Russian ex-official on war's pressure on Putin: 'Something is brewing'

Joining us for more now on these attacks and on the status of this conflict is Vladimir Lov.He was once deputy energy minister of Russia before his reform proposals were completely undone by Vladimir Putin.He's a leading voice opposing Putin's continued rule over Russia.And he joins us now.Good to see you.And thanks for being with here with us here.

I do want to start with the military and strategic point here.Putin's response to Ukraine is fairly predictable, right?If you poke the bear, the bear will attempt to bite your head off.But do you believe at this point in time there is any kind of backstop for Putin himself right now?Or do you fear that he will just continue to escalate?

Hello, great to be with you again.Definitely Putin is getting into more and more desperate situation because his resources that enable him to continue this war are dwindling.He has a lot of economic troubles at home.There's another round of mass mobilization that is being mauled because he's short of people at the front lines.And if this mobilization happens, This will have a profoundly negative effect on Russian economy and society, so that's no easy choice.And you see that he's not being advancing at the battlefield for quite some time already.

The combat is very much stalled and Russia is not advancing.Plus we see new developments like successful Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, taking out also some critical energy infrastructure.There are motives.If Putin continues to wage this war against Ukraine, which seems to be the case, the only traditional pattern that he uses is to escalate.So this is what he's trying to do by striking more Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, inflicting horror and pain, and hoping to break the resistance of the Ukrainian nation.But we saw this before.

It doesn't work.I don't think there are any reasons to believe that this time it will be successful.However, the horrors unfortunately continue.

Yeah, the picture you're painting is quite bleak.I do want to deal with two different factors in Russia, but let's start with the economy.Some assume that there is a cliff over which that Russian economy can go, or will it continue to stumble along?I know you look into this quite quite closely.So we've got a depleted budget, we have worsening inflation, and of course we have all of these attacks on the energy, especially the refineries in Russia.Is that having a real effect on the economy and Putin's ability to continue to prosecute this war?

It is all of this is having a very, very significant effect.And particularly if you look in dynamics, just a year ago, Russia did not envisage the scenario that is happening today, which is economic contraction.Even despite some of the windfall from increased commodities prices from the war in the Middle East, Russia's economy is still contracting.We just received the data from May and it shows continued contraction.We have ballooning budget deficit and a full -blown budget crisis.And we have second highest inflation in G20 after Turkey.

The government was not able to calm it down with three years of high interest rates and tight monetary policy.That doesn't mean that Putin does not have resources to continue the war.But his room for maneuver is significantly shrinking.For once, you know, talks about mobilization are being contained with the shortage of labor at the Russian labor market.And that's one of the biggest economic issues, which prevents him from mobilizing more men to fight in Ukraine.So economy is now a very significant constraining factor.

Putin might stillcontinue to wage war for some time, but if you listen to a Russian public debate that happens even in officials' corridors of power, people begin questioning.Ministers, top businessmen begin questioning what they are doing and openly saying that we need to end the war as soon as possible.

You know, those elites are clearly the people that matter, perhaps, in having influence on the Kremlin.But I do wonder, going back to your original point, what is the risk of Putin really escalating further here?Because the war is now hitting home for Russians.He may actually gain more support for this war, right?Do you believe it could prompt a certain level of defiance that might convince him, you know what, I'm going to hit back even harder?

Well, you can look at the objective indicators, one of which is recruitment, drafting of people to fight on the battlefield against Ukraine.This drafting has been dramatically shrinking in numbers.Recently, there are not many men left who are willing to go and fight, even for, you know, a pay which is many times higher than the median salary in Russian regions.But still, this stream of new recruits is shrinking.That's one thing.Another thing, if you really look at many signs of discontent, some prominent pro -Putin public figures openly speaking against the war, against his policies, that has been increasing lately.

I wouldn't go into details, but many, many numbers just ahead of Russia's biggest bank saying the day before yesterday at the annual shareholders meeting that everybody in the country is waiting for a military operationexhausted.

Right, you doubt whether or not he could pull it off.You know, I've been following very closely what's been going on in Russia in terms of just the lineups at the gas stations.Now, this is impacting everyday Russians.I know you have seen the lines the way I have seen the lines.There are many gas stations that you and I would have been in front of to try and get gas into our cars.You and I both know it's summer.

It is Dacha season.This is going to start to rile people in Moscow and beyond.How are Russians feeling about this?Because I know that we have the elites.I know that we have what we see on state television.But in terms of what you know from everyday Russians, even if they're afraid to speak out, is this what's going to do it, the lineups at the gas station?

Everybody's worried about this.This is what all the country has been talking about and buzzing about lately, because we haven't seen that crisis for decades, for a long, long time, since maybe late 80s or early 90s.But there is a distance.Russia is a full totalitarian country.If you look at, I don't know, Freedom House ranking, we're in top 20 of worst of the worst in the range of Eritrea and Iran, probably, it's not very easy for societies in the countries like that to transform their discontent into protest.Takes time, takes multiple factors, not just gasoline, but probably something else and a combination of different things.

But things are brewing.And one of the issues that we recently saw are pro -Putin public figures openly saying that Putin is to blame and we need to end the war just in the recent few weeks and months.Something unthinkable before.So something is brewing here.We saw that in the previous century, several times in Russia, how all of a sudden discontent transforms into politicalaction.

We're clearly going there, but just, I mean, don't expect a fast journey from point A to point B, but the process is heating up.

Yeah.As you said, history is instructive here, and we would be well wise to really listen to that history and how complicated it actually is in Russia.Vladimir Bilov, we will leave it there for now, but good to have you on the program.Appreciate it.

Thank you.