How Russia’s War in Ukraine is Creating Domestic Security Gaps

Executive Summary 

This paper is the first of two papers examining Russia’s domestic security environment, and how the Russia–Ukraine war has created uneven security gaps across the country. The paper examines four security weaknesses in Russia that have emerged either as a direct result of its war with Ukraine and its corresponding prioritisation of resources at the front, or due to fundamental weaknesses in Russia’s domestic security arrangements. Some of these inadequacies have long been part of the Russian system, but have been exacerbated by the war, with real-time security consequences. 

This paper identifies the following four areas of weakness in Russia’s domestic security:

1. A series of fatal terrorist attacks within Russia since the war began have highlighted intelligence failures across the board, a deep distrust of the West, and the Kremlin’s greater interest in the pursuit of Russia’s political opponents than the investigation of terrorist threats. Although the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) responses to the attacks were typical of a counterterrorism policy that is more reactive than preventive, it did demonstrate the ongoing importance of a blame culture that has identified Kyiv as Russia’s main adversary, despite evidence to the contrary. 
    
2. The Ukrainian armed forces’ incursions into Kursk, on Russia’s southern border, meant that for several months in 2024 Russia was not in control of its own borders. This was a vulnerability that emerged as a direct result of a corrupt system in which Russia’s regional elites have enriched themselves at the expense of national security. The corruption networks around the then-regional governor of Kursk – and in procurement and construction – that failed to shore up Russia’s civilian defences, had serious security consequences for the war. 
    
3. It is likely that frequent rumours about the ill-health of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov will force the Kremlin to revisit succession plans for the region sooner than expected, with potentially far-reaching political and security consequences if they are not handled with care. Kadyrov’s attempts in the past year to move his close family out of political power in Chechnya, seek refuge abroad and broker relationships of his own in the Gulf indicate a growing overreach of his position that suggest his actions are only partially under the Kremlin’s control. 
    
4. Of all the security risks that the Kremlin faces, the potential demobilisation of veterans from the war has received the most state attention, funding and resources. The return of fighters from previous wars, including the Second World War, Afghanistan and the two Chechen wars, carried with them similar social consequences, and the Kremlin is alive to this threat. The question remains as to whether the veterans as a group could pose a longer-term political problem for Russia, and whether they are able to coalesce around grievances that can be channelled into political action, without being suppressed or coopted by the authorities. 

This paper brings together some of the critical security issues in Russia that have received insufficient attention due to the focus on the frontline. As Russia’s military commitment to Ukraine has increased, it has – perhaps predictably – weakened the country’s domestic security. A decreased oversight of other crucial security problems has left it vulnerable to attack in unexpected ways. The Kremlin’s precarious balancing of the war and domestic affairs reflects an ongoing struggle for resources and the attention of President Vladimir Putin, and structural inadequacies. For now, these security problems do not appear sufficiently destructive to have a discernible impact on Russia’s politics, but there are indications that without careful management by the Kremlin, they could have long-term implications for political stability. 

As Russia faces State Duma (parliamentary) elections in 2026, the authorities will be looking for opportunities to boost the profile of the ruling pro-government United Russia party, capitalise on some of its gains in the war, and ensure that opposition is sufficiently defanged. The coming year will be an important time in Russia’s domestic politics, and while new political ideas are unlikely to appear, understanding the security backdrop against which Russia is operating, and what policymakers consider to be a priority, will be vital. 

Introduction

Russia’s prioritisation of its war in Ukraine since 2022 has refocused financial, political and human resources on the frontline. With Russia’s industries repurposed to support the war effort, hundreds of thousands of men deployed, and transport infrastructure commandeered by the military to ferry troops and materiel, the Kremlin’s security focus remains trained on eastern Ukraine. 

However, the Kremlin’s focus on the war has been uneven and has led to unintended security consequences across Russia. This paper seeks to discuss why and how the Kremlin is prioritising some security concerns over others, which of them are longstanding structural problems that the war has merely exacerbated, and to identify where, as a result, security vulnerabilities have emerged that could pose a future problem for the Kremlin. 

Although some of the security matters discussed in this paper reflect broader structural, organisational and political problems that have plagued Russia for centuries, the war has thrown these inadequacies into greater relief. The war is the prism through which these security issues must be seen, as the consequences of the Kremlin’s political and organisational weaknesses are now much more pressing. This paper argues that the Russian authorities’ disproportionate focus on the war has meant that these threats are often going unaddressed or are deprioritised. These shortcomings can be grouped into four important security challenges: terrorism; power plays in the North Caucasus; the situation in Kursk; and what might happen after demobilisation.

Methodology

Many of the key discussion points in this paper are the result of a closed expert discussion group held online in March 2025, the conclusions of which formed the basis of this analysis. The discussion included a select group of specialists on the North Caucasus, terrorism, Russian domestic politics and Russian security and judicial procedures. Hypotheses in this paper were debated, assumptions about Russian political behaviour were challenged, and views about the likely trajectory of the security situation in Russia in the coming years were offered. This paper also draws on Russian-language open sources where possible, along with analyses of statements, and policy documents produced by the Russian political elite on important security affairs.  

