(LONDON) – The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is unlikely to agree to end the war in Ukraine because doing so would threaten not only his political future but also his physical safety, according to Maria Domańska, Deputy Russia Team Head at the Centre for Eastern Studies.
Speaking on TVP World’s On Air programme, Domańska said the Kremlin has deliberately cultivated the myth of Russia as an indecipherable enigma to sustain Western fears that any assertive action could trigger either collapse or nuclear conflict. She argued this romanticisation obscures the real dangers posed by Moscow and prevents a colder, more rational approach to advancing Western interests.
Domańska, who spent years in Moscow studying both the system and the mindset that sustains it, said there is currently no prospect of the regime’s collapse in the foreseeable future. However, she acknowledged that Russia’s super-centralised and “quite erratic” regime could theoretically collapse at any time.
She identified two potential tipping points: a deep economic crisis, from which Russia remains far, or a series of serious military defeats in Ukraine that make clear to Russian society and the Kremlin that the war is unwinnable.
On public opinion, Domańska said the Kremlin cares only to a limited extent. While the regime needs to buy off public support and ideologically legitimise its rule, Russians are “quite apt” at downward adaptation and have been well taught to accept deteriorating conditions. Growing repression means there is no hope of mass street protests, she added, describing a “permanent survival mode” as a default function of Russian society.
The business and ruling elites are increasingly unhappy with the war and Putin’s stubbornness in pursuing maximalist geopolitical goals, Domańska said. Competition for assets and power is intensifying as “the cake is shrinking all the time.” Yet even they are not ready to take collective action, as they deeply distrust one another, fear repression and know they are under constant surveillance from the FSB and other secret services.
“Unless they feel that they can lose absolutely everything they have gained over decades of being with Putin, unless they fear for their lives in case they continue with Putin, I don’t think that they will take this risk to rebel in any way,” she said.
This leaves Western allies with what Domańska described as an absolute necessity to support Ukraine in every way possible, militarily and economically, to make Russia lose the war and start losing occupied territories. She called for more sanctions, a total economic decoupling from Russia and efforts to paralyse Moscow’s capability to continue the war.
Domańska also challenged two major Western misconceptions. The first is that Russia is a normal power pursuing normal great power interests with which compromise is possible. She said Russia’s strategic goals have not changed since December 2021, when Moscow presented draft security agreements demanding that NATO roll back its military presence in all countries that joined the alliance after 1997, including Poland, Hungary, Czechia and the Baltic states.
“Russia would like to have a decisive say in all matters concerning the European security architecture,” she said. “Putin’s and Russia’s dream is to see NATO disappear as an alliance and ideally they would also like the EU to disappear as a functioning economic bloc.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has made clear that Russia wants the entire Ukraine to be a buffer zone and would not accept any type of Ukraine other than a pro-Russian one, she added.
“You cannot find a compromise between existential interests of victims or potential victims of aggression and the aggressor,” Domańska said.
The second misconception she called “a fetish of Russia stability,” noting that many Western politicians and experts fear turbulence in Russia could be worse than the current war of attrition. She argued that a Russia busy dealing with domestic problems would be unable to invest so much into aggressive wars, and said the West should aim to make Russia a pluralistic country with competing power groups and basic checks and balances, not necessarily a democracy.
Domańska also described Russia’s political system as “neopatrimonial,” in which state institutions are a facade covering decision-making based on purely personal interconnections. The entire state, its resources and population are treated as the property of the leader, who lends pieces to cronies in exchange for loyalty.
She warned that economic arguments will not work with Putin. Any money Russia gains from renewed cooperation with the West would go either to the pockets of certain VIPs, including Putin himself, or be pumped into rebuilding the army. “War will always remain a basic way to legitimise this kind of oppressive state power,” she said.
On Russia’s parliamentary elections next month, Domańska said she would call them “a special electoral operation” rather than an election. The vote, she said, serves one overarching goal: to show Russians and the outside world that Russians overwhelmingly support the war and the Kremlin’s policies, despite two-thirds of Russians wanting the war stopped and returning to peace.
The Kremlin has eliminated from the election all candidates even of the systemic opposition who could promote anti-war slogans or appeal for more spending on non-military goals. Domańska said Putin appears to genuinely believe he is winning and does not listen to anyone, even from the inner elite, who warns of a dead end, growing budget deficit and Russia being on the verge of economic recession.
“I don’t think that a majority of Russians will believe the official results,” she said. “The system is working for itself by itself through itself, and society is more and more being marginalised and objectified.”
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