Vladimir Putin is losing his grip on Russia

bbazzmt about 3 hours ago 26 commentsRead Article on economist.com

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chistev•about 3 hours ago

I've heard this about a hundred times over the years.

timnetworks•about 1 hour ago

Me too. What I haven't heard until very recently is normal people either unafraid to say it, or afraid of the consequences of saying it less than the consequences of what is happening.

They lost the plot, it's a little too late, but it's new.

JimBlackwood•about 2 hours ago

I think the same every time I read this, but at one point it has to give, right?

Nothing is going well and economically the population is feeling it. I imagine this can’t go on much longer.

andrewinardeer•24 minutes ago

Are you talking about Russia or USA?

chistev•about 2 hours ago

>I think the same every time I read this, but at one point it has to give, right?

If you repeat this same news every time, then you'll eventually be right, yes.

torben-friis•about 2 hours ago

Anecdotally, the people I know who recently visited Moscow and St Petersburg claim they're not seeing significant struggle, and definitely not the 'risk your life for violent revolution' type of issues.

victorbjorklund•about 1 hour ago

Because they are rich people who are in the rich parts of the richest cities. I’m sure if you walked the streets of Moscow in 1988 you wouldn’t see any significant struggle among the elite.

armada651•about 2 hours ago

Moscow and St Petersburg will be the absolute last places where you will see people struggle precisely because Putin knows it's important to keep those cities prosperous even if it's at the cost of people living outside of the major cities.

Simulacra•about 1 hour ago

I don't think so. An oligarchy can hold on for generations, look at North Korea.

nutjob2•about 2 hours ago

The Soviet Union, which was much worse, went on for a very long time. But it fell under similar circumstances, essentially bankrupted by a war in Afghanistan.

It's not so much when the population feels it, rather the elites who prop Putin up.

jemmyw•about 2 hours ago

The mistake that we seem to see repeatedly is blindness to adaptation. Russia's economy would have collapsed had the Russian government carried on exactly as things were before sanctions. No economy will really truly collapse while the people in it need an economy: they will make changes.

At some point those changes might include stopping the war and getting rid of Putin.

I don't think all commentators fall into this trap, but more thoughtful predictions get overwhelmed by those expousing more impactful ideas.

It does seem that Putin has lost something recently, a grip on the hearts and minds of a subset of Russians that previously backed him come what may. The war has been quite static this year, Russia still losing a lot of men, and hardening domestic policy on Internet use. I doubt it's enough for violent protests.

thisislife2•about 2 hours ago

I agree with you that war can easily become unpopular and turn people against their government. But is there any country, whose economy has been sanctioned by the foreigners and crippled by it, where the people then decided to overthrow their government? As far as I know my history, no. Foreign sanctions easily give every country an easy excuse to blame all economic problems on the foreigners. In every instance, they've actually united nations against their "common" enemy (i.e. the foreign sanctioner). They also provide an excuse to stifle criticism using state powers as any criticism on the government handling of the economy can be conveniently labelled as speaking the language of the "enemy" and / or supporting the "enemy".

While I understand that the true purpose of sanctions is to weaken a country's military, sometimes I do wonder if it is a war crime as it also ends up effectively "punishing the people".

ch_sm•about 1 hour ago

Isn‘t Iran a good counter-example? Heavily sanctioned, huge uprisings.

kingleopold•about 2 hours ago

right, journalist a just liars at this point, lol

lifestyleguru•42 minutes ago

The more Russians are desperate the more coarse their propaganda is. Basically most nationalistic and even patriotic movements in Europe are fuelled by Russia, the closer to their borders the more it is true.

OutOfHere•about 1 hour ago

The faster the world can go green, the faster Russia can collapse economically. It is the West that is holding this back by delaying global greenification. Imagine a world where the West was an exporter of green energy.

The only other way I know to weaken Russia, if only temporarily, is by funding Ukrainian drones targeting its fuel infra.

buran77•about 2 hours ago

Age and health issues can erode someone's power. But news like this are a dime a dozen. They might be right but this is propaganda 101. Eventually the prediction comes true and the news outlet can pin a medal to their chest.

Every once in a while they get to throw one about the enemy or any world leader out into the world and see if it sticks. Here's the Economist being super worried about Xi's grip on power [1].

[1] https://www.economist.com/china/2025/07/20/xi-jinping-is-gro...

drakedrepar•about 2 hours ago

The article is paywalled

0dayman•about 3 hours ago

bullshit

doopnottagen•about 3 hours ago

I had this strange dream where Putin died of natural causes and Russia replaced him with a body double and AI to keep the war and world affairs running indefinitely as a continuous psyop.

And then I woke up and wondered if it were true ;p

hiccuphippo•about 2 hours ago

In this hypothetical scenario, who gets to decide how the body double should act or what decisions he takes? And Why wouldn't they just take the power themselves?

apothegm•about 1 hour ago

The latter because as soon as it’s know Putin isn’t there a power vacuum is evident and a broader struggle for power ensues. Then whoever wins has to establish legitimacy.

Whereas a few people in agreement about how to direct a widely-recognized figurehead can hang on to power indefinitely and without contention (the latter being potentially costly along many dimensions).

thunderbong•about 2 hours ago

This isn't Reddit

yepyoukno•about 2 hours ago

I don’t mean to encourage anyone though they are known to use body doubles, AI, and psyops.