Their economy is fragile and the link is non-unique.

Russia is neither stable nor normal. The presidential election brings to maturity the late-stage Putinism that began with the constitutional referendum in the summer of 2020, when Putin’s potential mandate was extended until 2036. There is more to this stage, however, than mere autocracy. Putin has made clear that Russia is fighting a permanent background war with the West, which gives him both an ideological raison d’être and a way for his ruling elite to maintain power. And to keep it all going, he must continually burn up the country’s resources, financial, human, political, and psychological. All of which points to the country’s political and economic fragility.

Consider the financial and economic situation. Although it retains market fundamentals, the Russian economy is increasingly dependent on government investment. The military-industrial complex has become the overwhelming driver of this unhealthy and unproductive economy, as the 2024 budget makes clear: military expenditures will be 1.7 times higher even compared with last year’s inflated figures, to reach 25 percent of all spending. Meanwhile, Russian exports, primarily of oil and gas resources, are providing diminishing returns because of the closure of Western markets and discounted sales. Nonetheless, these nonrenewables are not exhausted yet, and Putin, at least, seems to hope they will be enough to last his lifetime.

A larger problem is demography. Along with the long-term trend of population aging, the demand for soldiers and the collapse of migrant inflows are pitching the country into demographic crisis. Economists note that all these pressures will combine in the medium term to a decline in labor productivity. Although the artificial growth of wages through the military economy has improved the situation for now, it has also distorted it. Putin is preoccupied with raising the birth rate at any cost, but there are few signs this can be changed. A modernized and urban Russian society will not produce as many children as Putin needs to fuel the military-industrial complex. Besides, how can a Russian family plan for the future in a permanent state of war.

One of the scarcest resources, however, is psychological. Unable to satisfy the public’s hunger for peace and normality, the regime has resorted to gigantic social expenditures and preferential treatment for the poor, turning Russia into Putin’s Barbieland. Russian society in turn has been reduced to adapting and surviving, rather than developing. But civil society, which is different from an indifferent society, unable to protest openly, has shown moral resistance: people openly stood in line to give their signatures for Nadezhdin; after Navalny’s death, they carried flowers and candles to memorials for the victims of Stalinist repressions. And the line to say goodbye to Navalny, the man who embodied an alternative to Putin, was enormous.