In August, activity among analytical and expert centres traditionally slows down, and Re:Russia likewise takes a customary pause until the beginning of September. We will interrupt this break should something extraordinary occur. And August is indeed a month when such events are entirely possible.
The next two months will be critically important for the military outcomes of this year and will, to a large extent, determine the positioning of negotiations to end the conflict, which we expect to become more intense and substantive this autumn.
The Russian economy is in a pre-crisis state due to the imbalances accumulated over the past three years, primarily linked to the diversion of resources from the civilian sector to the military, as well as the deteriorating conditions in the key markets for Russian exports and the degradation of the extractive industries.
The political regime in Russia continues to expand its toolkit for increasingly wide-ranging and all-encompassing control over public life, promoting ultra-conservative anti-Westernism as the official ideology. It is also stepping up efforts towards the information isolation of Russian citizens, although these efforts have so far proven insufficiently effective.
As we sum up the first half of 2025, we invite you to look back at the key trends and events that shaped the dynamics of political and social processes in Russia. We have selected 30 of our most important publications across five areas: 'War', 'Geopolitics', 'Economy', 'Public Opinion Polling', and 'Regime and Society'.
The course of events on the battlefield over the next two months is highly likely to determine the eventual outcome of the war in Ukraine. It remains extremely unlikely that either side will be able to fully achieve its objectives, including Russia. However, if the coming months demonstrate that the Ukrainian army’s forces are depleted and Russia holds a decisive advantage on the battlefield, this is highly likely to result in a ceasefire agreement that is deeply unfavourable to Ukraine. Conversely, if Ukrainian defences hold, the Kremlin will likely be forced to enter into an agreement that accepts Ukrainian sovereignty and the country’s growing military partnership with Europe.
Russia has significantly ramped up the production not only of drones but also of various types of missiles. As a result, in 2025 the scale and intensity of Russian missile-and-drone strikes have increased several-fold, and the weapons themselves have become more sophisticated. The effectiveness of Ukrainian air defences has sharply declined. Western allies are coordinating the supply of several Patriot systems. Yet it is far from certain that this will be sufficient. The problem is particularly acute because the cost of repelling a combined missile-drone attack significantly exceeds the cost of mounting one. Today, this is not only the most pressing problem for Ukraine, but also, in the long term, a major problem for Europe, which also does not yet have reliable means of defence against such attacks.
Russia’s effective system of commercial military contracting has enabled the Kremlin to replenish and build up manpower for offensives along multiple fronts. This manpower advantage is the key resource behind Russia’s current offensive and battlefield dominance. However, this advantage comes at an enormous cost: according to Re:Russia estimates, in the first half of 2025, expenditures on the contract army, including bonuses, salaries, payments to the wounded and to the families of the fallen, may have exceeded 2 trillion roubles. This is equivalent to around 1% of Russia’s GDP and over 5% of consolidated budget expenditures. Around 20% of this amount has gone towards sign-up bonuses for new contracts.
The new approach towards Moscow, announced by Trump in July, appears to mark a return to the strategy proposed by his adviser Keith Kellogg. As early as January, Kellogg had suggested applying two main levers of pressure on the Kremlin: tightening economic sanctions and expanding arms supplies to Ukraine. However, Trump’s six-month pause, during which he attempted to persuade Putin without applying any real pressure, allowed the Kremlin to prepare for a new offensive and to launch it by mid-summer under highly favourable conditions. The sanctions, now delayed until early September, further extend this pause. At the same time, Trump has lifted the taboo that was in place earlier this year on discussions around new US arms deliveries to Ukraine. Moreover, the conditions for introducing fresh sanctions on Russian oil will likely be more favourable in the autumn. Nonetheless, there remains no certainty that Trump will adhere to the declared strategy.
