When its first democratically elected president of RussiaBoris Yeltsin, resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999, publicly asked his chosen but little-known Vladimir Putin to “take care of Russia”.

A quarter of a century later, Putin claims to have managed to do just that and more. As he wrapped up his marathon annual news conference on December 19, Putin asserted that he had resisted efforts by the US and its Western allies to subjugate Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“I have done everything so that Russia can be an independent and sovereign state that can make decisions for its own interests,” Putin stressed, “rather than for the interests of other countries that used the country for their own purposes.”

But as 2024 draws to a close, Russia is worse off than Putin’s rhetoric, the Washington Post notes in its analysis. Russian forces are making slow but steady advances in Ukrainebut estimates from some NATO member states put thousands of Russians dead or wounded in the nearly three-year war.

Part of Russia’s Kursk region is under Ukrainian occupation, with Kiev looking to use this as a bargaining chip in future talks. This month, Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical forces, was killed in an explosion in Moscow. The Russian economy – under severe sanctions – is in dire straits, with annual inflation approaching 10%. Russia’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged at an impressive 21% last week only after Putin had previously publicly called for a “balanced decision” amid estimates of a 2% hike.

Meanwhile, Putin’s closest ally in the Middle East, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, was ousted from power and took refuge in Moscow, forcing the Kremlin to withdraw forces and equipment from bases in the country.

Meanwhile, on Christmas Day, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane with 67 passengers and crew – including Russians – crashed in Kazakhstan. American and other officials have argued that the plane was likely shot down by Russian air defenses. As of 2022, Putin has used the invasion of Ukraine to transform his country, building a more militarized society, ready to duel the West for decades, changing the education system, the culture, the role of women and youth.

In recent months, these changes have been established for good. And Putin’s belief that he will emerge victorious in the war in Ukraine is being strengthened in the wake of the election of Donald Trump in the US. During his annual press conference, Putin said his only regret was not invading Ukraine sooner.

War has entered Russian schools. In September, a mandatory course in which children learn to be ready to defend the country, including lessons on how to operate a Kalashnikov, began. Russian soldiers – including murderers who have been released to fight at the front – speak in the halls to children as national heroes.

Careers in jobs like software development are no longer promoted as a dream job. Instead, they are taught to pursue careers in “new and promising fields,” such as drone manufacturing.

“Still thinking about going to 10th grade? Join the super elite at Alabuga Polytechnic Institute to study aerial navigation and drone programming,” read an ad for a Tatarstan-based industrial hub employing students to build Iranian-designed drones.

The ad, which depicts blond teenage boys looking at high-tech computers, is aimed at 15-year-olds who can skip higher education.

Putin, faced with a declining population and the demographic risk of sending tens of thousands of young men to the front lines, away from their wives, has found a new obsession: using every possible incentive to persuade women to give birth early and often. Government data showed 599,600 children were born in Russia in the first half of 2024, the lowest birth rate since 1999, a figure the Kremlin described as “catastrophic”.

Schools were once again turned into a testing ground for a new extracurricular, “family studies,” created to “solve demographic problems.” The course textbooks teach students that women should be obedient and demonize abortion.

At times, the government’s desire to increase births has bordered on the absurd. In November, parliament passed a law banning “child-free propaganda.”

A local version of an MTV reality show, ’16 and Pregnant’, created in the 2000s, was originally intended as a cautionary tale against teenage pregnancy and drew the ire of the authorities, who tried to ban it because it allegedly promoted impunity.

This changed in 2024. The show was renamed “Mom at 16” and began to glamorize the challenges of raising a child as a poor teenager, emphasizing instead the “beauty of motherhood”.

Several districts have introduced one-time cash payments of $1,000 to $2,000 for pregnant students. Payments are conditional on the women continuing the pregnancy beyond 12 weeks, which is the legal limit for abortion in Russia. Some MPs have proposed legislation to reduce this limit to nine weeks.

Despite Russian businessmen complaining that inflation is stifling investment and citizens grumbling about soaring food costs, Putin maintains that his country is stronger and better off than ever, that Russia is shaping a new global class and what he earns in Ukraine.

In a keynote address at the Valdai Forum a few weeks ago, Putin referred to this new world order as a given.

“He seems to think he’s won the war,” said journalist and author Mikhail Zygar, who, like many Kremlin critics, lives in exile. “His speech implied that, with the Democrats’ defeat in the US election, the Western world against which he fought has been defeated – and Putin delivers his verdict.”

“He’s waiting for Trump,” Zygar added. “Trump is practically seen as the mascot for the end of the old world order and the collapse of liberal democratic ideology.”

Although Trump has pointed to Putin’s inability to prevent Assad’s removal as evidence of Russia’s economic and military weakness, Putin has brushed aside criticism and said he is ready to work with the incoming president.

In recent days, Putin has also boasted about the Oresnik missile, a new hypersonic missile that Russia fired at Ukraine in response to outgoing US President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range US weapons to strike Russian terrain.

The missile did not scare the West as much as Putin had hoped, with Western experts questioning its capabilities and Russia’s ability to mass-produce it. However, it has given a new dimension to the Russian president’s rhetoric.

“Putin has successfully convinced Washington that he is to be feared and that he is crazy enough to drag NATO into war,” analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, concluded in a recent report.