Russian politicians beg Putin to stop the war, as Russia cannot sustain it for much longer

The systemic degradation of Russia’s macroeconomic stability—driven by a defense budget absorbing approximately 40% of federal expenditures—is fundamentally altering the strategic endurance of the state. This intense wartime mobilization has triggered severe domestic inflation, crowded out essential civilian state spending, and induced an unsustainable cannibalization of the domestic labor market due to cascading military casualties. Simultaneously, the attrition of nearly 200 Russian air defense systems has exposed critical energy and export infrastructure to precision strikes, effectively transforming Russia from an energy exporter into an importer of refined oil products and crippling its primary revenue engine. This economic vulnerability is actively dissolving the informal domestic social contract, forcing the Kremlin to replace societal passivity with overt repression and aggressive asset nationalization. Consequently, the Russian business and political elite increasingly perceive the conflict not as a national enterprise, but as a direct threat to property rights and long-term capital preservation. Ultimately, these compounding structural disruptions create a self-reinforcing cycle of domestic destabilization, shifting the primary threat to the regime’s continuity from external battlefield attrition to internal systemic collapse.

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