More Kremlin insiders starting to question Putin's war

MOSCOW • Almost eight weeks after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine, with military losses mounting and Russia facing unprecedented international isolation, a small but growing number of senior Kremlin insiders are quietly questioning his decision to go to war.

The ranks of the critics at the pinnacle of power remain limited, spread across high-level posts in government and state-run business. They believe the invasion was a catastrophic mistake that will set the country back for years, according to 10 people with direct knowledge of the situation. All spoke on condition of anonymity, too fearful of retribution to comment publicly.

So far, these people see no chance the Russian President will change course and no prospect of any challenge to him at home. More and more reliant on a narrowing circle of hardline advisers, Mr Putin has dismissed attempts by other officials to warn him of the crippling economic and political cost, they said.

Some said they increasingly share the fear voiced by US intelligence officials that Mr Putin could turn to a limited use of nuclear weapons if faced with failure in a campaign he views as his historic mission.

To be sure, support for Mr Putin's war remains deep across much of Russia's elite, with many insiders embracing in public and in private the Kremlin's narrative that conflict with the West is inevitable and that the economy will adapt to the sweeping sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies. And public backing remains strong as the initial shock and disruption from sanctions has given way to a kind of surreal stability in Russia.

Still, more and more top insiders have come to believe that Mr Putin's commitment to continue the invasion will doom Russia to years of isolation and heightened tension that will leave its economy crippled, its security compromised and its global influence gutted. A few business tycoons have made veiled statements questioning the Kremlin's strategy, but many powerful players are too fearful of the widening crackdown on dissent to voice their concerns in public.

The sceptics were surprised by the speed and breadth of the response by the US and its allies, with sanctions freezing half of the central bank's US$640 billion (S$875 billion) in reserves and foreign companies ditching decades of investment to shut down operations almost overnight, as well as the steadily expanding military support for Kyiv that is helping its forces to blunt the Russian advance.

Senior officials have tried to explain to the President that the economic impact of the sanctions will be devastating, erasing the two decades of growth and higher living standards Mr Putin had delivered during his rule.

The President has brushed off the warnings, saying that while Russia would pay a huge cost, the West had left him no alternative but to wage war, the people said. Publicly, he says the "economic Blitzkrieg" has failed and the economy will adapt.

Mr Putin remains confident that the public is behind him, with Russians ready to endure years of sacrifice for his vision of national greatness, they said. With the help of tough capital controls, the rouble has recovered most of its initial losses and while inflation has spiked, economic disruption remains relatively limited so far.

Mr Putin is determined to push on with the fight, even if the Kremlin has had to reduce its ambitions from a quick, sweeping takeover of much of Ukraine to a gruelling battle for the Donbas region in the east. Settling for less would leave Russia hopelessly vulnerable and weak in the face of the threat seen from the US and its allies, according to this view.

In the weeks since the invasion started, Mr Putin's circle of advisers and contacts has narrowed even further from the limited group of hardliners he had consulted regularly before, according to two people.

The decision to invade was made by Mr Putin and just a handful of hawks, including Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov, and Mr Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, these people said.

The critics see no sign Mr Putin is yet ready to consider cutting short the invasion given the losses, or making the serious concessions needed to reach a ceasefire.

Given his total domination of the political system, alternative views take root only in private.

"Putin has built his regime mainly on stoking public support, which has given him the means to control the elite," said Ms Tatiana Stanovaya of political consultant R.Politik. "There is no room for disagreement or discussion, everyone must just get on with it and implement the President's orders, and as long as Putin keeps the situation under control, people will follow him."

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