And Putin didn't have to pay much for his new clout. Russia has only lost 25 people in Syria and spent between US$2.5 million (NZ$3.65m) and US$4m a day, a manageable amount compared to Russia's US$51 billion defense budget for this year. In fact, despite much that is said about Russian war crimes and brutality, data from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights show that the Russian intervention has not increased the Syrian war's death toll this year. In the 11 months through November, 46,442 people were killed, as against 55,219 in 2015 and 73,447 in 2014.
So why, at the end of the year, did Putin seem reluctant to celebrate? Even his seemingly boastful statement on Thursday that "today we are stronger than any potential aggressor" was apparently a bit of trolling rather than self-aggrandizement. It provoked US State Department spokesman John Kirby to respond with high praise for the US military, enabling a smirking Putin to stress at the press conference that he was only talking about aggressors.
One reason could be that Putin is yet to reap any tangible rewards from his seeming successes.
Putin, unlike many of his supporters, hasn't acted overjoyed at Trump's victory. It's unclear how the mercurial billionaire will behave toward Russia and how much he'll be constrained by a hostile Republican and Democratic establishment. Trump's potentially Russia-friendly pick for secretary of state, Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson, faces skeptical vetting by the Senate. Putin's intentions concerning Ukraine-related sanctions are unclear - he hasn't spoken on the issue since a non-committal response to a reporter's question in July. In 2017, Putin could build an amicable relationship with Trump or have a monumental falling-out.
The EU has just extended sanctions against Russia through July. The buoyancy of Putin's nationalist, euroskeptic allies in the West is still an unrealized threat to the establishment. In Austria, the Freedom Party, whose leaders recently came to Moscow to kowtow, has just suffered a painful electoral defeat, losing a bid for the presidency. Brexit hasn't produced a Putin-friendly government in the UK There's a chance that in 2017, nationalist parties will fail in the Netherlands, France and Germany, destroying any post-Trump magic. And French front-runner Francois Fillon may not be as pro-Russian as president as in his opposition years: His immediate goal is likely be to keep the EU together, and unanimity on Russian sanctions has become a litmus test of unity.
Putin has tried to prove that the sanctions are all but dead by selling off a stake in state-owned oil behemoth Rosneft to a consortium of US ally Qatar and Swiss-based commodity trader Glencore, funded by Italian bank Intesa. But the bank appears to be having some last-minute doubts about jumping into this politically fraught deal, and Russia is unlikely to receive the foreign investors' money this year. The deal looked great for Putin, but it could fail in 2017.
Ukraine's desire to get away from Russia's orbit is still as strong as during the 2014 revolution. Though the government is unpopular, it's hard to imagine the next one being pro-Russian. It might even be more staunchly nationalist than Poroshenko's. So far, Putin has managed to destabilize its neighbor but hasn't improved his chances of establishing control.
The Syrian success is also tenuous. Putin's hope, as he told the press conference, is to establish a ceasefire so that Russia, Turkey and Iran could broker a deal among the warring sides. That, however, would be conditional on defeating the Islamic State, a tough job if there ever was one, and on getting all the belligerents to the table - an achievement that would seal Putin's reputation as a foreign policy wizard, but one that seems as far off today as intergalactic travel. Putin has strengthened his ally Assad's hand in negotiations that may not even take place in the foreseeable future - or turn out to be as ineffective as previous attempts to pacify Syria.
To top all that, Russia's economic situation is precarious. The 2017 budget is based on $40-per-barrel Russian oil, and if OPEC can't deliver promised production cuts or if US frackers start pumping at the first sign of falling inventories, Russia may face another year of recession and spending cuts. Russians have been patient throughout the last two years' economic woes, but one more year with little good news could even undermine Putin's seemingly unassailable advantage in the 2018 presidential election. Putin has done his best to manage Russia's finances prudently and 2016 has been easy on the country's currency reserves, but that has been a holding action rather than a brilliant anti-crisis strategy.
That may be why Putin wants to talk about micromanaging Russia's problems - roads, the environment, a spike in the consumption of cheap, life-endangering alcohol - and not Russia's geopolitical achievements. He is at pains to demonstrate his grasp of the most minute budget and macroeconomic numbers. He's telling Russians that he's thinking of them, not global hegemony. The geopolitics have mostly helped Putin consolidate his domestic support, and if next year the favorable narratives start to fall apart, Putin needs to make sure people's everyday lives show some improvement. That would require at least as much luck as Putin has had this year.
