Putin Can No Longer Hide that Russians are Paying for His War in Ukraine – and that Could Trigger an Explosion, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 14 – Historically, Russia’s rulers “have sought to avoid openly compelling Russians to foot the bill for their imperial adventures” using a variety of means to get money for these or to hide what they are doing, Sergey Shelin says. Putin was able to do that until this year, but his ability to do so in the future is very much in doubt.

            Between 2022 and 2025, Moscow earned more money from oil sales abroad than it spent on the war in Ukraine, the Russian commentator points out and thus could hide from Russians the costs of the war to them (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/14/dengi-na-voinu-rezhim-tolko-seichas-stal-zastavlyat-poddannih-za-nee-platit-a203447).

            But now the costs of the war have risen and earnings from the sale of oil abroad have fallen or at least not kept pace; and the Kremlin has been forced to extract more money from the population in ways that are becoming ever more evident, Shelin says. Precedents suggest this will create a dangerous situation for Russia’s current rulers.

            Because the regime “lacks sufficient oil revenues to continue its aggression,” the commentator continues, “it is therefore tapping into the funds of its subjects,” so far largely in ways that relatively few Russians understand are going to support the war effort. But over time, it has been compelled to coerce ordinary Russians into openly financing the war.

            This year, this pressure will intensify by means of the raising of VAT from 20 to 22 percent and by rising deficits which must be financed and which involve “diverting far more funds from private savings into war loans than even the record three billion rubles that were seen last year.”

            Shelin traces the experience of Russian governments with war financing from the time of the Crimean War. In all cases except World War II which was viewed as an existential battle, these governments have consistently sought “to extract whatever funds a given war needed while resorting to direct taxation of the population only in exception cases.”

            According to Shelin, “the regime’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a war comparable in scale to the Crimean or Russo-Japanese conflicts, but with one crucial difference: there is no end in sight. Unwilling to accept defeat, Putin frames the conflict as an existential struggle … but the average Russian doesn’t believe him on this point.”

            The commentator concludes: “Russia’s imperial history has shown that subjects remain loyal—and even understanding—regarding a regime’s militaristic ventures, provided the regime conceals the sources of funding and does not force them to pay for its campaigns directly.” In that event, the survival of the regime is at risk.

            Either the regime will have to find a way to convince Russians that they are engaged in an existential battle as was the case in World War II, it will have to increase repression to get the money it needs with a backlash in that event all too likely, or it will be compelled to change course in order to save itself.

            Russian regimes over the past two centuries provide examples of all three. What Putin will now do and whether his choice will be sufficient to cover the spending on Russia’s latest imperial adventure very much remains to be seen; but recent trends suggest that the answer to that question is likely to come very soon indeed, Shelin concludes.