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From pressing the Russian regime to undermining it

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by Dmitry Gudkov, Vladislav Inozemtsev and Dmitry Nekrasov, opinion contributors - 04/12/26 9:00 AM ET

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by Dmitry Gudkov, Vladislav Inozemtsev and Dmitry Nekrasov, opinion contributors - 04/12/26 9:00 AM ET

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Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Deputy Prime Minister, Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko during their meeting at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

The ongoing war with Iran has become an unexpected lifeline to Vladimir Putin’s Russia which appeared to be its biggest winner as the price for its oil surged over $100 a barrel, and some of the restrictions for its sales were lifted. The Kremlin, as many insiders suggest, has already lost interest in peace talks with Ukraine and become more or less involved in fighting on Tehran’s side. Under such conditions, some experts have once again called for tightening sanctions against Russia, arguing that this would lead to “peace through strength,”

While those ideas deserve respect, we would argue that it risks repeating some mistakes that have characterized the sanctions policy from its early stages.

All the sanctions implemented by the Western powers were aimed on forcing Putin, or the current Russian leadership, to change course. For four years, that policy proved unsuccessful. During all this time, some “experts” have insisted sanctions were on the verge of crippling the Kremlin’s economy and triggering a popular uprising in Russia. We, to the contrary, suggested the Russian economy will not collapse, so the only chance to end the war would come from an elite conflict in Moscow. We had continuously argued that under the current condition, any elite revolt would push the country on a more pro-Western path.

The U.S. leadership hasn’t been enthusiastic about “regime change” for decades until President Trump intervened in Venezuela, and later in Iran. But these bold undertakings show that toppling longtime authoritarian regimes and killing or kidnapping their rulers isn’t enough. The regimes are based not so much on leader’s power as on the loyalty of the elite and the apathy of the people.

Western powers not only never engaged in the “dialogue” with the Russian elites — they never made any attractive offers to those who tried to escape from Putin’s reach. When dozens of the “oligarchs” quit Russia for Europe in February 2022, most of them (including some who, like Oleg Tin’kov, publicly spoke out against the war) were swiftly put under sanctions, deprived of their passports and residence permits, and squeezed out back to Russia.

When hundreds of thousands of self-made Russians tried to escape from mobilization in September 2022, EU governments made it nearly impossible for them to get residence cards and work authorizations, leading about half of them to return. Today, even former liberals dislike the Western policies. In contrast, Suleiman Kerimov, the same billionaire who once famously crashed his Ferrari in Nice, pledged $1.2 billion of his own funds as a donation for Putin’s war in Ukraine.

But as many observers have mentioned, only 10 out of 149 Russian billionaires attended Putin’s most recent meeting with business leaders — which might be a signal that the consolidation is not as strong as it seems. Thousands of decent Russians who possess no enthusiasm for Putin’s policies opt to stay in Russia and remain silent because they have no other choice. Most of these people don’t necessarily control huge resources but hold vital knowledge and competence needed for running the country. This group — both outside, but more importantly, inside Russia — remains crucial for any future transformation of the country.

For changing Russia, one needs to split the local elites and to present a credible program for reincorporating the Russian middle class into Western society, Western economy and Western culture. With a police state taking its final shape in Russia, digital connections to the world being ruined and businesses facing nationalization in a lawless society, the West must offer Russians ways for both individual and collective exit. The U.S. will never attack Russia as it has attacked Iran — so the only chance for turning it towards the West would be for Putin to endure a fate similar to former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was sent to an international tribunal by his own inner circle.

Both the failures of Russia’s sanctions policies and the hardships of the war with Iran suggest, on the one hand, that anti-Western dictatorships cannot be pacified — they can