Growing Cracks in Putin’s Dictatorship

Predictions of Putin’s demise have been wrong many times before, but something is happening in Russia now that deserves more attention.

See also: A Conversation on the Growing Cracks in Putin’s Dictatorship (Video)

Since coming to power in 2000, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has built one of the most repressive and effective dictatorships in the world. That process accelerated sharply after his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when, increasingly paranoid about his society’s reaction to the wisdom of that war, Putin cracked down on all internal dissent. He chased out the last remnants of independent media, shut down civil society organizations that were even mildly critical of his war, and had Russia’s most popular opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, killed. He accompanied this destruction of independent organizations and leaders with a comprehensive propaganda campaign to maintain support for his war and his regime. Tragically, Putin’s strategy for strengthening dictatorship after launching his full-scale invasion has worked—at least so far. But lately, there are some signs that cracks in the autocratic regime may be emerging.

Political change is difficult to predict. As I once wrote (maybe my most famous quote!): “In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.” Political science is not that good at predicting autocratic collapse. Nor, as I learned working five years at first at the National Security Council and then as U.S. ambassador in Russia, is the U.S. intelligence community. During my time in the Obama administration, we were surprised by the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009, the Arab Spring in the Middle East in 2011, the anti-government protests in Russia in 2011-2012, and the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014. We should all remain humble about our ability to forecast regime stability or regime change in Russia. If pressed, my base case assessment leans towards stability—at least until Putin is no longer ruling the country. Even after he departs from power, I predict that the first post-Putin phase will also show signs of more continuity than change. Putin has erected a powerful dictatorship. He has brainwashed millions, and those not infected with his propaganda have left the country. (On this tragic story, read Andrei Kolesnikov’s excellent new book, The Closing of the Russian Mind: How Putin’s Ideology Took the Nation Hostage.)

Legacies of a quarter century of dictatorship will take years to overcome, if they are ever overcome. At the same time, this 26th year of Putin’s rule has revealed some signs of autocratic erosion. The cracks in Russia’s dictatorship are small and are unlikely to create permissive conditions for genuine political change. But the number and kind of hints of autocratic decay should not be ignored.

Putin’s Failures: War and the Economy

Putin is failing to achieve his important objectives. When dictators fail, they create opportunities for change. We know from studies of past collapses of autocratic rule that losing wars and poorly performing economies are often precipitants of political change. Even in Russian history, these two factors have triggered revolutionary change. The Russian Empire crumbled in 1917 in part as a result of an unpopular and unsuccessful war, World War I. The Soviet Union fell apart in part because of a stagnant economy. In Putin’s Russia, there are parallels to both.

First, Putin’s biggest failure is his war in Ukraine. More than four years after launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin has failed to achieve any of the military objectives that he himself articulated back in 2022. Despite waging a war that has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s war with Nazi Germany, Putin has not conquered or subjugated all of Ukraine. He has not achieved “de-Nazification”, his grotesque euphemism for regime change. The democratically elected president and parliament of Ukraine remain in power. He has failed dramatically at “demilitarizing” Ukraine, which is today more militarized than ever in its history. And he has failed to stop NATO expansion, with two powerful countries, Finland and Sweden, joining the alliance because of his war, and NATO ties to Ukraine are now deeper than ever before.

It is hard to say how much knowledge Russian citizens have about these failures. But the scale of Russian casualties means that everyone knows someone who has lost a loved one in this war. And without question, elites know about the absence of success on the battlefield. Splits within the ruling elite are often the first move in the transition from autocratic rule. (For more on these dynamics, read the classic study by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies.) Increasingly, even the war’s cheerleaders are openly discussing these failures in the Russian media. The lack of success on the battlefield has undermined Putin’s aura of invincibility. Like autocrats in other countries, including Soviet leaders during their war in Afghanistan, Putin’s overreach in Ukraine is eroding political stability back home.

Second, the human cost of achieving Putin’s very limited war objectives has been extremely high. Accurate reporting on Russian casualties in this war is hard to find, but exiled outlet Mediazona and BBC Russian have managed to confirm the deaths of 216,205 Russian soldiers since 2022, including more than 8,600 in April alone. The true death toll is almost certainly higher. A CSIS report from January 2026 estimates that 325,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine, with a further 875,000 wounded or missing. “No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” authors Seth Jones and Riley McGabe assessed in their CSIS report. According to Kyiv, Ukrainian warriors have killed or wounded 35,000 Russians per month in 2026. Ukrainian drones, not American or European weapons, were responsible for most of these casualties, meaning that Ukraine can continue fighting effectively for a long time without American military assistance. The longer this war drags on, the higher the human cost—and the harder it becomes for the Kremlin to shield Russian society from its consequences.

