What Is Happening in Moscow?

The reader is certainly familiar with the disturbing signals that have been coming from Moscow for some time now. The international press has widely echoed them, as brilliantly shown by Bernard Chappedelaine.

An Impression of Déjà Vu

If one had to summarize the image conveyed by these signals in a single sentence, one would be tempted to refer to the 1980s, when things began to stir in the Kremlin: today's Russia stumbles over the Ukrainian obstacle just as the USSR "bogged down" before the Afghan resistance back in the day; its economy, initially stimulated by military spending, is now entering stagnation, or even recession, as the USSR’s once did; and the Russian regime today, like its Soviet predecessor before, is beginning to lose a Russian public that is nevertheless intensely manipulated. Both regimes come across as gerontocracies that are increasingly out of touch with their times: by cracking down on Telegram and the Internet, Vladimir Putin and his inner circle are clashing head-on with public opinion in major urban centers..

The usefulness of historical comparisons stems from the similarities, but perhaps even more so from the differences between comparable situations.

More generally, what is likely terrible for the current Russian leadership is that Ukraine is doing better than merely resisting: the deep-strike capability it has acquired is beginning to wreak havoc on Russian rear areas, particularly on oil and gas infrastructure, as well as the arms industry; and above all, Ukraine is doing better than resisting even though it no longer truly has American support. When Mr. Putin declares on Red Square: "we are facing an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc", he cannot convince informed opinion and his own colleagues who know very well that today only the Europeans, with all their limitations, are standing behind Ukraine. Furthermore, Putin's rhetoric can offer them little consolation when they see that the war in Iran is providing Zelensky with the opportunity for a diplomatic breakthrough in certain key countries-particularly in the Gulf-highlighting Russia's at least relative marginalization.

In this context, it is hardly surprising that Vladimir Putin is holed up in bunkers. He appears less and less in the public sphere. We are told that in "under the rug conversations," as they are called in Moscow, the theme of the president's succession is recurring more and more frequently. The Russian establishment apparently continues to believe that it is up to Putin to get the country out of the impasse he has placed it in with Ukraine. Speculations have nonetheless resumed on the personality who could replace him when the time comes; the names we cited in our 2024 note are reappearing, notably those of Patrushev's son (Secretary of the Security Council), currently Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture, and Prime Minister, Mr. Mishustin (reputedly supported by Beijing).

Furthermore, does Putin still exercise full power, or is he now nothing more than the figurehead of a regime that has a vested interest in keeping him in place for as long as Russia has not emerged from the Ukrainian ordeal? The question is beginning to be raised. 

The Bugbear of the 1980s

However, a major difference distinguishes the current situation in Russia from that of the 1980s-namely, that the current Russian leaders have already been through it. They will not repeat what they view as their predecessors' mistakes. Gorbachev would currently have no chance of succeeding Putin. The successor will almost certainly come from the clan of "siloviki" (security officials) who have surrounded Putin since his St. Petersburg years.

Immediately, the observation that Russian forces are stagnating in the "kill zone" must be nuanced by the other confrontation, the one on the rear.

On the battlefield, it seems that Russian losses in March reached 30,000 to 35,000 men, more than the country's monthly mobilization capacity at this stage (figures cited by Carnegie expert Michael Kofman, one of the best experts on the subject). However, on the rear, the dazzling progress made by the Ukrainians in their ability to strike Russian arms production and hydrocarbon facilities must not obscure the other side of the reality: over the past few months, Russia has carried out a systematic destruction of Ukrainian energy infrastructure; the transfer of defensive systems to the Ukrainians appears all the more problematic because the United States has significantly depleted its own stocks in Iran; another decisive element lies in Moscow's intensification of its capacity to produce offensive missiles, in the hope of eventually being able to completely overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.

On a third battlefield-that of negotiation-things appear more or less frozen. However, it is to be feared that Russian emissaries-Ushakov (Putin’s diplomatic advisor) and Dmitriev (the financier)-have continued to dangle all kinds of economic benefits to Trump’s emissaries if Washington were to finally exert strong pressure on Kyiv, particularly concerning the major sticking point, which is the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the part of Donbas they still hold.

But there is more. Assuming the clan currently in power at the Kremlin has drawn the suspected lessons from the Gorbachev years, we cannot rule out the possibility that it might seek to avoid failure in Ukraine by expanding the war to the whole of Europe. This may seem counterintuitive, given precisely the difficulties the Russian armed forces have faced in overcoming the Ukrainians. A "European war" would not, however, necessarily have the same characteristics as the conflict in Ukraine: it would primarily be a hybrid war aiming not for territorial conquest but for the demonstration of the futility of NATO's Article 5 which underpins transatlantic solidarity. We ourselves illustrated this point in Montaigne’s note on scenarios of Russian aggression against the Baltic countries. A very rigorous demonstration along the same lines can be found under the pen of Eugene Rumer in an important report for the Carnegie Endowment with the significant title: "Belligerent and Beleaguered: Russia After the War in Ukraine" .

What Is to Be Done?

At the end of this analysis, two lines of action emerge for the Europeans:

• First, it goes without saying that the rearmament effort, which is only just beginning in Europe, must be continued and, if possible, accelerated. Céline Marangé is perfectly correct in noting in Le Monde on May 14 that one must harbor no illusions about the "radical nature of the Russian regime." Moreover, if the 80s concluded with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and ultimately the fall of the USSR, it was also because the United States under the leadership of Ronald Reagan maintained an "arms race" that the Kremlin at the time could not keep up with;
• Second, space must still be explored for an attempted European proposal for a settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. Such an attempt should come not from Paris alone but from a few major European capitals. It might be doomed to failure, but Europeans have enough assets-their support for Ukraine, the freezing of Russian assets, their potential role in Ukraine's reconstruction or on the issue of security guarantees, Kyiv's accession to the EU, etc.-to make themselves indispensable in any settlement. This is perhaps the involuntary admission made by Mr. Putin in suggesting the name of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as mediator, with the explicit aim, of course, of dividing German public opinion. 

Copyright image : Maxim SHIPENKOV / POOL / AFP
Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on May 9, 2026.