Is russian getting frustrated from inside ???

Defence affairs analysis
Messaging from the Kremlin over the last year reveals deep concerns about Russia’s internal unity and stability.

Russian officials are sounding increasingly alarmed and even paranoid in their public statements about the future of their country. Most notably, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed in September of last year that Western governments have assembled a coalition of at least fifty countries in order to dismember Russia. 

What may appear to be political paranoia or an attempt to mobilize citizens behind the regime is not necessarily based on imagined enemies. It reveals the official realization that numerous negative trends are converging on Russia and that the current regime, and even the state itself, may be running out of time.

Three overarching fears preoccupy Russian officialdom: losing the war, economic collapse, and state fracture. The prospect of all three occurring soon looms on the horizon. Regarding war losses, in June, Russia’s Ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, inadvertently confirmed the hundreds of thousands of casualties sustained by Russian forces during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The coming injection of US and NATO weapons and more onerous US sanctions on Russian oil exports have led to the usual desperate threats of nuclear retaliation, including a direct warning from former President Dmitry Medvedev to President Trump that Moscow possessed Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities. 

The fear of defeat and international isolation is palpable at the highest levels of government. As if preparing Russia for defeat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has acknowledged that Russia is fighting the war against Ukraine without any Western allies, a situation the country has never faced before in its history. He warned that Russia must rely on itself and cannot afford weakness or laxity.

Defeat in war or a prolonged conflict that drains the economy will increase pressure on the regime and can turn large sectors of society against the Kremlin. Russia has historical experiences of lost wars or disruptive economic conditions leading to state fracture, most notably during the collapse of the empire during World War I and the demise of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. 

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-controlled Russia Today network, admitted that Russian authorities are increasingly concerned that the war in Ukraine could turn ordinary, apolitical citizens against the government—not only through battlefield losses, but through disruptions to their everyday lives and economic living standards. Officials are also fearful that returning veterans will turn to gangsterism and organized crime. 

The First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration, Sergei Kiriyenko, told local administrators in July that the Kremlin considers returning veterans to be “the main factor of political and social risks.”

Warnings of an impending economic crisis are also commonplace in official circles. Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov cautioned at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June that the economy is “on the brink of going into a recession.” Ironically, the annual Forum is designed to highlight the country’s alleged economic prowess and to attract foreign investors. 

Russian officials seem to have accepted the fact that war losses and international sanctions are plunging the economy into a long-term crisis. German Gref, the head of Sberbank, one of the largest state-owned financial institutions, has acknowledged that because of increased military spending, high interest rates, and snowballing inflation, Russia’s financial system is heading into “difficult times.” 

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