Vladimir Putin’s Russia does not apologize. It does not lower its tone. It shows no inclination to retreat. On the contrary, as the war in Ukraine moves deeper into its fifth year, the Kremlin continues to portray the conflict not as a strategic dead end, but as a historic test of endurance…

The phrase recently uttered by veteran singer Nadezhda Babkina in front of Putin himself encapsulates this new Russian “idea”: “Anyone who doesn’t like Russia can go poison themselves.” This is not merely a slogan for domestic consumption. It is the official public language of a country that has stopped caring whether it shocks people. A government that does not seek acceptance, but demands tolerance of its reality.

This is Russia in 2026: unapologetic, unrepentant, uncompromising. A Russia that continues to strike Ukrainian cities with massive missile and drone attacks, even as it prepares for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum—the annual showcase through which it seeks to demonstrate that it is not isolated.

The message is twofold. To the outside world: Russia remains present, engages with dozens of countries, and has not been broken by sanctions. To the domestic audience: the war continues because the country cannot back down. Yet behind this image of resilience, cracks are beginning to appear—cracks that Kyiv, just hours before the opening of the economic forum, is eager to highlight through precision strikes on the beloved hometown of the Russian president.

The End of the “Spirit of Anchorage”

For months, Moscow had invested politically—and in other ways—in Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Within the Kremlin, there was an expectation that the American president would pressure Kyiv into accepting a settlement on Russian terms. In simple terms, Ukraine would be forced to accept territorial losses, allowing Russia to present the war as a victory.

After the U.S.–Russia summit in Anchorage, Alaska, Russian officials repeatedly referred to the “Spirit of Anchorage,” as if an informal understanding had been reached between Trump and Putin regarding Ukraine. But no peace agreement materialized. And now, even people within the Kremlin itself avoid using the phrase.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, went so far as to say that he does not know what the “Spirit of Anchorage” means and that he never used the expression. The detail matters—as it often does. In Russian political language, such distancing is rarely accidental. It suggests that an expectation is fading.

Moscow has not abandoned hope that the West will tire before Russia does. But it can no longer base its strategy solely on the idea that Trump will deliver a solution favorable to the Kremlin.

This partly explains Putin’s growing frustration. What was planned as a short “special military operation” has become a bloody war of attrition. Russia has suffered enormous battlefield losses, economic pressure, technological degradation, and the gradual transfer of the war onto its own territory.

The War Is Also Inside Russia

The most difficult challenge for the Kremlin is not only that it has failed to achieve its original objectives. It is that the war—presented to Russians as something distant, controlled, and necessary—has begun to manifest itself inside the country as well.

Closing In

Ukrainian drones now reach deep into Russian territory. Refineries and energy facilities are frequently targeted. The drone attack on the Moscow region demonstrated that even the air defenses around the Russian capital can be penetrated. The May 9 Victory Day parade in Red Square, the highest ritual of Russia’s wartime triumph narrative, took place under heightened security concerns and in a more limited format.

This image carries heavy symbolic weight. Russia has built much of its post-Soviet identity on the memory of victory. Putin does not govern solely through mechanisms of power. He governs through a cohesive narrative: that Russia is a nation that endures, suffers, is surrounded by enemies, but ultimately prevails.

Yet when the war ceases to be merely images from the front and becomes a strike on a refinery, fear in Moscow, scaled-back ceremonies, and economic burdens, that very narrative begins to be tested. It is not collapsing. But it is being tested.

The Economy as a Silent Front

Sanctions did not clearly destroy the Russian economy in the way many in the West initially predicted. Moscow adapted. It redirected trade and energy exports toward other markets. It strengthened wartime production. It found ways to circumvent restrictions.

But resilience does not mean the absence of cost.

More than four years of war and thousands of international sanctions have created significant pressure. The budget deficit is growing. The economy is showing signs of stagnation. Dependence on third parties for technology is increasing. Wartime production keeps certain indicators afloat, but it does not generate normal economic growth. It produces prolonged mobilization.

This is the point that matters for the next phase. Russia can continue the war. It can absorb costs. It can send more people to the front and produce more weapons. But the longer the war fails to deliver a clear victory, the more it transforms from a tool of national unity into a mechanism of continuous attrition.

And in Russian history, attrition does not always manifest openly. Often, it accumulates quietly beneath the surface.

Escalation Instead of Retreat

The Kremlin’s response to this pressure is not de-escalation. It is escalation.

Recent large-scale attacks on Ukrainian cities indicate that Putin has no intention of arriving at the St. Petersburg Forum with a message of retreat. Quite the opposite. He will attempt to demonstrate that Russia remains strong and that Ukraine must accept Russian terms.

