West believes Putin cannot agree to peace due to threat of domestic political issues – Bild

The United States has been urging Russia to stop its aggression against Ukraine and agree to a peace deal. Meanwhile, there has been growing conviction within Western government circles that Russian leader Vladimir Putin's regime is unable to end the war without serious political consequences inside the country.

Source: German tabloid Bild

Details: Bild noted that Russia shows no willingness to compromise despite international pressure. According to Bild, high-ranking Western government circles believe the reason lies in deep internal factors: political, economic and social.

Quote: "This is because Russia has not yet achieved its military objectives. The defence industry has been inflated with huge investments. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are making good money from the war. All of this makes it very difficult for Putin to find a path to compromise."

Details: According to Russian economists, if the sectors dominated by the defence industry are excluded from the analysis, Russia's economy is effectively in a state of recession. A downturn is evident in many industries, such as food production, coal, building materials, metal products and machinery manufacturing.

"Production is falling! Only the defence industry is masking the decline," Bild said.

According to economist Alexandra Prokopenko from the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who worked at the Central Bank of Russia until 2022, the belief that ending the war would automatically lead to the collapse of the defence industry is exaggerated.

Experts believe that an additional threat to Putin's regime comes from war veterans. Many of them, upon returning from the line of contact, may become a source of social instability, especially in regions with low living standards and limited economic prospects.

"Dealing with veterans returning after the end of the war is likely to become a challenge for Putin," said Margaret Klein, an expert on Russia at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

"Those who went to the line of contact as volunteers often received payments several times higher than the average salary. This concerns not only increased wages but also one-off recruitment bonuses amounting to over €40,000," Klein noted.

According to her, the risk of a wave of violence increases if the Kremlin cannot offer these people an economic future.

Quote from Klein: "The number of violent crimes has increased since Russia's full-scale invasion. There is a real danger that some of the veterans – like those who fought in Afghanistan or Chechnya – will become involved in [organised] crime."

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