How Not to Run a Country: Putin’s Russia

“War is a continuation of politics by other means.” — Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Politics can continue by other means aside from direct kinetic war. Proxy wars and sanctions are just among the few tools that, if I must interject, have made conventional military might old-fashioned. Even if statecraft requires the monopolization of violence (for repression) to consolidate power, history itself is littered with cases where repressive regimes tried to hold onto power, only to violently collapse and/or be replaced with another repressive regime.

Anyone with even an elementary level knowledge of Russia will recognize this, whether concerning Tsarist era power struggles, the Bolshevik Revolution, or the last days of the Soviet Union. The ongoing war in Ukraine, which once both Western and Russian state media marketed about a Russian triumph within a span of three days or something similar along those lines, has now become a four-year, medium-intensity war of attrition. Many people, from a more “realist” perspective or judging from conventional military dynamics, including myself at one point, have written off Ukraine, even if many conceded that “Russia has a bloody nose.”

I don’t think “bloody nose” is the right metaphor anymore, because anyone who has been paying attention to what’s going on in Russia will know that it’s far worse. The ongoing Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries and storage facilities have created significant damage to Russian oil export revenue and even rationing inside Russia, the fiscal situation is increasingly dire for a country that maintains a massive subsidies-corruption machine, and core political supporters of Putin’s regime have criticized him significantly over the handling of the invasion, domestic policies, and even censorship. Historical allies of the regime have been arrested or even referred to “punitive psychiatry” (a Soviet era form of political detention).

So what exactly is going on?

None of the signals analyzed below signal an inevitable regime change—that is still hard to happen. However, elite fragmentation is happening and will continue as the war likely remains in a stalemate for both sides for the foreseeable future. This is a bad proposition for Russia on the frontline, because casualties are reaching around 35 thousand per month, and total casualties and KIA figures remain double that of Ukrainian numbers and have exceeded the rate of recruitment.

The domestic homefront, once said to be booming or resilient to sanctions, has deteriorated. Those 2022-2024 figures of GDP growth of 3 percent per annum were simply distortions via military spending, and Russia is on track for a recession, which will be a lot more painful. Inflation within the traditionally heavily-subsidized Muscovy (Moscow-St. Petersburg area) remains single-digit, the hinterlands and rural areas are experiencing double-digit levels, and official statistics are certainly hiding a lot of distortions.

And this hasn’t accounted for how deep Russian distortions are. The commonly-cited figure of Russia spending 8 percent of its GDP or about 40 percent of its federal government budget on the war is misleading; the sanctioning of Russia’s exports, which are primarily raw commodities and unprocessed metals made by politically-connected mono-industrial/extraction towns (such as Norilsk) and corporations require heavy state support to keep prices artificially low, thanks to their outdated Soviet-era capital (and the fact that these towns were forcibly settled via Soviet-era central planning and still maintains their status as “closed towns,” i.e., no freedom to leave or move in without prior authorization). After years of Western sanctions and Chinese monopsony, these entities hardly turn profits even under subsidies, so the real war spendings are more significant than just munitions and manpower.

Moreover, this is compounded by a Russia running record government deficits, with the entire year’s expected expenditures overblown by almost 60 percent within a four-month period, with the Finance Ministry arguing for slashing non-military expenditures, meaning whatever marginal funding provincial Russia outside of the Muscovy region receives will be lessened. This is a serious problem, because the patronage/loyalty oath-heavy nature of the Russian state across Tsarist, Soviet, and modern times means it must fund these regions, especially more ethnic ones like Chechnya (though an extreme example due to the volatile history of that region), otherwise it risks regional fragmentation.

All of these are happening under constant Ukrainian strikes on Russian logistics, air defense, and oil producing/refining/storage facilities, which have introduced the aforementioned rationing and Russian importation of fuel, while selling crude oil at thinner margins to fund war effort. The major danger for Russia here is that Ukraine has severely damaged Russia’s air defense and decimated the latter’s elite drone units (which were the primary cause of Ukraine’s setbacks during 2023-2025), turning the tide into a bloodier attrition for the Russian side.

