Cracks in the Social Contract and Implications of Mobilization in Russia

There’s a growing sense that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a pretty good position heading into 2024. Certainly that’s what Putin wants the rest of the world to think—that he can outlast Ukraine and its supporters in the West. Yet the situation looks more complicated on the ground in Russia. 

And there are few people better positioned to make sense of that reality than Andrei Kolesnikov. Kolesnikov, a journalist and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has been in Moscow since the war began. Over the last two years, he’s written a series of deeply illuminating pieces for Foreign Affairs. In December 2022, the Kremlin listed Kolesnikov as a foreign agent. 

Kolesnikov spoke with Foreign Affairs Senior Editor Hugh Eakin on January 8 about Putin’s hold on power and how Russians view their leader and his disastrous war.

You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.