Putin is betting Russia can out-suffer Ukraine

IT HASN’T been an encouraging week for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Amid strikes and counterstrikes with Ukraine, Russia threatened that the UK “will pay” for supplying its opponent with the drones that have allowed attacks deep inside his country.

The chief economist of the country’s second-largest bank, Andrey Klepach, was sacked for saying that Russia cannot win a “war of attrition” and that it could prompt a social crisis.

And a rumour that the government would expropriate citizens’ savings to pay for the continuing conflict sent Russians running to the banks to empty their accounts.

Contrary to Putin’s expectations, Ukraine is not losing this ghastly conflict, now well into its fifth year, and seems unlikely to do so any time soon.

So the big question, fiercely argued among Russia-watchers, is whether he will roll over and admit that the great nationalist gamble,– which he launched in 2022 and which has since cost an estimated half-million Russian lives – has failed and must be abandoned.

As Quantum Strategy president David Roche, who has a good record of Russia predictions dating back to the break-up of the Soviet Union, said in the latest issue of security and defence publication the Rusi Journal: “Putin’s leadership appears to be entering a grey zone of increasing vulnerability.

“Economic stress is high, elite pressures are rising and discrepancies between official military, economic and social narratives and observable realities continue to widen.”

Yet, Roche added: “Russia has not entered a collapse zone.”

Since the beginning of this struggle, as much Putin’s self-generated nightmare of choice as the Iran war is for US President Donald Trump, a host of distinguished analysts have predicted Russia’s looming defeat.

I won’t embarrass those pundits by naming them here, but I never believed their forecasts.

Because I have spent time in Russia, and in years gone by interviewed many Russians, I know how much Putin’s people hate and resent the West.

Their president, in a June interview, reprised a theme he has expounded on many times since 2022: Ukraine is merely a Western puppet, using the struggle to pursue Nato’s grand ambition of crushing and humiliating Mother Russia.

It is extraordinary how many Russians find this victim narrative plausible. Few love Putin or his war, but most regard Ukraine as a rightful part of Russia.

Their entire history shows a willingness to endure hardship with a fortitude we find difficult to understand.

Putin said in July: “The people of Russia can never be broken.” From Napoleon to Hitler, there’s a long list of people who have lost money (and lives) by betting to the contrary.

Russia is not in a good place

This is not to dismiss the reality Putin faces. Ukraine is in a better place than at any time since the fall of 2022.

Despite his dismissals, its deep-penetration drone strikes – which have taken an estimated one-third of Russian oil refining capacity offline and wrecked huge Wildberries retail warehouses – cannot be ignored.

Putin falsely claims that his forces are making steady advances across an 800-mile front.

The Ukrainians have expanded the “kill zone” in which their drones shoot down Russian soldiers rash enough to seek to advance in the open, so that the latter’s casualties have risen to an estimated 30,000 a month, against a replacement rate of only 27,000.

Although Trump halted America’s supply of free weapons to Ukraine in March 2025 and cut off financial aid in July, the Europeans have filled the gap. And the US continues to provide vital strategic and tactical intelligence.

On the economic front, the sanctions against Russia are porous, but they are nonetheless hurting Putin’s nation badly. The forecast for 2026 gross domestic product growth is just 0.4 per cent.

Its national Budget deficit, which was predicted at US$48.5 billion for the entire year, swelled to US$73 billion in the first six months. Around 40 per cent of the entire national Budget, or 8 per cent of GDP, goes to defence and national security, double the pre-war level.

The pain is reaching the wallets of ordinary Russians, who may soon be hit by another round of conscription. And this time around, borders will be closed to prevent another exodus of would-be draft-dodgers.

But Putin still has an edge

But there’s no denying that some factors are turning in Putin’s favour. Since Trump started his Iran war, the flow of US Patriot air-defence missiles to Ukraine has dried up, with dire consequences for its cities.

Russia is increasing its output of glide bombs, with which Putin will likely target Ukraine’s energy facilities this winter. It is already damaging Ukrainian grain exports through attacks on Odesa and shipping in the Black Sea.

It seems likely that Russia will escalate its hybrid “grey zone” attacks on Europe, from drone harassment of airports to potential attacks on undersea infrastructure.

Putin believes that Europe’s solidarity in supporting Ukraine could crack if it finds itself paying a price.

Several of the continent’s powerful right-wing parties, notably including Alternative for Germany, want detente with Russia, and appear unafraid of making Ukraine pay the price.

While the Ukrainian national spirit is still strong, it doesn’t have the reliable support of the US, leaving Putin confident that he still has everything to play for.

If Trump persists with his current enthusiasm for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, a key munitions provider to Russia; if Ukraine gets no more Patriots; if a presidential mood swing causes a cut-off of all support for Ukraine, as is perfectly possible, then the war picture could darken for Kyiv.

A change of regime in Moscow remains improbable. Just as important, Quantum Strategy’s Roche is almost certainly right when he said that “a Kremlin elite coup is as likely to be more extremist than less so”.

In other words, in the very unlikely event that we get a new Russian leader, there’s no evidence he or she would be any more sympathetic to freedom or the West.

All the evidence of modern history suggests that autocracies are extraordinarily difficult to topple, especially if they are ruled with the ruthlessness that comes naturally to Putin.

The Kremlin may be nervous about the looming Duma elections, as is shown by its banning of the only political party hostile to the Ukraine war, but the president’s grip on the reins of power still seems strong.

There is no hint of any modification of his maximalist demands for peace. That makes the most credible forecast for Russia and Ukraine, alas, more of the same. BLOOMBERG