The mistaken downing of an Azerbaijani aircraft has triggered a serious escalation in tensions between Moscow and Baku, and has provided the opportunity for Russia to be sidelined from the peace negotiations, which Armenia and Azerbaijan have not only continued but significantly intensified in recent months. As a result, the agreed version of a peace treaty between the two countries fundamentally rewrites previous Russian-brokered agreements and opens the door to the long-anticipated Western project of a 'Middle Corridor' – a transport route bypassing Russia, linking Central Asia to Europe via the Caucasus. Unexpectedly, the United States has emerged as the sponsor of this new peace initiative. Nevertheless, Moscow still retains tools of influence over both Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Although global military spending has been rising for ten consecutive years and now accounts for 2.5% of global GDP, the situation is still far from reaching Cold War levels, when such spending approached 5%. The key drivers of the new arms race now taking shape are the strategic rivalry between the US, China, and Russia; the erosion of the nuclear deterrence doctrine; the evolving nature of modern warfare; and growing mistrust of traditional security guarantees, both American and international. The cycle of nuclear arms reduction is, for all intents and purposes, over. China is seeking to consolidate its position as a leading nuclear power, while the US is preparing for the possibility of simultaneous conflict with three nuclear-armed states: Russia, China, and North Korea. The weakening of American security guarantees makes the further expansion of the nuclear club all but inevitable.
The global democratic recession has now been ongoing for nearly two decades, as reflected in all major indices of democratic development. In the early years, this decline was mainly driven by backsliding in countries that had joined the democratic world during the third and fourth waves of democratisation. However, democratic erosion is now becoming increasingly visible in the so-called 'core democracies', which were once considered models to emulate and helped to promote global support for democratic norms and values.
Russia is turning into a global laboratory for resistance to sanctions pressure. A dangerous consequence of this is the emergence of an economic model based on widespread violations of intellectual property rights, opaque foreign trade reliant on its own 'grey' infrastructure, and the use of unconventional international payment systems. While in the early 21st century, alternative globalisation was primarily driven by criminal networks and syndicates, today it is increasingly being led by pariah states. These states are forming a global coalition in opposition to the principles of globalisation that once shaped the world order.
A combination of three factors – continued growth in war-related spending, economic slowdown, and falling export revenues – is forcing Russia’s economic authorities to reconsider their current policy course. To plug the widening hole in the budget, they will most likely need to ease monetary policy, effectively tolerating higher inflation. In practice, this will represent a redistribution of burdens: higher inflation will benefit businesses at the expense of ordinary citizens, whose incomes will begin to adjust downwards, after rising in 2023–2024. The budget figures may be made to roughly add up, but ultimately, the cost of escalating war expenditure will still have to be paid.
A structural shift is underway in Russian industry. In the pre-war era, the extractive sector often acted as a stabiliser during periods of shrinking domestic demand. Now, weakened, it is dragging overall industrial output down. Between January and May 2025, the extractive sector posted its worst performance in 12 years. Manufacturing has also swung from strong output growth in the first half of last year to contraction in the same period this year. Yet a few narrow zones of abnormally high growth, mainly in export niches and military production, are blurring the overall picture. These trends began to form even before the impact of declining export revenues was felt. That new negative factor only began to bite towards the end of the second quarter and is expected to hit harder in the third.
For the past 25 years, the Russian capitalist model has been a hybrid, combining elements of a 'developmental state' and a 'mafia state' atop the foundations of a liberal market economy. The balance between these elements shifted over time depending on the power dynamics among elite groups. The hybrid nature itself, however, remained constant, enabling the system to remain politically stable and economically adaptable, striking a delicate balance among elite interests within a personalised autocracy. Now, as the war in Ukraine drags on, this model is facing pressure to shift towards a mobilisation economy. While the number of actors supporting such a shift is growing, the transformation would be a complex and politically risky manoeuvre, the success of which is far from assured.
