Will Russia implode after Ukraine?

Will Russia implode after Ukraine?
by Harlan Ullman
Washington DC (UPI) Oct 8, 2025

Here is a question few have posed or even considered: What will be the fate of Russia after the war in Ukraine ends, as it must sometime? The history of Russia and the USSR after wars ended, and neither was on the winning side, offers a hint of what may lie ahead.

In 1917, Russia was forced to accept a draconian peace and withdraw from World War I. What followed was a catastrophic civil war, ultimately won by Lenin and his Bolsheviks, in which the Czar and his family -- and possibly millions of Russians -- were killed or uprooted. The Soviet Union emerged in 1922.

The USSR was on the winning side in World War II and was able to consolidate its holdings, dropping an Iron Curtain over much of Eastern Europe.

After waging nearly 10 years of war in Afghanistan and suffering at least 15,000 dead (likely more); 53,000 wounded; and 415,000 hospitalized -- mostly for disease -- the withdrawal ordered by President Mikhail Gorbachev was completed in February 1989

Two years later, the USSR collapsed. It is clear that if Vladimir Putin, age 72, remains in power, he will not be able to replicate what Stalin accomplished after World War II, and he may indeed face with what happened to the czar and Gorbachev nearly 70 years later.

No one knows outside Russia how many of its soldiers and sailors have been killed and wounded in Ukraine. The current estimate is about 1 million casualties. Furthermore, Russia has not released figures on how many of its elite have left the country permanently.

The economy is a mess, having transitioned to a wartime basis. Sanctions have hurt. Oil sales are down. And Ukrainian drone and missile strikes have damaged much of the energy and power infrastructure.

Once the war ends, it is unclear whether sanctions will be lifted; whether Russian financial assets held abroad will be confiscated; and whether Russia will be permitted to rejoin the G-7 and participate in normal international trade. And, Russia will be indebted to China and financially and politically for its support.

Whether or not NATO member countries meet the new commitment to spend 5% of gross domestic product, the Russian military still has been depleted by a combination of incompetent generals and Ukrainian courage. The military balance will swing far in the West's favor. And with Finland and Sweden now dominating its northern border, paranoia in Russia will be acute about being exploited from that direction.

Internally, Putin's reign surely will weigh heavily.

He cannot spin a victory out of Ukraine, no matter how hard he tries, given the state of the economy and the huge butcher's bill he paid in his military. And many segments inside Russia will be unhappy.

The Muslim population is growing. Some in the leadership may realize that new or different leadership is needed, as Putin is quite old for a Russian or Soviet leader. That happened in 1964 after the 1962 Cuban missile fiasco, when Nikita Khrushchev was unseated in a bloodless coup.

Even though Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has been co-opted, rumblings of independence still stir. And the so-called average Russian, certainly west of the Urals and in Moscow and St Petersburg, will be expecting a "peace dividend" to improve declining standards of living.

Meanwhile, NATO will not be kind to Russia over Ukraine. This may not be the Kaiser's Germany in 1918. But it will take a great deal for NATO to worry about Russia's future and even an implosion. China, too, will not be inclined to prop Russia up if that becomes necessary.

When the USSR disintegrated, the good news was that the nuclear weapons Moscow had deployed to Ukraine and Belarus still were controlled by the Strategic Rocket Force and not Minsk or Kiev. Suppose there were a breakdown like when Wagner Group's Yevgeny Prigozhin marched on Moscow in outright rebellion against Putin, in this case with troops who controlled nuclear weapons.

So, who is thinking about this very nightmarish scenario? And rather like the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, when any suggestion of recognizing Red China was seen as politically blasphemous, who might be the future Richard Nixon to change that? Ironically, Donald Trump might be.

Somewhere in a secret facility, one hopes someone in the United States or NATO might be thinking the impossible. But if not, consider this a warning. This scenario of a Russian political breakdown is not as far-fetched as it seems.

Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Best Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.