Putin Is Not Trapped: Why Regime Survival Does Not Depend on Victory

For four years, analysts and policymakers have warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot afford to lose” in Ukraine. Increasingly, some argue he cannot afford peace either. In this view, the war is existential for his regime. Defeat would shatter Putin’s legacy and potentially end his rule. Trapped between humiliation and collapse, inviting comparisons to the fate of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, Putin is portrayed as having no viable off-ramp from an unwinnable war.These assumptions were central to Biden-era debates over escalation management.