THE DAY AFTER THE WAR

Why Putin May Fear Peace More Than War — and Why Bulgaria Should Prepare for the
Russia That Comes After

There is a fundamental misconception underlying much of the current debate about the war in Ukraine: that Vladimir Putin ultimately wants the war to end. This may be true in the most general sense. But it misses a much more important question: what does the end of the war mean for Putin’s political system?

After more than four years of full-scale war, Putin has moved far beyond the point at which Russia could simply stop fighting and return to the political, economic and social conditions of 2021. The war is no longer merely an instrument of Russian foreign policy.

It has become one of the pillars of the regime itself. It provides legitimacy for an unprecedented
concentration of power, justifies repression, absorbs and redistributes enormous economic resources, sustains a system of military mobilisation and gives the Kremlin a universal explanation for Russia’s domestic problems.

This creates a paradox that is increasingly important for understanding Russia’s behaviour:

The war is a problem for Putin — but it is also part of the solution to the problems created by Putin.

And this may explain why ending the war is much more complicated for the Kremlin than simply reaching an agreement with Ukraine or the West.

The Political Trap of Victory Frenzy

Putin has constructed his legitimacy around a historical narrative. Russia is presented as a besieged fortress. The West is portrayed as an existential enemy. Ukraine is depicted not as a
sovereign neighbour but as part of a larger historical confrontation. The war is therefore framed not as a policy choice but as a struggle for Russia’s survival and historical destiny.

This creates what could be called a political trap of victory frenzy.

If the war ends with a clearly recognisable Russian victory, Putin can claim that the sacrifices were justified. If the war ends without such a victory, however, the Kremlin faces a fundamentally different problem.

The question will not simply be: Whatdid Russia gain?It will be:What was the price — and why was it necessary?

The greater the human cost, the more politically difficult this question becomes.

This is where the Russian concept of pobedobesie — victory intoxication or victory frenzy – becomes relevant. The word is difficult to translate literally. It describes a condition in which the mythology of victory becomes a political force in its own right.

Once a regime has convinced society that it is engaged in a historic struggle that must end in victory, compromise becomes dangerous. A retreat can be portrayed as treason. A negotiated
settlement can be presented as capitulation. And peace itself can become politically destabilising.

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This is one reason why the Kremlin may find it easier to sustain a permanent state of confrontation than to explain an unsatisfactory peace.

The Military Economy Cannot Expand Forever

The second constraint is economic.

Russia has demonstrated a remarkable ability to sustain high military expenditure despite sanctions and Western efforts to constrain its economy. But resilience should not be confused with sustainability. The Russian state has increasingly redirected resources towards defence production, military salaries, compensation payments and the industries supporting the war. This creates short-term growth but also long-term distortions.

Military expenditure can keep factories operating and workers employed. It can stimulate selected regions and sectors. But tanks, missiles and ammunition do not generate the same long-term productivity gains as investment in technology, infrastructure, education, civilian industry and innovation. Nor can it generate healthy consumption that leads to sustainable growth.

The opportunity cost is therefore enormous. Every additional year of war means resources that cannot simultaneously be invested in Russia’s civilian economic future. The problem becomes particularly acute when military spending reaches a level at which the state has to choose between maintaining the war economy and preserving macroeconomic stability.

Inflation, labour shortages, high interest rates, demographic pressure, declining civilian investment and weaker consumption are not necessarily signs of imminent economic collapse.

They are something more important: signs of structural exhaustion.

Russia may be able to continue fighting for a long time. That does not mean that the economic model supporting the war can continue indefinitely without changing the country itself.

The Real Post-War Risk: What Happens to the Soldiers?

There is another issue that receives far less attention than it deserves.

What happens when the war ends? Hundreds of thousands of soldiers will eventually have to return to civilian life. They will return to an economy that has been reorganised around war production, with large differences between military and civilian incomes.

They will return with experiences that cannot simply be switched off or easily adapted to civilian life. And they will return to a society that has spent years being told that violence, sacrifice and military service are essential components of national identity.

The Kremlin will therefore face a difficult transition. Who employs the returning soldiers? How does Russia absorb them economically? How does it deal with war veterans who have acquired status and expectations during mobilisation? And how does the state prevent the enormous military-industrial complex from becoming a permanent political interest group demanding continued spending?

This is not a marginal issue.

If the experience of the more than half a million demobilised soldiers who have already returned to Russia is any indication, reintegration is likely to be extremely difficult. Only a fraction – reportedly around 15 per cent — have found employment despite numerous government programmes, many of them relying heavily on regional budgets.

The transition from war to peace may itself become a major source of instability.

The military economy has already created beneficiaries of permanent mobilisation: defence companies, regional administrations, military institutions, contractors and individuals whose
incomes depend directly or indirectly on the war.

For them, peace is not necessarily an economic opportunity. It may represent a net loss.

This creates a powerful structural incentive for parts of the Russian system to maintain confrontation even after the original strategic objectives have become increasingly difficult to achieve.

The Bigger Strategic Loss: Europe

But the most consequential legacy of Putin’s war may not be military or economic. It may be geopolitical and civilisational. Putin has not merely damaged Russia’s relations with Europe.

He has severed a historical trajectory of the Russian elite.