Third, the Russian economy is stagnating, adding to mounting pressure at home. Economist Vladimir Milov warned earlier this year of an “unholy trinity” of recession, inflation, and budgetary crisis coming together in 2026, predicting that this year would be the hardest for Russia since the war began. Rising oil and gas prices, driven by Trump’s war against Iran, have provided a temporary economic lifeline for the Kremlin. In March 2026, Russian companies earned $19 billion from oil exports, nearly double what they took in the month before. But few expect these short-term windfalls to offset Russia’s long-term economic structural challenges. Russia’s military-industrial complex is eating up too many resources. The private sector is dying, in part because of international sanctions. Hundreds of thousands of Russia’s best and brightest have left the country. And Russia’s long-term demographic challenges, already acute before the 2022 full-scale invasion, have become even more dire because so many young lives are being lost on the battlefield.

More audaciously than ever before, prominent economists inside Russia now speak openly about these ills. On stage at the International Economic Forum in Moscow last month, economist Robert Nigmatulin asked pointedly: “How long can this go on? Under the Soviet Union, we were poorer, but we were building the country, space exploration, and nuclear energy. We were ahead! And now? We’ve lost everything, and we’re still the poorest.” Nigmatulin is not the only one. At the same forum, Vladimir Boglayev, director of the Cherepovets Foundry and Mechanical Plant, declared: “The atmosphere in society is becoming very tense. I haven’t seen the authorities so actively discredit themselves since the 1990s.” He continued: “One can conclude that the ruling elite has completely lost touch with the real situation on the ground in the country’s economy.” Such open criticism is new. This didn’t happen in 2022.

More Repression Means Less Stability

Perhaps to control criticism of these military failures and economic challenges, Putin recently has introduced even more draconian measures to reduce the flow of information inside Russia. Among the most notable targets is Telegram, Russia’s most popular social media platform. It also happens to be the preferred platform of Russia’s military bloggers, who often post more candid accounts of the war in Ukraine than those found in state media. In February, the media regulator confirmed it was restricting access to Telegram, citing its alleged failure to curb fraud, extremism, and other illegal content. The regulator has also been trying to clamp down on the usage of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which many Russians rely on to access the thousands of banned websites and platforms. More generally, mobile internet connectivity has become very spotty not just in rural areas, but also in major cities. The cumulative effect is a steadily narrowing information space inside Russia, as the state moves to insulate society from criticism of the war and its consequences. At the same time, these measures have significantly affected the digital lives of ordinary Russians, even those broadly supportive of Putin: mobile banking, taxi ordering, and other important online services have all been disrupted.

The indiscriminate nature of the internet crackdown has prompted criticism from across the political spectrum. Even those in positions of power appear concerned by the online restrictions. “The crackdown on the internet is causing noticeable discontent not only among ordinary Russians but also among officials—including senior ones—and large businesses,” independent journalist Farida Rustamova reported in April, citing her sources. That same month, a video by Monaco-based Russian blogger Victoria Bonya, highlighting several issues she said were being mishandled by the authorities, including internet restrictions, went viral. She claimed that a “wall” had been built between Russians and the president, which she attributed to officials around him withholding information because they were “scared” of him. “There’s a feeling that we’re no longer living in a free country,” she said. The video, which racked up 30 million views, prompted a rare response from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said work was underway on the issues raised. The video also drew a response from Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who cited her criticism in a speech to parliament. Zyuganov—who, like other leaders of the other state-sanctioned political parties in Russia, is broadly loyal to the Kremlin—warned that the country could be facing a 1917-style revolution, unless it adopted measures to address the challenges that the country is facing! Such statements are new.

