Can Putin Afford To End The War?

With the Alaska summit in the rearview mirror and no agreement to end the war in sight, there is a lot of commentary regarding what it would take to get Putin to end the war short of a complete Russian victory in Ukraine. In the western press, there is talk of brutal sanctions/tariffs targeting the purchasers of Russian products (primarily oil) to seriously incentivize them to look to non-Russian sources to fulfil their needs. There is talk of ceding control of Donetsk and certain other oblasts to Putin in exchange for ending the war, as well as certain other concessions. Although the ideas floated contain various mixtures of sanctions/concessions, the problem is that Putin still does not appear to want to stop the war short of there being, at most, a weak practically puppet of state that is entirely dependent on Russian goodwill not to attack and swallow it up. A strong, well-armed independent Ukraine such as envisioned by Trump and other western politicians & diplomats, even with reduced territory and the promise of NATO/EU membership off the table, is not something that Putin seems willing to allow. His offer of only swallowing the oblasts of Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and couple of others is not the concession it might appear, because it would be ceding him the fortress cities of Donetsk and other defensible terrain that he has been unable to take by force, in exchange for a promise; a deal that does not appear likely of deterring further aggression without some other major tangible military concession on his part.

Which brings up the question that few seem willing to ask which is whether Putin can afford to end the war short of the destruction of Ukrainian independent statehood. To be sure, whatever he thought was going to happen when he invaded in 2022, this was not it. He likely expected an easy victory with his troops sitting on the Romanian, Moldovan, Hungarian, Slovakian, and Polish borders, with Finland and Sweden maintaining their traditional neutral stance. That clearly has not happened.

What has happened is that Russia’s geopolitical position has worsened in most metrics. Finland and Sweden are now fully in NATO, essentially upending decades of Soviet/Russian diplomacy aimed at preventing exactly that from happening. Russia has become much more dependent on China to help sustain its economy as well as military activities. While the Soviet Union and China were not necessarily partners during the Cold War, to the extent that they could have been said to have been partners, it was the Soviet Union that was the more powerful partner. Today, Russia is clearly the junior partner in the relationship.

Which brings us to Putin’s problem. According to some estimates (which admittedly need to be accepted somewhat cautiously), Russia has suffered roughly 1 million casualties (killed and wounded) in 3-and-a-half years of war. However, according to other sources, the number of dead is somewhere around 130,000. Add to this while roughly 1 million Russians are said to have left, some have returned, although some AI estimates put the net outflow since the invasion at around 650,000. Regardless, it would appear that one way or the other Russia has lost conservatively at least 1 million citizens, a not insignificant hit to the human capital pool available to current and future Russian leadership. Given the privations, dislocation, and hardships, not to mention the familial catastrophes of losing a son on the battlefield, can Putin really afford to stop his war at roughly the current front lines? Can he sell the idea that international recognition of Crimea as Russian (if that’s what occurs in a peace deal) and a strip of Ukrainian territory (the land corridor from Russia to Crimea), and maybe some Ukrainian pledge to not join NATO was worth all the sacrifice? Can he sell it if what is left of Ukraine is an independent, strongly armed state capable of resisting Russian military and diplomatic pressure?

Historically, Russian leaders who lose wars have tended not to have happy, subsequent histories. In many cases, western media analysts appear to make the mistake of trying to analyze Russia as if it is a Western European country with a funny alphabet. Winston Churchill’s famous statement that Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma resonates to our minds because it rings true. But the part of the statement that is often left out is the part where he concedes that perhaps there is a key, and that key is Russian national interest. As westerners, we often see national interest strictly in terms of economics or prestige in certain international organizations (the famous ‘soft power’ that Western Europeans have been touting for decades). National military power in this telling is secondary, if it even figures at all. Even the U.S. since the end of the Cold War, with the exception of the post-9/11 interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has often couched its’ military interventions in terms of defending allies or on humanitarian grounds, rather than simple national interest. Even the post 9/11 interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq turned from a justification of finding the perpetrators and preventing another 9/11 to reshaping ancient societies; a more humanitarian endeavor. Given the nearly iron-clad security of the U.S. since WWII, and Western Europe since the end of the Cold War, this mindset of this military as secondary to national interest is perhaps understandable.

Russia, however, understands hard military power as a key component of national power. For a Russian politician/leader, it is not sufficient to simply grow the economy as it has been for western societies. Being seen as a leader of a militarily strong country is at least as important, and perhaps in many cases even more important. Russia has been invaded throughout its history and consequently, a strong and powerful leader who can defend the population is a significant source of political legitimacy.

The initial U.S./Western strategy to launch sanctions on Russia to try and collapse the Russian economy (or cause excessive economic pain) and force Putin to back off of Ukraine was a reasonable concept; as has been the idea of arming Ukrainians to defend their territory. Keeping Russian troops away from NATO’s borders (as much as possible) is a solid geopolitical goal. However, it is a strategy that appears to have assumed that it was being aimed at a society that was Western in mindset. Economic pain has caused many a Western politician to lose power in the last 80 years or so. However, with national defense and history of being invaded, Russians are likely to accept a higher level of economic pain in the service of some national project than a Western society would. Obviously, there is some level of economic pain where the Russian populace would turn on its government. It’s that the threshold appears to be higher than what Western policymakers had anticipated.

Another reason that the economic pressure has not worked as envisioned, is also because countries such as China, India and others have not been totally on board with enforcing the sanctions. In addition, Russia appears to have managed to modify the structure of its economy enough so that it has been able to keep going for the time being, even if that strategy has limits that Russia may now be approaching.

But the other reason it has not done what the West was hoping for is that Russia and Putin cannot be seen to lose the war. The fact is that Putin does not appear to have convinced the Russian populace of the existential nature of this war. This is evidenced by some opinion polls, but more by the fact that he has not called for a general mobilization, indicating that he does not believe that the Russian population will support it. While a leader cannot afford to lose an existential war for obvious reasons, a leader like Putin also cannot afford to lose a war of choice either. For a country that has suffered invasions like Russia has, a military loser in a non-existential war will raise questions as to whether he is capable of winning a hypothetical existential future war if he can’t win a non-existential one A Russian leader that has these questions raised about him will likely lose the support, not only of the populace, but also the governing institutions.

Which leads us to the question of whether Putin can afford to end the war now. From Putin’s perspective, if additional sanctions/tariffs hitting countries buying Russian products causes enough economic pain that the Russian people revolt, then Putin loses power. If, on the other hand, he stops the war now in response to additional economic/military pressure, it would be difficult to say that he had won. Regardless, he would appear weak no matter how much his propagandists might try and spin it. And appearing weak can be politically, and sometimes physically, fatal for a Russian leader.

And therein lies the challenge of any negotiations or attempts to end the war. Putin has set goals that basically require Ukraine to land in the Russian sphere of influence. Although he might accept a nominally independent but economically and militarily weak Ukrainian state that he could manipulate and influence (see Belarus), this is not something that the West appears willing or ready to accept. And with the West not willing to accept a Russian victory, and Putin perhaps not able to survive a Russian defeat, the prospect for a quick end to the war seems dim.

Only a negotiated deal where Ukraine survives as a strong, independent state, and yet Russia/Putin does not appear lose is likely to end the war. Currently, it is hard think of a scenario that would fit both of these requirements.