There are growing doubts over whether Russia can actually win this war. This raises the question of whether the Russian elites are prepared to stick with Putin until the bitter end, particularly amid growing threats to use nuclear weapons.

The idea that Russia will inevitably prevail has started to be overshadowed by doubt over what price Russia is prepared to pay in order to bring Ukraine to heel. The longer the conflict rages and the more resources the Russian regime throws into the furnace of war, the more divided Russia’s elites may become, and the more serious those divides.

There are no signs that the Russian elite sees Ukraine as an existential problem for Russia. For Putin, it is an extremely emotional and personal topic. He is fixated on ideas of historical justice, Russian ancestral lands, and the desire to “liberate” the fraternal Ukrainian people from anti-Russian “occupiers” sponsored by the West. But this viewpoint is not shared even by many hawks, never mind the technocrats.