These growing signs of unease also extend beyond the information space. In what is perhaps another mark of waning confidence, Putin has downgraded Russia’s annual Victory Day parade, which commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. In recent years, the Victory Day celebrations have become an important ritual of state, coopted by Putin to bolster nationalist propaganda through appeals to past military glories. However, this year, for the first time in decades, tanks will not roll through Red Square on May 9. Independent press reporting revealed that the Russian government was removing 9,000 seats from the viewing area. It’s hard to celebrate military victories of the past when your army is performing so poorly in the present.

Russia’s poor performance on the battlefield might not be the only reason for the scaling back of the Victory Day parade. According to exiled investigative news outlet Important Stories (IStories), Putin is increasingly concerned by the possibility of an assassination or coup attempt against him. “In particular, he fears the use of drones for a possible assassination attempt by members of the Russian political elite,” IStories said, referencing an intelligence report from an unidentified European agency, as well as its own sources. According to the report, Putin has sharply reduced his travel, avoided visits to military infrastructure this year despite making frequent trips in 2025, and tightened security measures around the Kremlin. The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War reported that it had “observed corroborating evidence of enhanced security measures for Putin and high-ranking Russian officials,” lending additional weight to claims of growing unease inside the Kremlin.

I remain skeptical that genuine coup plans are being drafted, especially, as has been speculated, by Putin’s former Defense Minister and Security Council head, Sergey Shoigu. But the mere fact that speculations are swirling suggests uncertainty and instability in Putin’s regime. And just like the old days of Sovietology during the Cold War, everyone will be watching the 9 May parade to see where Shoigu will be standing on Lenin’s Tomb! And if he does not show up at all, that will fuel even more theories about divisions within the Kremlin.

The all-encompassing nature of Putin’s dictatorship (maybe we should start using the term “totalitarian dictatorship” again, as we once used to describe the Soviet political system) makes it hard for analysts to know how Russian society is interpreting the economic, military, and political trends described above. If you live in the Russian Far East and a stranger from a Moscow-based polling company calls you for your opinion on Putin, there is only one rational answer: “I support our great leader.” Even with these limitations, polling data show that Putin and his war are losing popularity. Russia’s most prominent state-owned pollster, VTsIOM, reported in April that Putin’s approval rating had fallen to 65.6 percent—the lowest it had reported since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On 1 May, another Russian state-affiliated pollster, the Public Opinion Foundation, put its approval rating for Putin at 73%—also the lowest it had reported since the start of the war. And in a recent poll by Russian Field, a more independent polling organization, when Russian respondents were asked which political party they thought offered the best answers to questions about the future of Russia, only 16% answered United Russia—the party affiliated with Vladimir Putin. An amazing 27% said they did not think any party had a vision for the future, while 31% said it was difficult to answer such a question. In an election year, this is significant.

Russia holds its State Duma (lower house) elections in September. Putin’s party, United Russia, will get the largest share of the vote, whether through genuine support, administrative mobilization, or manipulation of the final tally. The elections will not be free and fair, and all the parties on the ballot are loyal to Putin anyway. Yet there are signs that the machinery used to deliver Kremlin-friendly results is coming under strain. In a recent essay for the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, journalist Andrey Pertsev argued that Russia’s system of “corporate mobilization”, which relies on employers and state-linked institutions to pressure voters to turn out, is beginning to erode. Economic pressures, including layoffs and delayed wages, are weakening incentives to vote, while the government’s own crackdown on digital communications is undermining the tools used to coordinate turnout. Pertsev concludes that this leaves the Kremlin with two options: “to lower the intentionally inflated KPIs… or to drastically increase the volume of outright falsifications to deliver Putin the promised figures.” With VTsIOM data showing that only 27.7% of respondents would vote for United Russia today, significantly falsifying the election results is risky and could spark unrest, as in the 2011–2012 protests.

Elections, even in dictatorships, are often a useful moment for identifying new leadership. Yet so far, United Russia has not seemed to attract any new charismatic faces to its ranks. If this election passes without any speculation about a new generation of pro-Putin leaders who might eventually replace him, that too will be another signal of political stagnation.

Putin’s regime is still strong. Repression works. But history suggests that the appearance of strength in autocracies can be misleading, especially when sustained by war, fear, and isolation. The signs of strain visible in Russia today are limited and fragmented, and on their own, they are unlikely to produce change. Yet taken together, they hint at a system that is no longer as stable as it once seemed. If these emerging cracks are not closed, they could widen over time.

As my friend Rachel Maddow likes to say, watch this space.