The question of how ideological Putin and Putinism are has been a topic of discussion over the last decade. The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made the topic even more important as analysts tried to account for the role of Putin’s thinking as a cause of the war, and to establish whether the invasion marked a new and more ideological phase in the development of Putinism. Much of the discussion of Putin, Putinism, and ideology has focussed on the content of Putin’s ideology, its historical antecedents, and whether it is equivalent to Soviet ideology. Whilst not uninteresting these debates miss something about Putin’s relationship to ideology – his uneven usage of ideology overtime. This talk examines this issue and seeks to explain how Putin’s use of ideology has developed.