RUSSIA – Vladimir Putin is this weekend approaching a perfect storm as world oil prices plummet, just as a combination of Western sanctions and Ukraine’s concerted strikes on refineries begin to bite.
His war economy - after defying gravity for several years - is now starting to creak with ordinary Russians, especially, badly hit in their pockets and worse to come.
There are flickering signs of Russians, long intimidated by his police state, daring to criticise him and his war which is now only 70 days short of the length of Soviet participation in the defeat of Hitler in WW2.
Cemeteries and hospitals all across the country’s 11 time zones testify to the mesmerising toll of bloodletting, which worsens by the day.
Moreover, analysts spot new indications of dissent and infighting inside his monstrous security apparatus - and among his political and oligarchical allies - as Putin repeatedly refuses to stop bombing while driving Russia towards the buffers.
The past week has seen an upsurge in nuclear threats from Putin himself, sabre-rattling over his terrifying new missiles, and his highly-paid TV propagandists who issue daily warnings of atomic doom against especially Britain - seen in Moscow as the ringleader of Western backing for Ukraine - but also other NATO members.
Yet this menacing and frenzied rhetoric now appears a sign of desperation and weakness, rather than strength, raising the question over whether the gathering storm could bring down the 73-year-old dictator.
Russian revolutions often come suddenly: few predicted the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, despite the fall of the Warsaw Pact countries in eastern Europe.
Earlier, the abrupt abdication of the last tsar Nicholas II and collapse of the Romanov dynasty came as a shock.
A putative putsch against Putin in 2023 led by Wagner Private Army Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin also emerged from nowhere and was put down only as the rebels marched on Moscow, with the instigator assassinated soon afterwards in an aircraft explosion seen as ordered by the Kremlin.
Yet could oil now be the key to a more successful coup against Putin?
A global glut with the Saudis flooding the world oil market fuels a predicted drop in barrel prices to the low US$40s.
Haunting Putin are three months of falling prices and a forecast of global oil market oversupply of four million barrels per day in 2026.
The Russian economy - and Putin’s war machine - is built on oil revenues yet as head of the International Energy Agency’s industry and market division Toril Bosoni said, something has to give: ‘The global oil market may be at a tipping point.’
This comes as Donald Trump’s new sanctions have clobbered Putin’s two oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil, key cash cows of the Kremlin’s coffers.
Russia President Vladimir Putin. (Bookings Institution)