Bringing together these seemingly disparate problems at this pressing time – amid the war, and just prior to Russia’s State Duma 2026 elections – this paper offers a comprehensive picture of some of the problems facing the Kremlin and illustrates how Russia’s decision-making has shifted since the war against Ukraine began. 

Terrorism: The Outsize Enemy of Kyiv and the West 

The Russian government’s focus on the frontline in Ukraine, the amplification of a narrative that sees Kyiv as the outsize enemy, and its over-focus on political enemies and those critical of the war have created important blind spots about other pressing security issues, including domestic terrorism. 

The resurgence of terrorism in Russia since the war began is one of the starkest reminders of the consequences of ignoring intelligence assessments, as well as the result of a counterterrorism policy that has increasingly prioritised the pursuit of Moscow’s political opponents, particularly those expressing views against the war. Some of the incidents throughout 2024 have shown most clearly what the Kremlin considers to be an ‘enemy’. This designation has changed multiple times over the past 20 years of Russia’s history and has included Islamic State, Georgian dissidents and separatists in the North Caucasus. Now Ukraine appears to be the recipient of this dubious accolade. 

One major incident that occurred in 2024 demonstrated the depths of Russia’s demonisation of Ukraine as the outsize enemy. Days after Russia’s presidential election in March 2024, there was a terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall. During a concert, 145 people were killed by gunmen pledging allegiance to the Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K). The case was mishandled by the authorities throughout, and in this sense it was analogous to previous attacks in Russia throughout the 2010s, where the Kremlin’s response tended towards reactive rather than preventive. In this case, the clear politicisation of the role of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), as a direct result of the war, has security consequences. 

In theory, the Crocus City Hall attack should have been anticipated – both the US and Iran warned Russia of an imminent terrorist attack. While mistrust of the West could account for dismissing the US warnings, Russia’s otherwise positive relationship with Iran points to a more fundamental lack of interest in investigating the attack. This approach is not new in and of itself, but what this incident, and others, has revealed is both a lack of security resources to focus on domestic threats and the prioritisation of political threats linked to the war. There were three ways in which the Crocus City Hall attack was clearly linked to decision-making processes around the war. 

First, the FSB’s focus on targeting political opponents and those critical of the war has sidelined the investigation of domestic terrorism, resulting in poor visibility into the Tajik migrant community, from which the perpetrators were recruited. The Russian authorities have focused most resources on imprisoning and intimidating opponents of the war, supported by legislation which has loosened the definition of ‘extremism’. Targeted arrests and long prison sentences for relatively minor crimes have snarled up the judicial system and absorbed investigative resources from the FSB, taking attention away from investigating terrorism. 

Second, the aftermath of the Crocus City Hall attack revealed most starkly Russia’s focus on Ukraine as the ‘enemy’. The group claiming responsibility for the terror attack declared allegiance to ISIS-K, but FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov maintained that it was acting on the orders of Ukrainian military intelligence, alongside the UK and the US, to undermine Russia. Putin, who failed to appear in public until long after the attack, echoed this official characterisation. Aside from the FSB’s intelligence and operational failings, this narrative demonstrated the Kremlin’s dogged branding of Ukraine and the West as its outsize enemies, despite evidence to the contrary. The FSB did not actually expend resources on investigating links between the attack group and Ukraine or the West, but this move demonstrated the importance of having a convenient enemy to deflect from Russia’s security failings. 

The authorities have consistently searched for a Ukraine link to acts of domestic terrorism. This was evidenced by events that played out in Dagestan in October 2023. Against the backdrop of the Israel–Hamas war, pro-Palestinian rioters attempted to attack Israeli citizens arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv at Makhachkala airport. The authorities’ response was neutral, permitting the rioters to break through airport security, with Rosgvardia (the National Guard) only deployed hours later. As above, the authorities searched for a Ukraine connection, blaming external interference, without evidence. 

Third, the Kremlin’s heavy-handed counterterrorism response appeared to create a radicalising cycle within the Tajik and Uzbek migrant communities that were not previously known to have IS affiliations. The Crocus City Hall attack was given the most attention due to its scale, but that year there were four other successful terrorist incidents in Russia that were not anticipated, either because resources were absorbed in Ukraine or there had been no directive from the top to prioritise terrorism. In each case, the authorities either failed to anticipate the attack, or delayed reacting, and subsequently blamed the Ukrainian authorities. 

The FSB’s torture of the Crocus City Hall gunmen was widely circulated on social media channels. This, and the suspects’ visible injuries in court, was linked to a hostage crisis at a Rostov prison in June. That same month saw targeted terrorist attacks in Dagestan on an Orthodox church, a synagogue and a police post, killing at least 21 people. Although no group claimed responsibility, the attack was praised by ISIS-K. Another hostage crisis followed in August at a detention centre in Volgograd. The inmates in both prison incidents stated that their inspiration for the attack had been the state’s violent response to the Crocus City Hall gunmen. 

