A Bitter Consensus: How Russia’s Experts Moved From Default Victory to Totalitarian Consolidation

While Kremlin propagandists continue projecting confidence about the outcome of the war against Ukraine, this spring has brought a marked shift in mood among Russia's expert community. The scenario in which Russia achieves its objectives has ceased to be their default assumption.

It appears that Kremlin-adjacent commentators have sensed a change in the mood of the country’s leadership and, for the first time in four years, have concluded that the destruction of the Ukrainian state is unattainable.

A Spring of Disillusionment

Early this year, setbacks began to mount for Russia on several fronts simultaneously. First, the cracks in the Russian economy became impossible to ignore. Russia’s federal budget is deeply out of balance: the deficit planned for 2026 stood at 3.8 tn rubles, yet by the end of April it had already reached nearly 6 tn. The US–Israeli war against Iran pushed oil prices toward $100 a barrel, but that has not been enough to close the gap. Even a full year of fighting in Iran — which Trump is eager to avoid ahead of the midterm elections — would be unlikely to provide Russia with any sustainable solution to its fiscal troubles.

Second, the cross-border drone war has seen a decisive shift in Ukraine’s favour. Ukrainian Armed Forces have steadily intensified strikes on Russian territory using UAVs, and this spring overtook Russia in this domain for the first time since the invasion began in 2022. These strikes are disrupting the logistics of Russian occupation forces in the frontline zone and have begun cutting supply lines along the critical Mariupol–Crimea highway. Ukraine has also significantly extended its strike range, hitting strategically important oil refining and transport infrastructure deep inside Russia. In March, Russia’s Secretary of the Security Council Sergei Shoigu acknowledged that not even the most remote Russian regions could consider themselves safe. Russian officials have admitted that while domestic production of strike drones has been established, efforts to develop effective counter-drone systems have yielded no meaningful results.

Third, the Trump factor has substantially weakened. As recently as February, Russia’s Foreign Ministry was insisting that the “spirit of Anchorage” was alive and had to be preserved. After the outbreak of war in Iran, both Yuri Ushakov and Sergey Lavrov admitted that the spirit had evaporated. The attempt to use Washington to compel Ukraine into capitulation has failed. The Iran war has also driven up fuel prices at American pumps and dented support ratings for President Trump, for whom restoring freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and reaching a deal with Tehran now takes clear priority. Russian analysts have come to understand that a quick deal on Ukraine on Russian terms is off the table at least until the midterm elections in the US.

Fourth, the Russian military is losing the initiative. After the failure of its initial blitzkrieg and the attempt to decapitate Ukraine’s political leadership with a strike on Kyiv, Russian forces regrouped and launched a broad offensive along a front stretching over 1 200 kilometres. Ukrainian counter-offensive operations remained rare exceptions to this pattern, and the slow, grinding capture of Ukrainian territory became a routine background in Russian media — leading experts to conclude that a decisive breakthrough in Russia’s favour was inevitable.

Up until March, discussion in expert circles was not about whether Russia would win, but when and how.

Up until March, discussion in expert circles was not about whether Russia would win, but when and how. In autumn 2024, Sergei Karaganov was convinced that within two years, Russia would defeat the west in Ukraine without resorting to extreme measures and relegate the US to the status of an ordinary great power. Fyodor Lukyanov, for his part, held that time favoured Russia and that Ukraine would sooner or later be brought to its knees. Even Russian scenario-based forecasts for 2026 assumed an unbroken trend of Russian territorial advance. That assumption has proven wrong. According to ISW, over the first five months of 2026, Russian forces captured 15.6 times less territory than during the same period a year earlier.

In North Korea’s Footsteps

The accumulation of these setbacks — and a visible nervousness in the behaviour of Russia’s top leadership — has forced the expert community to revise its core assessments for the first time since the invasion began. First, the destruction of the Ukrainian state has been quietly dropped as the primary expected outcome of the war. There is a growing recognition that Russia’s resources are finite and that time may no longer be on its side. This spring, Lukyanov has shifted to noticeably more hedged language when discussing possible endings to the war, while Karaganov — with far less of his former confidence — has begun arguing that without radical nuclear intimidation of western elites, Russia will not win this war. A freeze along the current line of contact and an end to the war on Anchorage terms are now presented as the best available outcome for Moscow.