Family-run sectoral holdings are emerging as dominant players in Russia’s wartime economy, particularly in agriculture, chemicals, and the Russian internet economy, controlled by families close to Putin. This trend has been enabled by the exit of certain Russian and foreign investors, but primarily by an aggressive campaign of forced nationalisation and asset redistribution from 'unreliable' owners. Politically, this reflects the creation of a new family-oligarchic base of regime support, whose property rights and interests are directly linked to the question of political succession and intertwined with the ruling elite’s hold on power.
The main threat to the Russian economy is not a sudden collapse in oil prices, which remains unlikely, but a steady decline in both prices and revenues across a broad range of exports. While current prices remain above late-2010s levels, growing supply and competition are creating conditions for the displacement of Russian products, now tainted by sanctions-related costs. This development is especially painful because the shift to a war economy has, paradoxically, made Russia more, not less, dependent on imports.
Nearly two-thirds of Russian households report higher incomes compared to 2022, according to a large-scale consumer finance survey conducted by the Central Bank. However, a quarter of households saw their incomes fall – these are the 'losers' of the economic restructuring. Meanwhile, 22% experienced income increases of 50% or more, and another 40% report moderate growth between 3% and 25%. In other words, income growth among the 'winners' greatly outweighs the losses of the 'losers', giving the average figures a rosier look than the median data suggests. In reality, the share of households whose real incomes declined may be somewhat higher, and the share with rising incomes somewhat lower, since both low- and high-income groups face inflation rates above the official average for their consumption baskets.
Russia’s IT sector is undergoing a rapid transformation driven by sanctions, the exit of Western firms, and the government’s push for 'digital sovereignty' through domestic software solutions. In nominal terms, the sector is growing fast, with sales up 25% annually. But in real terms, the pace is far more modest and, over three years of war, looks likely to underperform compared to the previous decade. Building a self-sufficient IT environment is both unrealistic and economically inefficient within a market as small as Russia’s. As a result, the sector is evolving along the lines of 'forced import substitution', with IT companies primarily serving state demand, while weak private demand is increasingly met through imports from China.
The growing role of fiscal policy in macroeconomic management over the past three years is a curious phenomenon for economists, demonstrating the possibility of seriously disrupting macroeconomic stability without resorting to significant public finance deficits. The essence of the policy pursued was to redistribute limited financial and human resources between productive and unproductive sectors of the economy, the latter being related to military needs. This reallocation has deprived the civilian economy of both capital and labour, becoming itself an inflationary factor. At the same time, it has suppressed economic activity outside the military sphere, despite increasing budget spending and demand.
One of the main characteristics of Russian public opinion today is the existence of a large group of ‘loyalists’ who are ready to toe the Kremlin line as presented through official propaganda. However, where propaganda fails to offer a clear directive, public opinion can diverge sharply from President Putin’s position. For instance, a significant majority of Russians (around 60%) support an immediate ceasefire without preconditions, followed by negotiations. This is precisely the scenario proposed by the Western coalition and Volodymyr Zelensky in the spring, and categorically rejected by Putin.
Current opinion polling suggests that Russian society can be divided into four distinct camps based on attitudes towards how the war might end. The 'victory camp' (just under 20%) rejects any peace settlement or end to hostilities until the 'special military operation' achieves its goals. The 'peace camp' (around 30%) supports ending the war as soon as possible, even at the cost of concessions to Ukraine, including territorial ones. Then there is the 'swing camp' (roughly 10%) whose support oscillates between war and peace depending on how they perceive the situation on the front lines and Russia’s chances of victory. Finally, the 'loyalist camp' (35–40%) prefers peace, but only on terms deemed favourable to Russia, the adequacy of which will be determined by Putin himself. Given the nature of polling in an authoritarian and repressive context, it is likely that the loyalist camp is overrepresented in the data.
