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Julia Ioffe: In 2022, when Putin went into Ukraine full throttle, there was a sense of, Okay, this can’t last very long. But the economy has adapted and the regime has consolidated control. I would say Putin is probably more powerful than he’s ever been. What do you think explains the strength and longevity of the regime and the economy? Daniel Treisman: I would say it’s a combination of a great deal of luck, which we underestimate, and skill. I think we had exaggerated ideas of how much the sanctions were going to harm the Russian economy. The economy proved remarkably resilient, with trade really holding up despite all of our efforts to reduce it. Exports haven’t actually dropped. India took over the oil purchases from Europe. [Domestically] there’s been this massive fiscal stimulus of about 3 percent of G.D.P. a year. So, in part, Putin had saved revenues from oil for a long time, and not all of those were frozen in the West. And he’s used those to maintain economic health, and wages have even increased. But over the long term, it’s been a changing story. During those first eight years, [Putin] created a pretty sophisticated system of manipulating information and establishing lots of different groups within the elite that had an interest in the regime’s survival. And then since about 2012, when protests broke out against him, he’s been consolidating the regime and making it more repressive. He’s done that in a pretty thorough way. I think there’s very little that threatens him. Cliff Gaddy once described the Russian economy as a cockroach economy, in the sense that it is very rudimentary and can survive pretty much any shock. Why do you think this economy has been able to survive? Maria Snegovaya: In a lot of ways, the Russian economy is very primitive, in the sense that it is largely export-oriented. Because of that, it’s highly vulnerable to oil shocks, but otherwise highly resilient, because you cannot easily substitute for oil. Russia currently produces about 10 percent of the oil market in the world. We see, by the way that the sanctions were designed, the West was deliberately cautious about not eliminating Russia from the markets because it would just be too destabilizing. Plus, it’s an economy that’s inherited this large industrial defense and military complex from Soviet times. Putin very successfully combined these two factors: reviving the military-industrial complex and creating a lot of early winners from this war. It’s true that it’s a highly traumatic event for many within the society, but it’s also something that’s created a lot of opportunities for Russian society and for Russian elites. In general, the public sentiment is quite optimistic, despite all of the horrors that have taken place. Leonid Volkov: You quoted that the Russian economy is able to survive any shock. Maybe. But there’s been no shock. The sanctions after the annexation of Crimea were applied very gradually and slowly. And the response that followed after February 24, 2022, was much softer. They were actually given time to get adjusted. We can’t speculate what would happen, but it would’ve been a different story if the Russian economy was swiftly cut off on February 25, and if the really tough sanctions that we advocated for were applied. To what extent is that possible, given that there’s China and, to some extent, India to help Russia bypass all of these Western sanctions? Eric Green: It’s important not to overpromise what sanctions can actually accomplish in terms of changing Putin’s behavior. He’s dead set on dominating Ukraine, and the only way to change his calculus on the battlefield—the economy is an important factor, but it’s not the main one. He also needs to see unified resolve from the West, to make him understand that we are in this for the long haul, and Ukraine will continue to be supported.

I know several people who have made a ton of money bypassing sanctions and all of these export controls. Everybody I talk to in Moscow says there’s never been this much money. Is this a sugar high, or can it last indefinitely? Treisman: It’s both. The economy has been reoriented toward producing the things that were previously supplied from abroad. The connections to the West have been cut to a great extent, and the internal economy has been stimulated. These other friendly countries—China, Turkey, India, and others—have been undercutting the sanctions and providing the goods. Some Russian businesses actually like sanctions because it reduces competition from outside. There are many corrupt, and even uncorrupt, ways that people are getting rich from this. But at the same time, there’s 10 percent inflation; the deficit has been small, [but] they’re running out of liquid reserves to cover that. In the long run, they’re losing technological competitiveness. They’re going to rely on China for technology in the future, and that’s going to gradually reduce the growth rate. So we’re going to have inflation and stagnation in the next few years. Does China want a strong Russia, to offset U.S. power, or a weak Russia that they are basically turning into an economic colony of China? Green: I think China and Russia have a shared objective, which is to weaken the United States and to reorder the world system. So China will modulate its relations with Russia based on that common goal. And I think they’re very comfortable with the current status quo, where Russia is becoming increasingly dependent on Beijing. Whether that will reach a breaking point where the Russians will rebel against that—that’s something I imagine the Chinese are conscious of, but I think they’re handling it quite well at the moment. China is the biggest beneficiary of what’s happening globally with the disorder created over the past several months.

What does a post-Putin Russia look like? Green: A lot depends on the war and how it ends. But I would say, considering Russia’s history and internal practices, that you’ll likely get a much more pluralistic type of leadership arrangement—at least in the early stages. And that does create some opportunities for creative diplomacy and trying to strengthen the more-liberal factions that may be in that collective leadership. But I don’t think you’re going to have a rapid evolution toward a democratic Russia. Snegovaya: One of the consistent features of the Russian post-Soviet trajectory is the failure to reckon with the past. In order to radically alter your future, you need to recognize the atrocities that have been committed by various regimes. It’s not just Putin, it’s much of the Soviet [era]. Even with Putin gone, this general reality will not change. That’s why it’s unlikely that we’re going to see a liberal, democratic Russia emerge—particularly given that Putin is very unlikely to lose this war. And by “lose,” I mean Ukraine recovering all of the territories that Russia has occupied since 2014. The new guy may be moderately autocratic—some sort of reset of relations with the West without radical altering of the previous models of the kind we’ve seen in some Central Asian republics in the past. Unlike what we’ve seen in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the West has, unfortunately, lost its soft power and appeal. The “beautiful America” that used to actually create this pull toward a more viable, democratic model is no longer the case—another reason why Russia is unlikely to follow that trajectory. There is a fear in some corners of the West, including in the Biden administration, that Putin’s successor might be even worse. Do you agree that’s a possibility? Volkov: I can’t stand this trope of, Someone could be even worse than Putin. Putin did his best to prove that no one can be worse. This is a highly personalistic regime. There’s no such thing as a successor. None of his lieutenants are more than 10 percent shareholders in the structure of power, so they can’t become strong enough. When Putin is gone, there will be a royal battle, where no one will be strong enough to verticalize the regime. That will create an enormous space of opportunities. There will be a lot of options available. It will be a very natural democratization of political life, because no one will have a full grip over the repression apparatus. So there will be chances, and it will be much better than now.

That’s all from me, folks. I hope you had a lovely weekend, and I will see you back here on Thursday, when we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. Until then, good night. Tomorrow will be worse. Julia

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