The official line remains unchanged: Ukraine must cede the entirety of the Donbas to Russia.

This is not a basis for compromise. It is a demand for victory. And as long as that demand remains, the end of the war appears distant.

The Kremlin rejects responsibility for escalation. It argues that it is responding to Ukrainian attacks, including the strike on Starobilsk in occupied eastern Ukraine, where Russian authorities reported the deaths of 21 students. The Ukrainian side stated that it targeted the headquarters of Russia’s elite Rubicon drone unit, without confirming whether it was the same building shown by Moscow.

The logic is familiar: every strike justifies the next one. Every response becomes an argument for continuation. Every death is incorporated into a narrative of national endurance.

In this way, the war perpetuates itself.

The First Cracks in the Controlled Public Discourse

The most interesting development is not found in Putin’s official statements. It is found in what is beginning to be written—albeit cautiously—inside Russia itself.

In a tightly controlled media environment, voices are emerging that do not openly challenge Putin but are beginning to question the duration of the war.

Political scientist Vasily Kashin wrote in Russia in Global Affairs that the goal of eliminating the “anti-Russian regime” in Ukraine is, at this stage, essentially unattainable without a full military occupation of the entire country, including western Ukraine, for an extended period—something he noted is technically impossible for Russia.

The wording is careful, but the conclusion is significant.

If the full objective is unattainable, then the Kremlin faces three options: continue a war with no defined endpoint, reduce its objectives, or seek a compromise that cannot easily be presented as a victory.

Even more striking is the fact that the pro-Kremlin newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets published views describing a division among experts. On one side are those who want the “special military operation” to continue until all objectives are achieved. On the other are those who believe that the worst-case scenario is not defeat itself, but an endless military operation.

For Putin’s Russia, that statement is almost heretical.

Because it shifts the focus of fear. It does not say that defeat is the ultimate evil. It says that stalemate may be worse.

The Article That Disappeared

Even more revealing was the intervention of lawyer Dmitry Krasnov, who argued that in Russian history, lost wars and humiliating armistices often led to reforms, new victories, and national renewal.

In a country where the national idea has been built around victory, this was remarkable. Almost explosive.

Was it a suggestion that Russia might need to end the war without achieving its goals? Perhaps.

What is certain is that a few days later, the article was no longer available. The message “Error 404. Page not found” remained as the only trace.

The discussion exists. But it has limits.

And those limits are still defined by the Kremlin.

This is perhaps the most accurate snapshot of contemporary Russia. There is no open challenge. There is no organized anti-war movement that directly threatens Putin. But there are trial balloons, hints, and controlled leaks of thought.

A system that wants to know how far discussion can go without turning into political risk.

Putin’s Dilemma

Putin faces a difficult dilemma.

If he continues the war, he can preserve the image of uncompromising resolve, but he increases the economic, military, and social costs.

If he seeks a compromise, he must present it as a victory—even if he has failed to achieve his original objectives.

If he waits for the West to grow tired, he risks Russia growing tired first.

So far, his choice has been clear: continue and apply pressure.

More strikes on Ukraine. Maintenance of maximum demands. Projection of international resilience through forums such as the one in St. Petersburg. No sign of public remorse. No acknowledgment of mistakes.

But this strategy rests on one assumption: that time works in Russia’s favor.

That has been the Kremlin’s central wager ever since the prospect of a quick victory disappeared.

That Ukraine would be exhausted.

That Europe would grow weary.

That the United States would shift its priorities.

That Russian society would endure longer than Western societies.

Today, that assumption has not collapsed. But it is no longer as certain as it once seemed.

Russia is not close to political upheaval. There is no indication that Putin is preparing to change course. There is no serious signal that the Kremlin will abandon its demands regarding Donbas or accept a settlement that cannot be sold domestically as a Russian success.

But there is something different: a sense of fatigue that is beginning to be expressed, however indirectly, within the Russian system itself.

The question is no longer only how Russia will win.

It is also how long it can continue a war that it is not clearly winning, yet cannot stop without paying a price.

That is Putin’s real problem.

He has built his entire political image on the idea that Russia does not retreat. But a war without an end may become a threat not because it brings immediate defeat, but because it slowly erodes the very promise of strength upon which the regime depends.

Putin’s Russia still appears tough. It continues to bombard. It continues to demand. It continues to tell the world that it is not ashamed of what it is.

But beneath that toughness, something more troubling for the Kremlin is beginning to be heard: not the voice of defeat, but the whisper of exhaustion.

Photo: Reuters