TOWARDS THE END OF THE PUTIN REGIME

With the invasion of Ukraine, Putin will now be seen and treated as the greatest near-term threat to peace the world faces. Putin’s opponents in Russia will be empowered. Russia’s democracy movement will be energized. His oligarch friends will pay a high price with Western sanctions and they will come to resent their association with Putin. The Russian economy, will also suffer if those sanctions are maintained and deepened

In the end, all these factors will contribute to Putin’s decline, will add to his vulnerability to domestic challenges, will isolate him, and will, in the end, destroy him. The longer Putin remains president, the more tensions will rise and demands for change will mount, and controlling these challenges will eventually be out of his hands.

The Russian society is deeply fractured and does not know what it wants in a future Russia. Like the governing elite, society is not sure what should come next. Russian society is exhausted with the political status quo, even though it lacks the means and energy to change it. Russian elites are equally tired and demoralized. The war with Ukraine is not going to be popular for the entire political system and the domestic stability Putin values so highly. The invasion marks the beginning of a new era for Russian society. The domestic system will become even more authoritarian; the government will increasingly stifle public debate. More independent and creative Russians will leave elite circles; more will emigrate. The state’s capacity for good governance will decrease; tiredness and hidden protest will grow.  

The level of uncertainty and anxiety among the elite and society over the future is going to grow higher. There is still no roadmap or plan for political succession. As the Putin regime moves forward—a regime that is focused primarily on maintaining control as it prepares for the eventual transition to a post-Putin Russia, it faces a multitude of domestic challenges and it struggles to maintain its internal cohesion at a time when Putin appears weakened and the regime projects an image more of impotence than of power.