The end of Putin’s regime will spring from war spending chaos

The end of Putin’s regime will spring from war spending chaos, former central bank advisor says, amid military mutiny threat and fuel-shortage brawls

Vladimir Putin's grip on power has remained resilient despite the economic woes caused by his invasion of Ukraine, but the seeds of an eventual decline may have already been planted, according to a former Russian central bank advisor.

A telltale sign is the Kremlin's abandonment of any fiscal discipline as the costs of fighting the Ukraine war, which is now in its fifth year, strain existing resources.

Alexandra Prokopenko, who is now a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, pointed out in a recent Financial Times op-ed that the war has forced Russia to unwind its long-touted fiscal restraint.

In a striking example of the turnaround, Russia's parliament recently gave the finance ministry a blank check to spend more and borrow past its debt ceiling without a formal budget or explicit legislative approval.

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