The visit offered Putin the opportunity to emphasize the shared Russian and Chinese antipathy to American dominance and position Russia, alongside China, as a stabilizing global force despite the war in Ukraine. Xi offered a measured critique of the American war against Iran, urged a “complete cessation of hostilities” and described a renewal of airstrikes by the United States as “unacceptable.”
Putin’s record since then tells its own story. He attacked Georgia in 2008, seized roughly 15% of Ukraine in 2014, and just last week pushed through legislation authorizing the invasion of any country to “protect Russian citizens.” The day before Putin flew to Beijing, Belarus announced the beginning of military training exercises involving Russian nuclear weapons, a timely reminder of how dangerously conflict could spread.
Putin has struggled to manage fighting Kyiv on the one hand and placating domestic constituencies on the other. Rumors and speculation about internal strife within the Kremlin were widespread. Russia enforced an unpopular internet crackdown and a popular expression of discontent and dissent led by online influencers exploded, which refuses to die down. Economic distress has a way of compounding political troubles. Putin got lucky. On Feb. 28, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel launched their war against Iran. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, and the price of Russia’s crude oil shot up from $44 to $100 per barrel.
How the Iran war helped Putin
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sparked new demand for Putin’s oil. Europe, long troubled by the war in Ukraine, felt a renewed desire for Russian oil, mirroring the rising thirst for energy security across Asia. By lifting sanctions on Russian oil already loaded onto tankers at sea, Trump handed Putin another win—freeing him to sell more widely and draw new buyers. China and India now compete for Russian oil. Even Japan has declared Russian oil as “extremely important” to its energy security, so long as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
A weakened international order, combined with a surfeit of oil riches, helps Putin weather economic difficulties and emboldens him to keep pounding the drums of the war in Ukraine. Speaking at a forum on Apr. 21, Putin declared that the entire country would work for the war front. “In the hardest, freezing months of World War II in 1941 and 1942, children, grandmothers and women knitted socks, just like now,” he said. “The success of our victories is in unity—the same thing will happen now.” Despite Putin’s rallying cries, assessments by military analysts suggest that the situation on the battlefield is essentially a stalemate, with Ukraine having reclaimed at least as much territory as it has lost in recent weeks.
But this strategy cannot last forever, given the damage it inflicts on the economy. Over four years of the war in Ukraine, Russian authorities have jailed 1,603 political prisoners, according to Memorial, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian human rights organization. Meanwhile, hard-to-police social media platforms have been flooded with Russians’ complaints. In April alone, even the government-linked VTsIOM polling agency published surveys showing that only 29% of Russians named Putin as a leader they would trust to run the country. The Kremlin’s approval rating is cracking.
But Kremlinologists, including Putin’s former speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov, are convinced that no amount of public critique will slow Putin down. “He will continue to drag Russia toward a state-controlled system, away from a capitalist economy.”
What Russians feel
As of February, a majority of Russians, up to 67%, supported peace negotiations, according to the Levada Center, an independent pollster in Moscow. War fatigue, restricted social media, and disruptions to online banking are deepening this dark mood.
The sentiment is far from unique. A glance at popular Russian women’s magazines such as Spletnik, Gossiper, and Symbol reveals nothing about women knitting socks for the front. Instead, their pages are full of stories about the lifestyles of the elite, celebrities, the British royalty, and social scandals in Moscow. Even Gennady Zyuganov, the 81-year-old leader of the traditionally loyalist Communist Party, who has a following of elderly people nostalgic for the Soviet Union, has joined the criticism. Speaking from the floor of Parliament on Apr. 21, he complained that the entire economy has sunk “to the bottom.”
The FSB, the Soviet-era KGB’s successor, is stoking fear among Russians. Over the past year, a group of lawyers recorded 486 state treason and espionage cases brought against Russian scientists, bureaucrats, military figures, and other government employees. Fear continues to rule Russia. Svetlana Gannushkina, an 88-year-old human rights defender who lived through the Soviet era, fears a return to its familiar terrors under Putin.
The prevailing fear is being conscripted into the military as punishment for dissident activity. “The best people fear the meat grinder,” Gannushkina told me, referring to the war in Ukraine. Just as Putin’s war in Ukraine has been normalized, so too has Trump’s war against Iran. “They are alike. They are consumed by megalomania and convinced they are on a mission,” she said. “Never in my 88 years have I experienced a more absurd time than now.”
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