In today’s Russia, Orthodoxy serves as a central component of the state’s official ideology. The country’s ruling elite often seek to display their religiosity, sometimes with overt zealotry. And yet, despite a slight increase in religiosity over the past decade, Russia remains comparatively secular: it ranks in the lower third of countries by religiosity. A decade ago, it was on par with the most secular nations in Europe. Even today, church attendance in Russia mirrors levels in Finland and Germany. Paradoxically, trust in the Church as an institution is higher in Russia than in other countries with similarly low religiosity, while regular church attendance remains significantly lower. These discrepancies highlight the nature of Russian Orthodoxy: it functions more as a state-driven civic ritual than as a true spiritual practice, that is, it is largely declarative rather than devout.
Roughly 40% of Russians say they live in an environment where supporters of the 'military operation' are not the majority. Moreover, only about half believe there is full support for the war even within Putin’s inner circle, while a third believe there is no consensus even there. In public settings, opposition to the war tends to be underreported due to fear of repression and the 'spiral of silence' effect. Yet in private conversations within close circles, anti-war sentiment appears more prominent than polling data suggests. Many respondents feel they live in a society with a greater diversity of opinion on the 'special operation' than one might assume based on casual public discussions or poll results. Interestingly, when asked about attitudes within Putin’s entourage, a substantial share of respondents perceive a similar diversity of views at the highest levels of power, which suggests that plurality is seen not just in their own circles but as a broader feature of Russian society.
Unlike in the West, where the renewed anti-abortion movement is largely driven by religious conservatism, Russia’s anti-abortion campaign is statist and militaristic in tone. It appeals not to moral or theological arguments, but to themes of 'national salvation,' sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Surveys show only a modest shift towards less tolerance for abortion in recent years, which can be better described as a 'normalisation,' given that tolerance for abortion in post-Soviet Russia has traditionally been extremely high. It is also well known that reducing abortion rates does not lead to higher birth rates. Thus, the campaign appears more as an ideological intrusion into private life, that is, a tool to promote state-centric collectivism while displacing the modern middle-class ideal of individualism that had taken hold in recent decades.
Wars do not promote democratisation while they are ongoing, but they are a powerful driver of political change once they end, according to historical data, especially in cases involving leadership change. The idea that personalist autocracies rarely give way to democracy is largely due to the generally low level of economic development in such regimes. Today’s Russia represents an atypical personalist autocracy with an unusually high level of economic development and education for its type. Furthermore, it has prior experience with democracy. There are two types of personalist autocracies with unusually high GDP per capita: oil-rich states and countries with advanced economies and well-educated populations. The former successfully combine both traits; the latter have historically transitioned to democracy. Russia possesses features of both, which creates a wide range of potential scenarios for its political future.
In the late 2010s, municipal elections in Russia became a platform for new political activism and for opposition to gain ground at the local level. The current sweeping reform of local self-government seeks to cement a consistently unitary model of statehood by integrating lower levels of power into a single vertical system and removing electoral competition and citizen involvement. In many regions, this new model has met with spontaneous but fragmented grassroots resistance. However, the most effective opposition has come from the national republics. In those areas, the municipal tier serves less as a platform for democratic activism and more as a tool of inclusive paternalism, maintaining the cohesion of regional elites. The sharpness of the conflict in the Altai Republic stems from the reform being used as a vehicle for Moscow-based financial groups to seize territory, with plans to build a federal tourist cluster in the Altai Mountains.
In the second half of 2024 and the first half of 2025, the Kremlin renewed its focus on regional policy after a pause in 2022–2023. The pace and pattern of personnel reshuffles suggest an even harsher approach. This is evidenced by near blanket purges of administrative elites in some regions, with governors replaced. Another major trend is the infiltration of regional administrations by participants of the ‘Special Military Operation’, career military personnel or managers with experience in the ‘new territories’. Although not yet significant in number, these figures are becoming increasingly visible in the governing elite. Their positions and ambitions are turning into a new political constant within regional governance.
