Walls are closing in around Putin … Oligarchs turn against the war

Here, Putin’s political rivals from both sides of the spectrum are turning against him, and turning against his war in Ukraine. Costing the oligarchs their fortune, and costing the left their social security, Putin’s empire is being brought down on top of him from all sides.

Recently, the leader of Russia’s communist party openly came out against the war in Ukraine, stating that Russia will ultimately face defeat if its current political course remains unchanged, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues. Speaking at a press conference, he said that if the course does not change and this exhausting war continues, everyone will lose. His reasoning is clear: since the war began, the number of Russian billionaires has increased by fifty percent, accumulating a collective seven hundred billion dollars while domestic food prices have suffered.

Even the official Kremlin statistics show that prices for basic vegetables have risen up to forty percent. He even publicly criticized corruption in the recent Duma elections, stating that voting saw widespread irregularities, along with the straight-up removal of monitoring officials in several regions. Returning to the war, he spoke out against the fact that half of the Russian state budget is lost in the invasion, and that Putin’s aggression is burning every second ruble while the Russian people themselves suffer the cost and neglect.

While Putin’s war is costing Russia an average of six-hundred-eighty million dollars per day, the state is cutting back heavily on healthcare, education, and welfare. While these three pillars of social security have been deteriorating for years before the war began, the diverting of funds away from them has accelerated their collapse. To name an example, Russia has lost half of its schools since the year two-thousand. The communist leader concluded his statements by saying that as the war continues, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

However on the other side of the spectrum, Russian oligarchs and business owners do not seem in favor of continuing the war either, as they are increasingly seeing the repercussions of the failing war in Ukraine. While Russian oligarchs are being forced to take care of their own air defense to protect against Ukrainian strikes, the Kremlin is seizing a massive amount of their assets to fund Putin’s war effort. Since the start of the war, Russian authorities have seized up to ninety billion dollars worth of oligarchs’ assets on grounds of corruption and national security. These are then directly sold or repurposed to feed the war machine that is quickly running out of gas.

Many of these oligarchs now openly admit that they’re funneling their money away into accounts and development funds outside of Russia’s borders, to keep the money out of the Kremlin’s reach. In addition to the sanctions and Ukrainian strikes, the lack of new investments into the Russian economy itself is causing the Russian economy to stagnate, growing only at a fraction of the pace compared to the rest of the world. Official state statistics say that the Russian economy is growing at a rate of only one percent, compared to the three to four percent worldwide average. It is important to note how the majority of this growth is due to the state’s investments into the war effort, through weapon manufacturing and high signing bonuses; however this growth remains within the economic sectors of the military industry or small businesses on a local level alone.

Overall, Putin’s political rivals on both side of the spectrum are turning against him and turning against his war. He has made an enemy out of both, cutting social security and state programs, while seizing economic assets from his richest elite. Putin is desperately trying to balance between the two, working hard to prevent either from fully rising up against him. Through repression of both he is currently able to stay in power for now, but as the oligarchs and Russian society’s criticism of him and the war increase, he is nearing a tipping point. It’s important to understand that a collapse of Putin’s regime will be sudden, and after a long series of looming warning signs that we are seeing now, with the Kremlin holding it off and pretending everything is fine, until very quickly it isn’t.

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It’s no mean feat to get the communists and the capitalists against you at the same time.

Wow! Putin check-out newest accomplishment revealed:

ARTICLE

1. Putin suffers Balkan setbacks as Russia struggles to retain influence
By Michael Getto
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-suffers-balkan-setbacks-as-russia-struggles-to-retain-influence/

“A student-led Serbian protest movement recorded a stunning election victory over the country’s long-serving President Aleksandar Vucic in late October in a vote that was widely interpreted as a landmark moment for the Balkan nation. The change in government in Belgrade was another foreign policy blow for Russian President Vladimir Putin as he struggles to maintain Moscow’s international influence amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Vucic had led Serbia for nine years and was consistently a pro-Russian voice in European politics. While the new Serbian government’s position on Ukraine is unlikely to be overly supportive of Kyiv, the election result means Russia has lost an important ally in a region where Moscow has traditionally enjoyed strong ties. This is expected to force Putin further onto the defensive in the Balkans.

Days earlier, nearby Romania’s parliament approved a new pro-EU government and prime minister, ending a five-month deadlock. The vote came less than a week after Romanian military aircraft shot down Russian drones over Romanian territorial waters in the Black Sea. This tough response by Bucharest helped consolidate the country’s democratic forces and led to the formation of a new coalition government.

If the Romanian parliament had failed to elect a new government, this would have resulted in snap elections, leading to further political uncertainty that Moscow could exploit. In recent years, Romania has been the target of large-scale Kremlin election interference, leading to the cancellation of a 2024 presidential ballot by the country’s Constitutional Court. The formation of a new government now promises a period of relative political stability that will likely also mean solid Romanian backing for Ukraine, including logistical support in terms of military aid and energy supplies.”

2. In Serbia, a new type of democracy is taking hold, and Europe is watching closely
-A movement that began in outrage has delivered remarkable election upset, showing that change is possible and prompting questions over what comes next
By Ashifa Kassam
The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/28/in-serbia-a-new-type-of-democracy-is-taking-hold-and-europe-is-watching-closely

“In April of last year, dozens of students set off from Serbia, intent on making it to Strasbourg, France on bicycles. The aim of the arduous, 13-day transcontinental journey was simple: to make their voices heard in Europe and beyond.

In their home city of Novi Sad, students had been holding near-daily protests after a deadly roof collapse at the city’s main railway station. As their push for accountability and justice spread across the country, it was met with baton-wielding police, teargas and a political class that branded these young people as traitors.

Their trek to Strasbourg was aimed at casting a spotlight on the deepening erosion of democratic values in their home country. “Serbia needs Europe’s support,” the students explained in an open letter to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as they arrived in Strasbourg and met with MEPs and officials. “We are not riding toward Europe to flee Serbia. We are riding to bring it back.”

On Sunday, their movement made headlines across the world as the students were catapulted from the streets of Serbia into the halls of power. In a ballot that saw the highest turnout since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992, over 50% of voters backed the students to oust the increasingly authoritarian leader, Aleksandar Vučić, and end his party’s 14 years in power.

It was, as a Guardian editorial noted, “one of the most remarkable election outcomes in recent European history”.
[Excerpt]

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