he sent Russian military aircraft to assist the Syrian air force in its bombing campaign against rebel strongholds. Russian bombers have repeatedly been involved in raids in which thousands of civilians have been killed. Through his actions, Putin has made Russia totally complicit in the numerous war crimes committed by the Assad regime. Not only has this been thoroughly detrimental to Russia’s international image and reputation, but has also served to sour its relations with most western countries.

For all the wrong reasons, Putin sees himself engaged in a competition for power and influence with the countries of the West. For years he has endeavoured to undermine the solidarity of the NATO alliance, a task in which he has been greatly aided of late by the words and actions of U.S. President Donald Trump. He has mounted cyberattacks and blatantly intervened in the domestic politics of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. Most recently it has been reported that the Russian government is providing arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, for the simple reason that the Taliban are fighting the Americans. This is indicative of Putin’s hostility to the West, since it flies in the face of standard Russian policy, which is to oppose Islamist movements everywhere for fear that they might infect Russia’s Muslim majority provinces. And now Russia is conducting a massive military exercise, in co-operation with China, in an effort to intimidate the West.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines thug as a “vicious or brutal ruffian.” Through his actions both nationally and internationally, Vladimir Putin would seem to live up to this definition.

Louis A. Delvoie is a Fellow in the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University.