President visits part of his own country. Shock. Vladimir Putin’s visit yesterday to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, perched precariously on the other side of the Baltic states, was not, as some overheated commentary has claimed, a threat to Nato. Rather, it was a sign of his renewed need to campaign domestically.

The threat from Kaliningrad and to the Suwałki Gap is heavily mythologised

Kaliningrad, once East Prussian Königsberg, is a territory a little larger than Northern Ireland that was annexed by the Soviets at the end of the second world war and subject to an intensive period of industrialisation, militarisation and colonisation. More than three quarters of the population are now ethnic Russians, and although a handful of activists claim there is strong support for independence (last year, the self-proclaimed Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum held a methodologically-dubious internet poll which they claimed showed 72 per cent in favour), there is no sign of any particular disaffection.

Yesterday, Putin flew to Kaliningrad for a brief working visit, which in the current environment has been characterised as a taunt, warning or threat for the West. After all, many of the scenarios for some kind of future war with Russia revolve around the Suwałki Gap, a 40-mile long corridor between Belarus and Kaliningrad. The fear is that a lightning strike through Belarus could then cut the Baltic States off from the rest of Nato. Beyond that, Kaliningrad itself is often presented as a Russian bastion in the Baltic region, a hub for what are known as A2AD or ‘Anti-Access and Area Denial’ capabilities, whose missiles could block the region’s seas and airspace to the West.

The threat from Kaliningrad and to the Suwałki Gap is, though, heavily mythologised. The demands of the Ukraine war have left Kaliningrad’s garrison cannibalised, and Russia’s notionally unbeatable air and sea defences have proven all too porous. More to the point, what to nervous Nato planners may look like an advance Russian base deep in their territory looks to their equally uncomfortable counterparts in Moscow like a pretty indefensible hostage to fortune, which could easily be isolated and bombarded in time of war.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, batted away the claims, saying that ‘when the president visits the regions of the Russian Federation, it is not a message to Nato countries,’ but simply a case of his ‘doing what he has been doing for many years – working on the development of our country and our regions.’ Of course, any time a head of state does anything, there are going to be a multitude of political calculations at work. However, a meeting with students at Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, a sit-down with governor Anton Alikhanov to discuss the region’s economy and some public grumbles about the delayed construction of the Planet Ocean marine exhibition centre hardly constitute a full-throated threat to Nato.

Perversely, it may be the last of those that give the best clue to Putin’s visit. Planet Ocean, a spherical building attached to the Museum of the World Ocean, was initially meant to be ready in time for the Fifa World Cup in Russia in 2018. Time and again there have been delays and although it was eventually promised that it would be ready for this summer, even this deadline has slipped. This gives Putin a chance to play one of his favourite roles, the good tsar foiled at every turn by corrupt or incompetent boyars – aristocrats – who rolls into town to upbraid them and force them to do their duty by their long-suffering citizens.

In Kaliningrad, then, when a student raised the Planet Ocean issue, Putin was able to put in a pantomime turn as if he didn’t know exactly what had been going on (and that the question may well have been planted): ‘What problems are there, I don’t understand? We allocated all the money. Where’s the museum?’ Alikhanov was forced to promise to move heaven and earth and essentially stake his reputation on it: ‘we are finishing it this year, it will be put into operation.’

This is a seemingly-trivial reminder not only that the Russian regime does still depend on ‘manual control,’ but also that Putin’s dwindling legitimacy depends not just on things getting done, but maintaining the narrative that what isn’t done is because others let him down, and what is accomplished is thanks to him. Personalised authoritarianisms depend on this kind of myth-making, and the constant re-assertion of the narrative.

Of course, Kaliningrad is often used for messaging to the West, not least by moving nuclear-capable – even if probably not actually nuclear-armed – Iskander missiles to and from the exclave whenever Putin wants to get our attention. But we shouldn’t succumb to solipsism and assume every statement and action is meant for us. March’s presidential elections in Russia may not be in doubt, but Putin is under pressure, facing a restive public and a disaffected elite. Ever since the mutiny by Wagner mercenaries in June of last year, he has been back on the road, visiting regions across the country, trying to recapture his old status of the good tsar. In other words, after so long being able to take power for granted, Putin is again having to work for it.