The 'Publishers’ Case', in which three employees of prominent publishing houses face up to 12 years in prison, shocked Russian society, even amid the current repressive climate. This act of intimidation is aimed at embedding new norms of self-censorship among publishers and distributors and showing that commercial gain is not worth the risks. Yet its broader consequences will likely include the institutionalisation of book censorship. Almost simultaneously, regulatory authority over the book market was transferred from the Ministry of Digital Development to the Ministry of Culture. While the market previously opposed this move, now, against the backdrop of fear and uncertainty, censorship under the Ministry of Culture, overseen by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, seems a more desirable outcome that at least offers some protection from arbitrary persecution by the security services.
The Russian opposition abroad, having failed to establish coalition bodies or formulate a common platform, is nonetheless actively engaged in designing a post-Putin democratic transition for Russia; a process that may become possible once power slips, in one way or another, from the current regime’s hands.These plans are marked by a significant degree of radicalism, which appears largely disconnected from the realities of contemporary Russia. As such, they risk alienating not only supporters of the regime’s opposition, but also the undecided or wavering segments of society within Russia, who may be put off by what seem like laboratory experiments of the 'opposition-in-exile.' However, history suggests that the gap between today’s grim reality and a reimagined future may be smaller than it seems. Still, the radicalism of these projects may narrow the support base for reformist coalitions and foster unrealistic expectations about a rapid transition that, even under the best circumstances, is likely to be protracted and fraught with contradictions.
The start of the war, the rupture with the West, and several waves of repression have dealt heavy blows to Russian civil society but have not eliminated it. Its current structure is shaped by a repressive public climate and a near-total dependence on state funding. Civil society is pulled in two directions: a demand from above for loyalty and promotion of official narratives, and a still-living grassroots demand for civic engagement and solidarity. These two forces give rise to initiatives and organisations that are not strictly separated but coexist in complex relationships of tension and reluctant cooperation.
The Russian authorities have so far failed to turn the country into a classic media dictatorship. Russia’s media landscape consists of several sectors: beyond the official propaganda-driven segment, there exists a niche sector of censored yet ideologically independent media within the country, as well as an independent public sphere that has developed beyond its borders. Alongside growing pressure on the latter from the regime and ongoing efforts to 'cut off' the domestic audience from opposition voices abroad, the independent media sphere has faced two additional challenges. First, big tech companies, motivated by a desire to continue operating in Russia, are complying with certain demands to restrict freedom of speech coming from the Russian authorities. Second, shifts in the political climate across parts of Europe and the United States could significantly worsen the financial position of this independent media sector.
The year 2024 has seen a kind of renaissance of nationalist movements in Russia. Actively persecuted in the early 2010s, they have now become a key component of the Kremlin’s political agenda, which includes fighting the 'fifth column' of liberal war opponents and the LGBT+ community, as well as a wide-ranging anti-migrant campaign launched after the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. This common ground has enabled the Kremlin to strengthen the loyal segment of the nationalist right, while suppressing through repressive measures the wing that, despite fully supporting the war in Ukraine, had been drifting towards growing opposition to the regime. The result has been an overall shift in the Kremlin’s public messaging, increasingly willing to sacrifice pragmatic objectives in economics and governance in favour of hardline ideological unity.
The Russian authorities’ anti-migration campaign has resulted in roughly 200,000 fewer migrants entering the country in 2024 than in 2022, artificially increasing the labour shortage on the Russian job market by 10%. In the Kremlin’s migration policy, right-wing conservative ideology of nation-building now takes precedence over economic considerations. As Re:Russia's analysis shows, three main trends have shaped migration flows since the war began: an initial reduction in inflows and a significant outflow of migrants from CIS countries; a continued high influx from Tajikistan; and the relocation of Ukrainians from occupied territories deeper into Russia. However, the latter category has come to be recorded by Rosstat not as international but as internal migration, rendering migration statistics incomparable. Furthermore, an intense anti-Tajik campaign has brought a turning point: a reduction in the number of migrants arriving from that country.