The Kremlin is facing a storm of uncertainty as Russian President Vladimir Putin, once considered an unshakable force, now appears rattled by a convergence of economic woes, international pressure, and internal dissent. On October 26, 2025, The Telegraph reported that Putin fears a coup as Russia’s position visibly erodes—a sentiment echoed across several major outlets, including Focus, LaPresse, and RBC Ukraine. The catalyst for this latest wave of anxiety is a dramatic move by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which has opened a criminal case against exiled businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and 22 members of the Russian Anti-War Committee, accusing them of plotting a violent seizure of power and creating a terrorist organization.
The FSB’s accusation, which asserts that the Anti-War Committee—founded by Khodorkovsky in 2022 to oppose Russia’s war against Ukraine—is preparing to overthrow the constitutional order, has been met with widespread skepticism. Khodorkovsky, who now lives in London after spending a decade in a Siberian prison, dismissed the charges as baseless. As he told The Telegraph, the Kremlin is “worried about the question of succession.” He argued that, should Putin die suddenly, there is no clear successor—a vacuum that could prove decisive for the opposition’s international legitimacy during a sudden transition of power.
Experts interpret the FSB’s move as a glaring sign of Putin’s growing vulnerability. John Herbst, senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told The Telegraph on October 26, 2025, that “the Kremlin is slipping into paranoia.” Herbst added that Putin is “looking for enemies to try to strengthen his regime,” a view that is increasingly shared among Western analysts. Angela Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University, remarked to Focus that the Kremlin’s tactic of blaming the West for unrest is a familiar playbook: “They want to reinforce Putin’s position that the West is trying to divide Russia.”
The sense of instability is not confined to the political elite. Russia’s economy, once praised for its resilience in the face of Western sanctions, is now buckling under pressure. The Ministry of Economic Development recently warned that the country is “on the verge of recession.” Soaring interest rates have paralyzed businesses, and the specter of an avalanche of non-performing loans threatens to spark a wider financial crisis. According to Craig Kennedy, a Russia analyst and former banker, about 23% of all outstanding corporate loans in Russian banks—amounting to at least $190 billion—are currently held by weapons manufacturers. That figure is equivalent to roughly 37% of Russia’s annual federal budget, underscoring the extent to which the war effort has distorted the nation’s financial landscape.
In October 2025, Russia’s Central Bank attempted to ease the pain by cutting its key interest rate by 0.5 percentage points to 16.5%. But the relief has been limited. British economist Timothy Ash, a research fellow at Chatham House, told The Telegraph that Russia has “taken a real hit for the first time in three and a half years,” adding, “there’s some panic” in Moscow. The war’s impact is also being felt at the pump, with gasoline prices spiking and shortages spreading after waves of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries. These attacks have sent thick plumes of smoke above key industrial sites and further strained the economy.
Internationally, the pressure on Russia is mounting. On October 26, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed new sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies. The response from Russia’s main oil buyers—India and China—was swift, with both countries cutting back on purchases. This move threatens to slash a critical revenue stream for Putin’s government and his war machine. “Trump has picked a particularly painful moment to start tightening the screws on Putin,” wrote Melissa Lawford in The Telegraph. Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute, commented that Russia’s economic weakness could prompt the U.S. to ratchet up sanctions even further.
Meanwhile, domestic dissent, though still dangerous, is bubbling beneath the surface. Hundreds of people recently gathered in Saint Petersburg to sing a banned protest song calling for Putin’s overthrow—a small but symbolic act of defiance. The memory of the failed June 2023 coup attempt by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin looms large. Prigozhin’s dramatic march on Moscow ended in failure, and he died in a plane crash a few months later. The episode served as a stark reminder of the risks facing those who challenge the Kremlin, but it also revealed cracks in the regime’s armor.
Khodorkovsky, for his part, has made it clear that he is not plotting a military assault on Moscow. Instead, he views the FSB’s charges as an attempt to discredit and intimidate the Anti-War Committee, whose international legitimacy could become crucial if Russia faces a sudden power transition. As he explained to The Telegraph, “What do we have in Russia? A prime minister who was not elected by anyone, but appointed by Putin. Courts appointed by Putin. A parliament whose seats were filled as a result of rigged elections and whose legitimacy no one believes in.”
Russia’s economic malaise is compounded by its growing dependence on China. Khodorkovsky observed that “Putin’s war machine relies heavily on cooperation with China. Xi Jinping could collapse the Russian economy and stop the war tomorrow if he wanted to.” This reliance is not lost on Western policymakers, who are keenly watching the evolving relationship between Moscow and Beijing. The European Union, too, has stepped up its response, approving its 19th sanctions package against Russia. The latest measures target 45 companies supporting the Russian military-industrial complex, restrict deals with major Russian oil companies, and crack down on the use of cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions.
Putin, for his part, continues to project confidence, insisting that Western restrictions will have little impact on Russia’s economy. But the facts on the ground suggest otherwise. Russia faces a rapidly growing budget deficit, and its options for shoring up the economy are shrinking. The regime’s strategy of forcing banks to issue loans to defense businesses without standard credit checks may have delayed the reckoning, but it has also amplified the risk of a banking crisis.
As the Kremlin searches for enemies both real and imagined, the mood in Moscow is tense. The world is watching to see whether Putin can weather this storm—or whether the mounting pressures, both internal and external, will force a dramatic change in Russia’s leadership. For now, the only certainty is uncertainty itself.
