At the start of the year, the Russian economy looked to be giving way. Under the strain of war and sanctions, revenues were falling, production was shrinking and trade was running low. With rising tariffs, credit was prohibitively expensive and borrowing all but impossible: A wave of bankruptcies was on the horizon. In late January, Russia was forced to sell oil to India at just $22 per barrel, about a third of the market rate. As a symbol of unsustainability, it was hard to beat.
President Vladimir Putin has heard such complaints throughout the war. Yet, according to those around him, he has chosen largely not to listen. Officials and business leaders, for their part, understood that the continuation of the war was his absolute priority and that the country’s economic situation was of little consequence. But in February something shifted. Mr. Putin began, suddenly, to pay attention to the flagging economy. There were even signs he might be changing his mind on negotiations with Ukraine, perhaps seeking an exit from the conflict.
Then came the war in Iran. In one swoop, the conditions for conciliation were overturned. Amid buoyant oil prices, Western division and American overreach, the pressure on Mr. Putin to come to terms ebbed away. By a strange twist of history, the start of the war in Iran halted the prospect of ending the war in Ukraine — at the very moment when Mr. Putin appeared ready to consider it.
In February, Mr. Putin seemed ready to change course and overhaul his negotiating team. Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s chief envoy who is widely seen as an insubstantial figure with no real mandate, was reportedly on the verge of dismissal. The leading candidate to replace him was Igor Sechin, the head of the state oil giant Rosneft. Regarded as Mr. Putin’s right-hand man, Mr. Sechin previously oversaw Russia’s relationships with Latin America, as well as the cultivation of close relationships with American oil executives. Here was an indication that Mr. Putin might begin to take talks seriously.
At the same time, rumors began circulating of an imminent large-scale reshuffle of the Russian government. If Mr. Putin were to engage properly in negotiations and pursue peace with Ukraine, he would have to entirely rebuild the structure of power. According to people close to the Kremlin, that could include dismissing the current government. Clouds had already begun to gather over Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin: Individuals close to him have recently become defendants in criminal cases.
We will never know what might have happened. On Feb. 28, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli attack; in the days that followed, everything changed. Oil prices surged above $100 a barrel and, in a major reversal, the United States lifted sanctions on Russian oil. Demand soared for Russian fertilizer as the world reeled from disruptions to food supply. All of a sudden, the economic problems bedeviling Russia seemed to evaporate.
What’s more, divisions deepened between the United States and its NATO allies, who refused to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump called it a “very foolish mistake.” For Mr. Putin, whose foreign policy has been built around cultivating disorder in the West, this was welcome. Equally important is the absorption of America’s attention in the Middle East, pushing Ukraine far from mind. It’s not just attention that is being diverted: The United States is burning through weaponry and ammunition that could otherwise be sent to Ukraine.
In America, too, the Kremlin spies an advantage. It’s not hard to see how a protracted conflict with Iran could erode Mr. Trump’s political standing and weaken the Republican Party, making the upcoming midterm elections especially precarious. This reinforces Mr. Putin’s conviction about the transience of American politics. Mr. Trump, like any American president, is a temporary figure: A new administration will eventually arrive, potentially with a very different approach to Russia. The war in Iran may hasten that shift. In this view, concessions on Ukraine would be pointless.
These are all considerable boons for the Kremlin. But the money now flooding into Russia is by no means a guarantee that Mr. Putin will be able to continue the war indefinitely. On the contrary, some close to the government believe that the current situation will be short-lived. By May, many in Moscow expect, the war in Iran could be over and sanctions against Russia reinstated. For the troubled Russian economy, there is no permanent salvation.
The situation inside Russia is becoming turbulent, too. Ahead of parliamentary elections this fall, the Kremlin is in a state of near-paranoid anticipation, nervously flip-flopping on plans to stuff Parliament with veterans and dealing harshly with a pro-regime blogger who publicly turned on Mr. Putin. It has moved to block Telegram, the country’s most widely used messaging platform, while internet outages are becoming increasingly frequent in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The rumors of sweeping government reshuffles have not gone away.
A level of public discontent that until recently would have been unthinkable is now part of daily life. Before too long, it seems, Mr. Putin will have to make a consequential choice: either agree to some form of de-escalation in Ukraine, potentially including an end to the war, or move in the opposite direction — tightening controls across the board, even to the point of a new mobilization. It’s impossible to predict what decision Mr. Putin will make. But a large factor will be whether America continues in its own war.
Mikhail Zygar (@zygaro) is a former editor in chief of the independent news channel TV Rain and the author of “The Dark Side of the Earth: Russia’s Short-Lived Victory Over Totalitarianism” and the newsletter The Last Pioneer.
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