Running away forward?

Putin's increasingly limited options

Time will tell whether the Russia-Ukraine War will have a significant adverse effect on the Russian economy.

To put it simply, whatever figures Western analysts come up with based on incomplete, fabricated, and missing Russian economic data, one thing is true: more sanctions will continue to have opaque effects on the Russian economy. Therefore, as outside observers, we are unlikely to fully understand the true extent of sanctions and their impact on Russia’s military industries and capabilities.

Russia is a major oil producer and a significant agricultural producer.

With oil exports truncated to sales via its shadow fleet at ‘discount prices’ primarily to China and India, and Putin dipping into Russia’s national wealth fund, Putin is kicking the can down the road.

The Russian non-war economy must be in decline.

Why?

Because of the emigration of young Russian men at the beginning of the war. And because of the Russian Army’s rapacious need for manpower.

War-related industries may be able to stand upright now through sanctions dodging, black market oil shipments, and spending from Russia’s national wealth fund. But, three years into the war, Russia has neither conquered its far smaller enemy nor captured all territories it has claimed for itself in eastern Ukraine, with only Luhansk & Crimea under Moscow’s complete control. This cannot be considered a great strategic return on investment, given the estimated Russian losses in casualties and military equipment.

But war and politics go hand in hand.

Putin’s survival depends on his ability to deliver a sense of victory to the Russian people, especially his supporting oligarchs. However, as the Russian Army is bogged down in eastern Ukraine, unable to make significant headway, a new possibility emerges: running away forward. Or, opening a new front in a perceived vulnerable area.

Much has been said of the vulnerability of the Baltic states. This might well have been true in 2022 & early 2023. But now, with formally neutral Finland & Sweden in the NATO camp & coordination happening between Poland, the Baltics states, Sweden and Finland, any aggression against one or all of the Baltic states will confront a heavily armed sub-set of NATO, able and willing to confront Russia as a coherent coalition even were NATO’s Article 5 not triggered.

This development limits the conventional military actions Russia can launch in this area of Europe. Timing is everything in war, and Putin’s moment to expand his imperialist aggression without cost has now passed. Unless he turns his attention to other ‘lesser’ countries in the Caucasus & Central Asia. Here, Western interests are limited, but Chinese & Turkish interests, especially in Central Asia, are not.

Russia’s ultimate defeat in Ukraine is reminiscent of a slow-motion collapse.

Hemmed in by other great powers, the EU/NATO to its west, Turkish and Chinese interests to its south/southwest, Putin’s ability to slide effortlessly into another military campaign to distract & confound the West is not guaranteed.

Putin cannot afford to upturn Turkish and Chinese interests. And his economy won’t survive a forever war by extending his combat radius beyond Ukraine. And while many observers and Russophiles in the West can tout Russia’s nuclear strength, its cyber capabilities and its ability to conduct ‘hybrid’ warfare, Russia, as a state, will not survive in isolation from the international community.

It cannot operate in the North Korean model.

Here, Russian oligarchs and the people would likely openly rebel against Putin. If North Korea is the only model an imperialist Russian state can emulate, too many Russians, whatever their status in the current social pecking order, will have too much to lose. And as Putin pressures and pokes their pain points, something will snap. Embroiling Russia not just in war but in revolution.