Putin, of course, doesn’t care how many people die for his cause at the front. But he will care when those bodies either aren’t replaced with new soldiers or when the effect of those additional people ‘choosing’ to be in Ukraine, is felt by them not working or spending at home.

Signs of the system struggling to cope are there if you know where to look. A shopping mall in Izhevsk has been converted into a weapons factory; bakers are quitting bread production because they’ve been told to make drones; office workers are asked to ‘volunteer’ to work in munitions factories after work. AvtoVaz, a carmarker, and Ozen, Russia’s Amazon, are employing prisoners.

It all adds up to domestic trouble.

#putin #russia #ukraine #war #geopolitics

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