The Monster Putin Built

Behind or even side-by-side with daily propaganda about the “Holy Rus’” and “Ukrainian Nazis” are increased signs of elite grumbling not just towards the West and Ukraine, but also increasingly towards the Russian state and even Putin himself. In late May/early June, longtime pro-Putin activist Ilya Remeslo was detained for 30 days in a political psychiatric facility after he published a manifesto calling Putin “illegitimate,” and a “thief and war criminal” for failure of Russian advancements into Ukraine. For those unaware, Remeslo was known for damaging the late Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation via successful lawsuits and acted with coordination with the Kremlin.

Nevertheless, Remeslo remains a lackey. But he is far from the only one voicing discontent with recent decisions from Putin. Remeslo did resonate with a majority of Russians over one thing: opposition to Putin’s (now backtracked) decision to ban Telegram, even if “opposition” from politicians towards the ban never directed it at Putin but “incompetent officials.” Even more significant are increasing discontent with the war itself from key Russian politicians and oligarchs, as well as talks between Kyiv and well-known oligarch Roman Abramovich.

Far from pro- or anti-war Western perceptions, the Russian political system is far from a simple image of an expansionist/“realist” monolith. Expansionism—whether through Third Rome ideology or Soviet nostalgism—is the only long-term goal Russian ideologues and politicians share. Post-1991 and the botched “liberalization” of the Russian economy played a major role in fueling Russian political radicalization in all directions; that’s why neo-Nazi groups like the now-state controlled Wagner (no longer active in Ukraine), Rusich, etc. fight alongside other soldiers carrying Soviet or Tsarist flags, and these people would have clashed with each other ten or twenty years ago, if it wasn’t for Putin’s co-optation into controlled opposition.

This also applies to rent-seeking oligarchs, bureaucrats, and the security service, for they also have their own interests and differences. Putin’s rise to power and hold onto it are heavily dependent on them, because they form formidable power bases (which bureaucrats have threatened Putin over pension and benefits reform) and contribute financially to Putin. The recent arrests of Ilya Traber and his associates over a six-year long murder case, in which the Kremlin acknowledged that Traber was among the many criminal syndicate figures which Putin knew and had working relationships with. As the war mounts and tensions emerge with oligarchs from demands for “voluntary” contributions to war efforts, as well as liquidations of billions worth of oligarch assets.

All of these don’t point to catastrophic state failure in the foreseeable future, but the risk of cohesion loss is real, making Putin no longer untouchable. No, there won’t be daily protests, but fatigue and discontent will emerge at accelerated paces within the key support bases Putin depends upon as the war continues its current trajectory. Just recently, the Kremlin acknowledged a video of a disgruntled soldier in Ukraine threatening an armed revolt over systematic abuse and ill-treatment of soldiers.

And Russia cannot depend further on North Korea or China for tide-turning support. The first need not to be elaborated further, and the latter has every incentive to thread control over the Amur region due to revanchism and extract Russian resources at steep discounts, such as the ongoing delay over Power of Siberia 2 unless China was sold gas with pre-2022 prices (extreme discounts at already low Chinese petroleum prices), and make a profit by selling both weapons and critical components to both Ukraine and Russia via third party countries or companies (China has a history of selling weaponry to all sides during conflicts, such as during the South Sudanese War).

What Putin has managed to accomplish isn’t a unified Russian society, but one increasingly exhausted over the state of Russia. For over 28 years, Putin’s decision to position himself as the only viable choice for Russia has left it without a “credible” alternative, but competing teleologies of Russian destiny and pure pragmatic rent-seeking that are either polarizing or simply unloved. The post-2022 radicalization of Russian society via intensified propaganda has only created increasingly difficult demands on Putin.

Again, while regime change is unlikely, at least for now, the real danger is this: much like the 1963 assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem by the CIA and Kennedy administration, it produced widespread political instability via revolving doors of successive junta and consequent emboldening of the Viet Cong that led to direct American intervention in Vietnam. Since there’s no “credible” alternative to Putin and only ideologically-opposed factions that are well-armed, the prospect for immense political violence is real. For now, Russia and Ukraine will pay an immense price in both treasure and blood.