Russian elites and public are turning against Putin, former Kremlin insider warns

Russians are beginning to imagine a future without Vladimir Putin, according to a former senior Kremlin official who broke ranks in a rare anonymous account of the mood inside Russia’s ruling class. In a recent op-ed published by The Economist, a former official describes a country whose elites, regional governors and business leaders have subtly but unmistakably disassociated themselves from the president’s decisions, a shift the author says reflects a growing recognition that Putin has driven Russia into an impasse.

Shifting talk inside the Kremlin

According to the former official, the clearest signal of elite disillusionment is language. Senior officials in Moscow have quietly stopped using the first person plural when discussing the president’s actions.

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Where they once said “we,” they now say “he,” a small grammatical adjustment that carries considerable political weight in a system built on the exercise of solidarity.

That shift took hold last spring, the former official noted, though that doesn’t mean a revolt is imminent. The key instruments of repression and fear remain firmly in the hands of the state.

A regime that stopped selling vision

What has changed, the former official says, is that the Kremlin has abandoned any attempt to sell Russians a coherent narrative of national renewal or modernization. The country is bleeding lives and resources on Ukraine’s battlefields, and the government offers nothing in return in the form of a unifying narrative.

“The irony is that Mr. Putin started the war to preserve power and the system he created,” the official wrote. “Now, for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, Russians are beginning to imagine a future without him.”

Economic pressure mounts as war costs bite

The economic consequences of the war intensified the political disillusionment. Russians are grappling with rising inflation, a higher tax burden, deteriorating infrastructure, tighter censorship and a cascade of new social restrictions.

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High inflation has forced interest rates to remain elevated, straining companies and borrowers struggling to service their debts. The number of non-performing loans increased and warnings of a wider financial crisis intensified.

Elites lose wealth, freedom and Western protection

Russia’s business class, once able to protect property under a Western legal framework and move freely between countries, found itself trapped and increasingly exposed. Travel bans confined elites to Russia, and the protections that had once secured their wealth abroad evaporated.

A former Kremlin official estimated that Russia has seized about $60 billion worth of assets from private entrepreneurs over the past three years, either through outright nationalization or redistribution to regime loyalists.

“It’s not as if elites have suddenly developed an appetite for the rule of law or democracy,” the op-ed said. “But even those loyal to the regime yearn for rules and institutions that can fairly resolve conflicts.”

Russia’s identity crisis on the world stage

Beyond its borders, Russia faces a different kind of problem. As the rules-based international order weakens, the country has less room to use institutions such as the UN Security Council to its advantage.

And as the West itself declines in influence, Russia is losing an adversary against which it has long distinguished itself, creating what a former official describes as an identity crisis.

The social contract has collapsed

In Russia, the informal arrangement that once supported public consent has completely collapsed. For years, the Kremlin tolerated citizens living largely private lives as long as they avoided politics. That contract is no longer valid.

“People are being asked to be loyal without being told what future that loyalty serves,” the official said.

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Rather than providing the consumption, services, and comforts that once kept ordinary Russians fundamentally compliant, the state now offers repression, surveillance, and censorship. Internet outages have sparked widespread public frustration as the regime tries to suppress information about Ukraine’s mounting casualties and deteriorating economy.

Putin retreats to the bunker

The disconnect between the state and its citizens deepened as Putin himself withdrew from the public eye. According to sources cited by the Financial Times, the Russian president is spending more and more time in underground bunkers, absorbed in the conduct of his war and preoccupied with the threat of a coup or a Ukrainian drone strike.

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One person with direct knowledge of Putin’s schedule told the Financial Times that he now devotes 70 percent of his day to war and only 30 percent to other duties, including the economy.

Approval ratings drop as sentiment sours

Political and economic pressures are also registered in official data. The poll, conducted by Russia’s state polling organization, showed Putin’s approval rating had fallen to 65.6 percent, down from 77.8 percent at the start of the year and well below levels above 80 percent seen before the war.

The catering system itself

The former official’s conclusion is stark. The structures that Putin built to consolidate his rule are now hastening the disintegration he sought to prevent.

“The system can last as long as Mr. Putin remains in power,” a former Russian official wrote in The Economist. “But every step he takes to preserve and expand accelerates decay.”

This article draws on an anonymous op-ed published in The Economist a former senior Russian government official and the Financial Times reports.