The system has no future.” Russian officials admitted there is a crisis in government and are trying to figure out how to live with it

“The system has no future.” Russian officials admitted there is a crisis in government and are trying to figure out how to live with it

Against the backdrop of falling ratings and the stalled war in Ukraine, Russian elites have begun to feel noticeable strain. Western publications are increasingly writing about a crisis in Putin’s system; officials themselves, who spoke with Verstka, have noticed it as well.

The upper circles close to Putin, apparently, feel quite confident. But functionaries lower down are nervous. One such official tells Verstka that if Putin’s power collapses, he and his colleagues “have no future,” and “everyone understands this, although no one says it.”

The official even admitted to a Verstka journalist that he would like to send his child to study abroad. “And as for us, we’ll keep fighting a bit longer,” he added uncertainly.

“That the system has no future is obvious to everyone, and everyone here discusses it. But no one goes beyond stating the fact. No one’s grown the guts for that,” a mid-level Presidential Administration employee tells Verstka.

A Verstka source who works with the Kremlin’s media agenda says that there are currently two “most nervous groups”: the people responsible for controlling domestic politics and those who “make money from the war.”

“The situation is perfectly clear: tomorrow will be worse or the same. You cannot influence it. So you become gloomy, along with everyone else. People look for something to distract themselves with besides work or turn to solving ‘small matters.’ No one here is hatching conspiracies,” one of Verstka’s sources says.

Read about what else is being said about the crisis in government in the corridors of the Kremlin and regional governments on Verstka’s website (with VPN):

Link not working? Read here.

😘 Subscribe to @svobodnieslova and support Verstka — it matters

Verstka

“The jackals gathered at the smell of blood”: how Russian elites are living in ожидании the end of the war and a crisis of power

Officials are sending their children abroad, fearing criminal cases and the loss of their jobs under the next government