“The war has begun to change Russia, and profound internal shifts are likely underway,” writes Tatiana Stanovaya, arguing that the Ukraine war is making Russia “less cohesive,” more unpredictable, and more dangerous.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/vladimir-putin-age-chaos

The “ostensible resilience” following Prigozhin’s mutiny is “deceptive” and the Russian state under Putin is actually quite “fragile.” Anti-elite sentiment could turn the public against the perceived incompetence of the political class.

Will these struggles promote peace? No: “challenging situations tend to make Russia only more determined and brutal in waging its war and in quashing dissent at home.” Stanovaya says Russians are committing to the war for fear of their “very survival.”

Prigozhin’s mutiny may have been a “jolt” to alert the Kremlin to its complacency and loyalty problems, but it also makes it (and the broader public) “more chaotic and unpredictable,” not just more repressive and brutal.

Meanwhile, “a new generation of hawks is rising” — think Kiriyenko and Khusnullin, not Medvedev or Patrushev — that actively manages the occupied regions & observes the war, instead of blogging out conspiracy theories. Shoigu and Zolotov win big too.

The apparent decline of the “old ideologues” weakens Putin too, as the “new hawks” are “more dynamic and pragmatic,” “less obsessed” with “’saving’ Ukrainians,” and not convinced that it’s Kyiv’s destiny to fall. They’re not ignoring “alarm bells” like Putin.

“The system has started to learn to operate independently of Putin,” says Stanovaya, before pointing out that this doesn’t mean any kind of opposition to Putin has actually solidified.