Putin's elites could become proponents of peace

Putin’s war against Ukraine aggravates tensions between various and typically disunited elite groups in Russia. They might find a common interest in promoting, with all possible caution, however, the prospect of ending it. The underachievers in their early 60s, most of whom have family ties to old Soviet nomenklatura, may have a different sense of history than Putin, who is obsessed with reasserting dominance over Ukraine, and can be wary about new “times of troubles.” The younger “aristocracy” may have scant understanding of the war-tiredness in the general populace, but they resent the “heroes” whom Putin promotes as the “new elite.” The only cohort that appears to be committed to Putin’s war is his shrinking circle of aging courtiers, who see the risks of staying the course as lesser than those of ending it. They live—together with the lonely autocrat—in the past and are deaf to the lessons of history, which have unpredictable means of punishing such ignorance.