Russia has always been a complex combination of European and Asian identities. But since Peter the Great, Europeanisation has been a recurring project of the Russian state and elite. Europe represented much more than trade. It represented education, technology, finance, property, culture, social status and political reference points. For generations of Russian elites, London, Paris, Geneva, Vienna and Rome were part of their natural external ecosystem. That world has largely disappeared.

Dubai can reproduce some of the financial functions of London. Shanghai or Hong Kong can offer commercial opportunities. Beijing can provide markets, technology and political support.

But none of them can fully replace Europe as the civilisational reference point of the Russian elite.

This may prove to be one of Putin’s greatest strategic failures. He wanted to make Russia less dependent on the West. Instead, he may have made Russia more dependent on China.

From Independent Pole to Dependent Partner

The transformation in Russia’s relationship with China deserves particular attention. Moscow presents the partnership as a strategic alliance between two great sovereign powers.

The reality is considerably more asymmetric. China has a vastly larger economy, a much stronger industrial base and greater access to global manufacturing and technology networks.

Russia needs China more than China needs Russia. This asymmetry is likely to increase as Russia’s access to Western technology, finance and markets remains constrained. The danger for
Moscow is therefore not simply economic dependence. It is the gradual loss of strategic autonomy. There is a profound difference between being a superpower capable of balancing between Europe, China and other global centres, and becoming a major country whose economic survival increasingly depends on one much stronger partner.

This distinction matters enormously to the Russian elite.

There is a psychological and historical difference between being a European power with an Asian geography and becoming an Asian power with restricted access to Europe. And there
is an even more consequential geopolitical development:

The political dividing line between Europe and Asia now runs along the Russian-Ukrainian border, not the Urals.

What Does This Mean for Bulgaria?

This is where the discussion becomes directly relevant to Bulgaria.

For decades, Bulgaria developed a dense network of economic and political dependencies connected to Russia – energy, oil, gas, infrastructure, trade, intermediaries and political influence.

These dependencies were not simply commercial arrangements. They became part of the architecture of Bulgaria’s post-communist political economy. In particular, the Russian energy relationship provided opportunities for rent extraction, political brokerage and the creation of intermediary networks whose interests often diverged from those of the Bulgarian state.

That model is now weakening. The transformation of European energy markets, sanctions, the diversification of supply and the dismantling of old commercial chains have made a simple
restoration of the pre-war relationship increasingly unrealistic.

This is not necessarily a loss for Bulgaria. It may be an opportunity. The real strategic mistake would be to interpret the end of the war as an invitation to restore the old dependency model.

Radev’s Strategic Choice

This is where Rumen Radev faces a particularly important strategic choice. Which post-war Russia is Bulgaria’s foreign policy preparing for?

The Russia of the past? Or the Russia that will emerge from the war? These are not the same country. Russia will remain a major military power. It will remain a nuclear power, but it may
no longer be a global power in the sense in which it has understood that role since the end of the Cold War. It will remain geographically close to Europe and an important factor in European security. But its political economy, its relationship with China, its relationship with Ukraine and its position within the European security system may be fundamentally different.

Therefore, Bulgarian policy should not be built around the assumption that the geopolitical environment of 2021 can simply be restored.

Bulgaria should prepare for a future relationship with Russia from the position of an EU member state dealing with a non-EU, Asia-oriented power.

That does not mean permanent hostility towards Russia. Nor does it mean refusing future economic or diplomatic relations.

It means something much simpler – and much more difficult: relations at arm’s length.

Bulgaria should adhere to the EU mainstream policy line and reconsider any tendency to align with Kremlin interests when they conflict with Europe’s interests. It should be capable of trading with  Russia if conditions permit, without allowing trade to become a channel of political influence.

Frankly, de-risking relations with Russia should not be a problem. A return to business as usual between the EU and Russia is unlikely to be a linear process, regardless of the current
acclaim surrounding Donald Trump’s special relationship with Vladimir Putin.

The shuttle diplomacy of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner is unlikely, by itself, to convince the EU to lift sanctions or provide large-scale debt financing and investment to the Kremlin.

And Russia’s financial reserves – accumulated during years of exceptionally high energy revenues before the war – have been substantially depleted by the costs of the conflict. Neither the US nor China will step in to provide the cash need to restart Russia’s economy.

The Day After

For Bulgaria, the strategic choice is therefore larger than the question of whether to be “pro-Russian” or “anti-Russian.” That is the wrong framework within which to assess its options and opportunities.

Bulgaria could easily bypass the better options and remain a peripheral EU country waiting for an accommodation between the West and Russia, while continuing to play the old game of maintaining “special” relations with Moscow. Or it can become a normal European state — one that has its own interests, understands its own geography and does need Russia to benefit from the opportunities of the EU and global markets.

This is why the most important
question is not when Putin will stop the war.

He may fear the end of the war not because peace is necessarily dangerous for Russia, but because peace could expose the political, economic and social consequences of the system he has
built around the war. The day the guns fall silent may therefore be the beginning of the transition to much different post-Putin Russia.

For Bulgaria, the task is to be ready for that day — and to build policy not around Putin’s Russia or the restoration of its old relationships, but around the new geopolitical and geoeconomic realities that will emerge after the war.

And in those realities, Ukraine will play a critical role.