Russian President Vladimir Putin considers ending the war against Ukraine without achieving at least a minimal goal — capturing all of Donbas — a threat to his personal security, The Economist writes. According to an informed source, at some point during the war Putin told those close to him: "They will hang me." The publication does not specify the context or details of the conversation.
Sources close to the Kremlin told the magazine that after several weeks of deliberation this summer, Putin apparently decided to escalate. According to the report, he intends to send another 300,000–400,000 people to the war without announcing a new wave of mobilization, instead recruiting them through coercion by regional authorities. The new recruitment system is already being tested in the Penza region, the magazine notes.
The authors link this decision to deteriorating sentiment inside Russia. The Economist writes that deep Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries and marketplace warehouses, as well as internet blockages, have destroyed the appearance of normal life. The magazine cites a Levada Center poll according to which 57% of Russians characterize the situation in the country as "tense," citing among the reasons the war, the number of dead, mobilization, and drone attacks.
Sentiment among elites, according to the publication, is even gloomier. One source said the main problem is not the economy but lost time: whatever the outcome, nearly five years of hostilities is a failure. "More and more there is a feeling that the emperor has no clothes," The Economist quotes another elite representative as saying.
None of Russia's economic or political problems, The Economist writes, is fatal for Putin: he has resources and a repressive apparatus. However, the magazine suggests that the Kremlin chief "is guided by the criminal logic of his regime: never show weakness." Among likely escalation scenarios, the publication names intensification of hybrid warfare and sabotage against Ukraine's allied countries, including possible strikes on factories in Europe, as well as stronger strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
According to a longtime acquaintance of Putin, the Russian president likely perceived CIA Director John Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow as a sign of US weakness — just as he earlier interpreted William Burns's visit in November 2021, after which he launched the invasion anyway.