Why is Russia at the negotiating table? Because Putin knows that even if he flattens Ukraine and subjugates or deports its entire population, he …
Why is Russia at the negotiating table? Because Putin knows that even if he flattens Ukraine and subjugates or deports its entire population, he cannot win this war. That’s because Russia was already a dead economy walking and Putin knows it. The economic and political costs of global ostracization will collapse Russia’s economy in months – and Putin’s war machine with it. Further steps like shutting off Putin’s energy revenues can only hasten the demise of the sick (and deranged) man of Europe. But the prognosis was already fatal. Sanctions alone have not forced Putin to reverse course in the short run, and certainly won’t, any more than the threat of starvation forces a terrorist to surrender. But in a few months the situation will be different. Putin may not even be defeated militarily, but he will be defeated economically. It is only a matter of months before Russia’s ailing economy begins its death rattle. First, the Russian economy was ailing even before the war. Unlike totalitarian China, the Russian economy is not robust, and its structure has not changed much in the last 30 years. The Russian people – unlike the Indians or the Chinese – have not gotten any richer. On the contrary, Russia is exceptional in that even as the whole world got richer, people in Russia got poorer. Oligarchs aside, half the population is now 25% poorer than they were in 1980.
