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Moscow Elites Ran Out of Cash. Now the Real Kremlin War Begins - Jason Jay Smart
Once Putin’s cash pipeline runs dry, loyalty turns into a fight for survival across Moscow’s elite circles. The bargain that kept his top allies obedient with money, property, protection, and fear is now shrinking in public.
More than $58 billion in private assets has already been seized, while Putin-linked insiders pick up discounted prizes. Oligarchs who depended on Kremlin access are watching property, contracts, and security guarantees become weapons against each other.
Fuel shortages make the elite crisis harder to hide from ordinary Russians because daily life now feels the cost. Drivers, airports, transport networks, jet fuel supplies, and the war effort are being squeezed at once, while Ukrainian strikes force Moscow to guard refineries, ports, airfields, submarines, Crimea, and infrastructure it once treated as safe.
Commanders are promising huge bonuses to new recruits, then allegedly shaking them down before they reach the front. Citizens are seeing shortages, canceled travel, locked goods, and officials losing control of the story.
When the money shrinks, the real Kremlin war begins inside the network Putin built to protect himself. His top allies are no longer being rewarded by it; they are being left out to dry by it.
More than $58 billion in private assets has already been seized, while Putin-linked insiders pick up discounted prizes. Oligarchs who depended on Kremlin access are watching property, contracts, and security guarantees become weapons against each other.
Fuel shortages make the elite crisis harder to hide from ordinary Russians because daily life now feels the cost. Drivers, airports, transport networks, jet fuel supplies, and the war effort are being squeezed at once, while Ukrainian strikes force Moscow to guard refineries, ports, airfields, submarines, Crimea, and infrastructure it once treated as safe.
Commanders are promising huge bonuses to new recruits, then allegedly shaking them down before they reach the front. Citizens are seeing shortages, canceled travel, locked goods, and officials losing control of the story.
When the money shrinks, the real Kremlin war begins inside the network Putin built to protect himself. His top allies are no longer being rewarded by it; they are being left out to dry by it.