As the invasion of Ukraine drags on into its fifth year, cracks are appearing throughout President Vladimir Putin's system in Russia. After cementing his image as a strong leader with the Second Chechen War in 1999, Putin styled himself as a "czar" with the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The formula of consolidating power through war is now backfiring in Ukraine's protracted war of attrition.
Putin plans to visit Beijing on the 20th to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. On the 19th local time, the Financial Times (FT) called it "a chance for Putin to project his vitality beside a fellow leader," saying he seeks "to divert attention from cracks emerging both in his domestic power base and from the prolonged war in Ukraine." Analysts say the mere fact that he is flying to meet Xi just four days after President Trump's visit to China highlights Russia's weakened geopolitical standing. Pavel Baev at the Jamestown Foundation said, "This visit reveals Russia's weakened geopolitical standing and reinforces the perception that Moscow is a junior partner dependent on China."
Putin's czar image is shaking at home and abroad. In public, his trembling hands and legs, swollen face, frequent coughing, and scenes of gripping a desk have been repeatedly captured. In an authoritarian system like Russia's, a leader's health is directly tied to regime stability. After Western media recently floated bunker-seclusion claims, the Kremlin unusually released a video of Putin driving himself in downtown Moscow to meet his former teacher. The AP said the heart attack rumor was disinformation from a low-credibility Telegram account. Some note that with the succession still unsettled, even minor signs about Putin's health tend to be overread. Still, experts said the repeated spread of rumors and the Kremlin's need to rebut them each time are eroding his image as an "invincible leader." A figure known to be close to Putin told the FT, "Putin spends 70% of his day thinking about the war," adding, "Only the remaining 30% is devoted to Russia's domestic issues."
At the Victory Day event on the 9th, Putin's anxiety—despite his self-styled "strongman" image—was laid bare. This year, for the first time since 2008, Putin wrapped up the celebration without a parade of tanks and missiles, a move reflecting concern about long-range Ukrainian drone strikes. At last year's 80th anniversary military parade, heavyweights such as Xi, Brazil's President Lula, and Palestinian Authority President Abbas stood by Putin, but this year it was limited to the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, and Uzbekistan. In a report, the Council on Foreign Relations said an event that was once a stage for displays of force "fully exposed the defensive psychology of an aging long-term ruler."
The battlefield situation in Ukraine is also drifting away from the victory narrative Putin had built. Russia's military leadership initially vowed to seize all remaining unoccupied areas of Donbas by this fall. But over the past four weeks, Russia's controlled territory in Ukraine has contracted on net. As the front lines worsened over the past year, the additional land Russia secured amounts to less than 1% of Ukraine's total area. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, "Excluding the wounded, the Russian military suffers 15,000 to 20,000 killed in action every month." To make up for losses starting in 2024, the third year of the war, the Russian government raised the upper end of the conscription age range from 27 to 30, but even that is now insufficient.
The economy is finding it harder to endure the war. As Ukraine's long-range drones precisely strike refineries and munitions plants inside Russia, even crude oil sales—the last remaining export lifeline—are being disrupted. The Russian government cut its 2026 growth forecast to 0.4% from 1.3%, and its 2027 forecast to 1.4% from 2.8%. The official inflation rate is 5.6%, but perceived inflation is higher. The benchmark interest rate has climbed to 14.5%. As rates soar, bad loans among corporations and banks have surged. The Economist, citing a former senior Kremlin official, said the state has forcibly nationalized or redistributed to insiders about $60 billion (about 90 trillion won) in asset from private businesspeople over the past three years.
Public patience has also reached its limit. According to a poll by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), Putin's approval rating at the end of April was 66%, the lowest since the war began and down 8 percentage points from 74% two months earlier. In the same poll, the proportion of respondents who said they were "generally dissatisfied" with domestic politics surged to 36%, a record high since December 2021. Demand for antidepressants in Russia jumped 24% last year. Online searches for "how to leave Russia" have more than doubled since January. Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, said, "War fatigue with no end in sight, tax pressure, and a worsening economy have fueled the spread of pessimism."
The diplomatic landscape is also turning against Putin. The Bashar Assad regime in Syria, where Russia invested a decade of effort, fell to a rebel offensive in December last year. Russia has thus lost, to no effect, strategic naval base asset in the Middle East to counter the United States. Armenia, once considered a steadfast ally in the Caucasus, has hinted at leaving the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and is in talks with the European Union (EU) on an investment deal worth 2.5 billion euros (about 4.4 trillion won). Azerbaijan, once under the rule of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, declined Putin's Victory Day invitation. The Economist said, "Putin started the war to preserve the power and system he built, but paradoxically, once the war began, Russians started to imagine a future without him."