The war in Ukraine is causing undeniable harm across Russia. Ukraine’s deep strikes into Russian territory have added to the war’s civilian death toll; disrupted online commerce, a significant sector in a country as large as Russia; and prompted gasoline shortages. Burdened by a massive war, the Russian economy is delivering low growth rates and high inflation. In May, the prominent Russian banker Andrey Klepach offered a frank assessment in a speech published online: Russia is “falling behind. We are losing the [global] technological and economic competition.” In some respects, he added, “we are losing it to Ukraine.” In August, the state-controlled development bank where he worked fired him for this expression of disloyalty. Meanwhile, capital is quietly finding its way out of the country and deposits are being spirited away from bank accounts.

None of this is good news for Russian President Vladimir Putin. After over four and a half years, Russia has been unable to convert its immense military sacrifices in Ukraine into meaningful military gains. But although Putin has no victories to present to the Russian people, he is not facing any real political precarity. One interpretation of CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s recent visit to Moscow was that he went, in part, to convince Putin that continuing the war is futile. If Ratcliffe thought he could get Putin to desist, he was indulging in wishful thinking. Rather than inching toward a conclusion, the war is escalating. It is not forcing Putin into a dead end either politically or militarily, and to expect Russian concessions or a negotiated settlement in the near to medium term would be folly.

The war, which Putin launched expecting a quick and complete victory, was not an accident. The decision to invade emanated from within the political order Putin has fashioned, a system that has been hardened by the war more than it has been transformed. The upcoming parliamentary elections that begin September 18 will certainly give the appearance of lockstep support for Putin. The reality is, of course, more complicated. But for outside observers, the key to understanding the Putinism is its inner coherence, not the distance between stage-managed appearances and the actualities of public opinion. Day-to-day shifts on the frontlines in Ukraine and rhetorical expressions of domestic discontent are not among Putin’s major concerns. Despite its many costs, the war has bolstered Putinism and has been woven into the fabric of Russian statehood.

Analysts of Russia are understandably preoccupied by possible changes in the country’s internal trajectory—a burst of dissent, an election, a particularly destructive Ukrainian strike. Since the war began, the United States and Europe have expected its mounting costs to weigh down and even imperil Putin. Yet throughout the war, calm has reigned within Russia. A few weeks of panic directly followed the invasion of Ukraine, but after that, Russians withdrew into acceptance of the war. The 2023 mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner paramilitary company, led not to revolution but to his own untimely death. To the extent that polling can be trusted in Russia, Putin is vastly more popular than German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, or President Donald Trump are in their respective countries.

Ahead of the parliamentary elections, the Kremlin has barred the antiwar political party Yabloko from participating just as it was gaining support, and it has sentenced Lev Shlosberg, an antiwar political figure, to an 11-year prison term. Such repressive moves are routine in Putin’s Russia, the default operations of a governing system that long ago neutralized contests between political visions or clashes of rival parties. Not only have party politics vanished from Russia without much visible objection, there is no antiwar movement at all. Many Russians may not........

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