The Economist Magazine Cover Story-Isatiable Putin

 

February 26th 2022

Cover Story How we chose this week’s image

On Monday, when we set about designing this week’s cover, Ukraine was still an independent country. Shortly after we sent it to the printers, Ukraine’s sovereignty had been trampled by Russian invaders, storming towards the capital, Kyiv. In the hours between sending the cover and releasing the pages that lie beneath it, we frantically rewrote large parts of the week’s issue to take in the news of air strikes and advancing columns of Russian armour. But we did not need to change the question posed on the cover. Tragically, it had only become more pressing.

Here is one of the covers we used in 2014, when Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, annexed Crimea and then threatened the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. We thought about producing an updated version, showing Donbas in the gullet of the bear and Kyiv about to be consumed. But back then, Mr Putin decided to stop. Today, we expect him to go all the way. We needed a cover that contrasted with 2014’s rather than one that repeated it.

We looked once again at the tank from last week, and we collected plenty more images like it. One of the startling things about this conflict is that the build-up of troops and armour on the borders of Ukraine has been plain for all to see. The mystery has been what Mr Putin wants. Had the invasion started by the cover deadline we might have chosen a news photograph, but in the build-up it felt wrong.

The Ukrainian flag depicts broad blue skies above fields of golden wheat. We thought about mooring a barrage balloon that suggested the impending threat of attack. It alludes to idiom, too: this is a balloon that is ready to go up.

In the trigger can you see the profile of a certain dictator? This idea has a subtle menace—but a pistol is too subtle to represent the massed tanks, fighter jets, missiles and helicopters that were about to strike.

When we first saw this idea, on Monday, February 21st, its representation of Mr Putin seemed demented. But later that day Russia’s president staged a televised session of the country’s security council, in which he bullied and humiliated the hard men in his inner circle as he elicited their backing for war. That same evening, in an address to the nation, he raged against the injustices heaped upon his country. As he did so, it became clear that Mr Putin had set aside the everyday calculus of risks and benefits that guides most leaders and was instead driven by the dangerous, delusional idea that he has an appointment with history. Suddenly, making him seem demented made sense.

We have set the image against a new background and enlarged the tank. Mr Putin’s mind is full of war. His eyes look daggers. We were almost there. However, black on red was muddy: we thought black on yellow would be stronger and clearer—it is the warning signal on a wasp’s abdomen or the aposematism of a poisonous frog. And we tweaked the words. One answer to the question “Where will he stop?” can be found on the map: Kyiv, perhaps, or the Ukrainian border or the Baltic states. But another is the one Mr Putin tried to get across in his battle speech on Thursday morning. When he boasted of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and pointedly threatened to “crush” any country that stood in his way, he wanted the world to believe that he will stop at nothing.

Cover image • View large image (“Where will he stop?”)