With Russian president Vladimir Putin under mounting pressure to end a war he cannot afford to lose, the Ukraine conflict could be entering a pivotal moment. We asked Czech foreign policy expert Filip Scherf:
- How alarming are developments inside Russia?
- Could Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko “change Russia”?
- Are his four “catastrophic” Russia scenarios plausible?
- Why is Putin is not ending the war?
- How could he escalate the conflict?
- How does the West end the war, if it can?
[Denník N]: When we look at Russia’s burning refineries and isolated Crimea peninsula, it seems that things are really not looking very good for Putin. How serious is the crisis in which he now finds himself because of the war in Ukraine?
[Scherf]: The crisis is serious because the longer this war lasts, the more Russia needs to win. Yet victory is not getting any closer in the current state of the war. The situation is serious militarily at the front, politically within the wider elite, and economically — both among more influential sections of the population and among ordinary Russians. To sum up, the situation is serious on all fronts.
Bloomberg identified five major problems. The first is that Ukraine is striking ever deeper inside Russian territory. Russia also faces a worsening fuel shortage. The war economy is coming under growing pressure. Russian diplomacy is yielding no results and Putin’s popularity is falling. Which of these are the most serious?
It is not possible to speak of a single greatest problem. These problems reinforce, multiply and intensify one another. However, I would single out the alleged failure of Russian diplomacy. On this point, I would disagree with Bloomberg’s analysis.
How so?
Russian diplomacy may not be entirely successful on the European front, although even that is not wholly true. Behind the scenes, Russia maintains contacts with more receptive politicians and industrialists from a range of European countries, laying the groundwork for the restoration of trade relations. It has also succeeded in maintaining relative neutrality — or even support — for the continuing war in countries of the Global South, while building alliances there. After all, the BRICs grouping has expanded during the war and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has deepened its partnership with China. In my view, then, it is premature or simplistic to speak of Russian diplomacy as a failure.
I have a problem with the point that Putin’s popularity is falling, because it is questionable to what extent we can trust polls conducted under his regime. I see no public pressure in Russia for Putin to end the war.
Exactly. These polls have limited explanatory value. What is interesting, however, is that, for example, the official polling institute, which reports directly to the presidential administration — meaning that everything it publishes is approved by it — is, for some reason, showing that his popularity is falling. It adds that this decline is a consequence of the continuing war. The question, therefore, is what the presidential administration is seeking to achieve by this. Perhaps it is preparing the ground for a more decisive shift, either towards escalation or, conversely, towards ending the conflict.
Generally speaking, these polls do not have unequivocally demonstrable value, but they do show a trend. Most observers inside and outside Russia agree on that. And the trend is clear: support for Putin is at its lowest since the start of the war, and the “war enthusiasm” of the first weeks and months of 2022 has been exhausted. Even Russians who are not interested in politics are feeling the effects of this war. They experience it through the worsening economic situation, internet censorship and attacks on Russian cities, and they want it to end. In the same breath, however, they add that it must end in victory. And precisely how to lead Russia to victory is the Kremlin’s biggest headache.
Does this mean that Putin is at a dead end and has no reason to stop the war?
Putin is under pressure from both sides. On the one hand, he knows that this war cannot continue indefinitely, because it is draining the Russian economy and weakening the regime from within. On the other hand, he cannot end it without victory. If he were simply to end it without, for instance, continuing it in another form elsewhere, all the soldiers would return home. The Kremlin knows that integrating them into peacetime society could be fundamentally problematic.
What could motivate him to agree to serious negotiations? Are Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries and energy infrastructure enough to make him think twice?
Virtually no pressure from Ukraine will force him to end the war. In recent days, he has repeatedly rejected talks on a ceasefire or a territorially limited ceasefire, for example outside the combat zone. The reason is simple: if he agreed to move towards ending the war in response to Ukrainian pressure, he would look weak — and he cannot afford that. A fundamental pillar of his regime from the very beginning has been projecting strength at home and abroad, appearing strong and portraying Russia as strong under his leadership.
Only substantial progress towards fulfilling his objectives, or such a drastic internal threat to the regime that he loses control and is unable to continue the war, could move him towards ending it. I am not saying either scenario is likely, but if we are discussing what could force him to do so, it is more likely to be internal pressure or the achievement of his objectives, rather than pressure from Ukraine. That pressure can contribute to internal problems, but not decisively.
What could the West, particularly the US, do to change the Kremlin’s thinking?
Leaving aside military force, I think that both America and Europe have already exhausted most of their tools of pressure. They have proved insufficiently decisive for the Kremlin to change its conduct of the war, let alone agree to end it. So it is really primarily about what happens inside Russia itself and at the front. In theory, the West — if it wanted to — could continue a hybrid campaign against Russia. It could create crises on Russian territory in order to weaken the regime from within, show members of Putin’s elite that there is a way out of this regime, and at the same time encourage the Russian population to rise up. It is for politicians to consider whether this is a desirable course, but apart from military tools, it is the only remaining way to shift this situation.
The US is preparing to approve tougher, “secondary sanctions” sanctions on Russia, which had been championed by the late senator Lindsey Graham. Would this be a significant step?
These secondary sanctions are extremely problematic. They would have a fundamental impact on the United States itself and its allies, as they conduct mutually beneficial trade. The impact of such sanctions at a time when America is facing elections could be highly problematic from the perspective of both the administration and US president Donald Trump’s political interests. Second, enforcing them would be immensely difficult. Beyond the level of rhetoric and symbolism, secondary sanctions therefore do not appear to be a likely tool, let alone a decisive instrument for putting pressure on the Kremlin.
At this stage, the West has no external tools — leaving aside military force — to decisively force the Kremlin to withdraw from the war. The Kremlin has staked its own future on it, and its survival depends on the outcome. Putin’s regime cannot end the war unless it can sell it as a victory.
Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky says this war will be decided in the skies, and that the only cards Russia now holds are ballistic missiles. Could Ukraine’s increasingly deep attacks on Russian refineries become a Black Swan for Putin’s regime?
It is one small piece in the broader mosaic of weakening the regime from within, at every level. It affects the population, which sees that Russia is not invulnerable. And it affects the elites, which see that this “Putin war” — from which they sometimes distance themselves — brings only destruction, economic problems and the loss of prospects for future prosperity. So it is not simply about Zelensky’s political claim that the war will be decided in the air. It is about a whole range of partial factors. Collectively, from within — and that is the key term — they can increase the pressure for Russia either to escalate and end the war decisively, or to end it in defeat. But it will end it in defeat only if the regime is literally unable to continue the war.
You also follow what is happening inside the Kremlin and among the Russian elite. After tighter censorship and internet restrictions, there is now a fuel crisis, but is Putin’s regime relatively stable anyway?
