Is Vladimir Putin’s war machine pushing the Russian state to the breaking point? This week, a stunning public fracture emerged inside the Kremlin elite as Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin openly pushed back against military hawks demanding a “mobilization economy.” Welcome to another episode of Russia: Behind the Headlines. We are moving beyond the abstract rumors of “hawks vs. doves” to expose a very real, high-stakes bureaucratic struggle over resource control and domestic stability. Sobyanin’s stark warning on state television—that destroying normal economic life will “destroy the entire country”—reveals the deepening anxiety among the civilian technocrats tasked with funding a forever war. Putin’s system needs the resources of total war, but the elites know that a total war economy is a trap that could trigger systemic collapse. In this episode, we also break down the dozen most conseque

Source: Putin Needs Total War. Moscow’s Mayor Warns: “It Will Destroy the Country”