Russia is waging a war against its neighbor. Its economy is overheated and dependent on the continuing conflict, while the country is rapidly growing more authoritarian as political rights are further curtailed.

The date is not 2026, it’s 1999. Or 2008. Or 2014. It doesn't matter. Each time, Russia did not collapse.

Russia has been presented — and indeed has presented itself — as a threat for the West for decades. There is even a persuasive argument that the West defines itself in turn through othering and fearing Russia. 

Also for some decades, one could see headlines that Russia is either on the brink of collapse or is collapsing at any moment. A 2001 cover story in The Atlantic proclaimed that “Russia is finished”. Recently, a new slew of arguments for Russia’s decline has been spritzed into the discourse, predicting the collapse of the Russian military or even a coup back in Moscow. 

Whether these predictions come in the form of articles, videos, or entire books, they have taken a largely uniform shape. They point out genuine faults in the bizarre structure of Russia’s economy, the Kremlin's politics, rampant corruption and inexorable population decline. They then make vague predictions about a return to the mayhem of the 1990s, a breakup of Russia along ethnic lines, total economic collapse or a brewing popular uprising.  

The temptation to mock the collapse clairvoyance is strong. One could easily list all the objective reasons why Russia isn’t collapsing any time soon.

The country’s economy has proven surprisingly resilient, able to withstand sanctions of historic proportions. While the Russian military is stuck in the blood and mud in Ukraine, it has repeatedly shown an ability to adapt rather than collapse.  

Russia’s diplomacy, which is traditionally seen in the West as not much more than incoherent gopnik yelps, is making headway in the Global South where Russian state-affiliated media are important players and student exchange programs are in full swing. 

Inside Russia, civilians live relatively normal lives and are likely not thinking of rising up with pitchforks against the........

© The Moscow Times