Setbacks forced the expert community to revise its core assessments for the first time since the invasion began.

Second, the expert community has come to recognise that a non-victory carries serious risks for the stability of a political regime on the verge of a generational transition at the very top. Sensing their patrons’ need to manage these risks, experts have begun offering solutions. The emerging consensus is that Russia must move towards totalitarian consolidation. The core idea is that stability in the wake of a failed war can only be maintained through the militarisation of collective consciousness and the subordination of all social and state processes to military logic. The guarantor of this transition to a “new internal quality” is envisioned as a substantially empowered security apparatus with a wide network of civilian informants.

Under this scenario, anti-westernism would acquire a deeper ideological foundation and permeate all layers of society. The “special military operation” would be formally recast as an episode in an eternal war against the west — and against Europe in particular. After all, as North Korea’s experience demonstrates, it is entirely possible to wage war against the US through newspapers and television screens for decades, keeping the population in a state of sustained mobilisation.

What Could This Mean for Europe?

Regimes like Russia’s are not dismantled after inconclusive wars. They tend to reproduce themselves through control over social institutions and the dominance of security structures. Should Russia drift toward totalitarian consolidation, the consequences for Europe could be significant and long-lasting.

First, Russia will become systemically anti-European. If the totalitarian consolidation scenario unfolds, hostility toward Europe would cease to be a situational political choice and would instead become an institutional foundation. For generations to come, Russian identity could be shaped by anti-Europeanism — something the post-Putin elites would simply grow up with. Not only the countries of NATO’s eastern flank, but all European states would need to accept the axiom that Russia will remain a source of serious security threats and challenges for the foreseeable future.

All European states would need to accept the axiom that Russia will remain a source of serious security threats and challenges for the foreseeable future.

Second, a durable peace in Ukraine will remain out of reach. Ukraine demonstrates strong capacity to hold on — and potentially it could reclaim control over occupied territories — yet a final settlement with Russia may prove hard to achieve in the foreseeable future. If that is the case, the reconstruction of Ukraine and its European and Euro-Atlantic integration would need to proceed under conditions of permanent instability. Such a scenario would call for unconventional approaches, including a definitive resolution of the question of frozen Russian sovereign assets, without which the entire process could grind to a halt.

Third, nuclear blackmail will become a universal instrument. Russia might use it not only in contexts related to the war in Ukraine, but across any issue where it encounters resistance. The Kremlin understands well how deeply nuclear escalation fears run in western societies, and would likely work systematically to exploit them — including by amplifying the voices of Russlandverstehers and populist parties in Europe willing to make strategic concessions in exchange for de-escalation. At some point, neutralising this instrument might require Europe to get back to a serious conversation about developing its own nuclear umbrella.

Fourth, the weaponisation of trade. Under the logic of total militarisation, non-military instruments — energy, food, fertilisers, transit, financial networks — could cease to be merely commercial and become tools of geopolitical coercion. Russia is sufficiently integrated into the global economy for this arsenal to be real and consequential. Any remaining dependency on Russia — direct or routed through third-country intermediaries — would represent a potential lever of pressure. Every commercial link with Russia may therefore need to be assessed not in terms of economic benefit, but in terms of what leverage it could place in the Kremlin’s hands.

Fifth, a surge in Russian intelligence activity. The regime’s growing reliance on security services could expand their capacity not only to infiltrate informant networks inside Russia, but also to conduct more aggressive influence operations abroad. Attempted interference in the domestic politics of European countries, targeted disinformation campaigns, and proxy sabotage operations might all increase in frequency. The aim would be to maximise internal disorder and erode public trust in political institutions, thereby reducing Europe’s ability to pursue a coherent policy toward Russia. Under sanctions and facing acute technological shortages, Russia would also have strong incentives to intensify industrial espionage as a primary means of acquiring western technology.

Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).