Furthermore, the FSB’s actions were themselves a byproduct of the growing politicisation of their role, which has been to focus on political dissidents, as the real and pressing threat to Russia’s national security. Although the FSB belatedly acknowledged in October 2024 that the ISIS-K was responsible for the attack, this admission was not widely discussed in Russian media. 

The way in which the authorities forced a link between the war in Ukraine and domestic IS-led terrorism highlighted Russia’s ability to manipulate political narratives in service of the enemy of the time; Putin branded the US’s warning as an attempt to ‘intimidate and destabilise our society’. This type of phrasing has become a catch-all over the past decade to refer to perceived sinister foreign-led attempts to force regime change and undermine the Russian government. 

Following the Crocus City Hall attack, Putin attempted briefly to use the event to justify an increase in attacks on Ukraine, and although this did not come to pass, it highlighted how the war has influenced the Kremlin’s consideration of who to blame for its own internal failings. 

Power Plays in the North Caucasus 

Terrorist attacks are concrete events that can reveal specific intelligence and policy failures, but there are other political processes playing out across Russia with long-term security implications for the Kremlin. The North Caucasus is emerging as one of the most significant security areas neglected by the Russian government, in particular the potentially accelerated succession plans for the leader of the key region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. 

Kadyrov’s profile has been considerably enhanced since the war began – politically, economically and through his value as a security guarantor for Moscow. The basis of the relationship between Putin and Kadyrov has long been that, in exchange for maintaining the security status quo in Chechnya, Kadyrov has had a long leash to exploit the region as he sees fit, including amassing significant material wealth for his family. 

The Ukraine war has had an important impact on Kadyrov’s political profile, which has oscillated in military importance. Kadyrov’s Akhmat brigade has borne the brunt of some of the bloodiest battles in the war, and its special forces are still engaged in most of the frontline fighting. As one of the regions with the highest mobilisation rate, Chechnya also has one of the highest per capita casualty rates. 

Kadyrov, his family and associates have also benefited financially from the occupied Ukrainian territories and the hasty departure of Western investors from the Russian market following the onset of the war – notably taking over the Ilyich metallurgical plant in Mariupol, and buying up former French dairy company Danone in Moscow at a favourable price. Other Kadyrov associates have bought up stakes in important construction companies, as well as taking over the assets of departed US chain Starbucks. 

However, the Kremlin’s focus on pulling more recruits from Chechnya – as opposed to the capital – has given Kadyrov leeway to test the equilibrium of his relationship with Putin, creating two key problems. 

The first problem for the Kremlin is that Kadyrov and his associates are increasingly overreaching beyond their fiefdom. This has been most clearly demonstrated by Kadyrov’s efforts to use his armed groups to build political leverage. Early in the war, Kadyrov and former Wagner strongman Yevgeny Prigozhin criticised the government’s handling of military operations, even though they were rivals for Kremlin resources. Kadyrov severed ties with Prigozhin just before his mutiny of June 2023 – and it was Kadyrov’s forces that were ultimately deployed to suppress the Wagner troops in the south as they marched on Moscow. His attempts to increase the independence of his own Akhmat brigade from Russia’s Ministry of Defence were subsequently curtailed. Against Kadyrov’s wishes, the group was absorbed formally into the ministry, reducing its independence. 

The culmination of these unspoken tensions spilled into the mainstream in September 2024, amid a shootout in Moscow over the Kremlin-sanctioned merger between Russ Group, an outdoor advertising company, and retail giant Wildberries, whose co-founder appealed publicly to Kadyrov to intervene and prevent it. The resulting standoff, involving Kadyrov-linked associates, the death of two people and links between the merger and a company connected to  Suleiman Kerimov, a powerful Dagestani businessman, demonstrated several concerning details for the Russian authorities. 

The standoff raised questions about Kadyrov’s growing mandate to conduct operations in Moscow. His tactic of using hired thugs to conduct extra-judicial killings in Chechnya is largely overlooked by the Kremlin, but the Wildberries operation took place in Putin’s backyard. Kadyrov’s actions further suggested that he believed he was able to openly challenge a Kremlin-approved merger, upsetting the balance of his tacit relationship with Putin. Moreover, and most pressingly, Kadyrov’s actions suggested that Putin might not have full control over Chechnya’s leadership. 

Putin’s major selling point has been his ability to end the chaos of the 1990s, when shootings were an occasional part of doing business – usually targeted acts of intimidation or assassinations rather than a public attack. Kadyrov’s latitude to run Chechnya carried an implicit agreement that restricted his reach in Moscow, and the Wildberries operation tested this. Although the Wildberries incident received scant mention abroad, Putin’s inability to curtail Kadyrov’s behaviour was interpreted by some as a sign of his potential weakness. 

There seem also to be other subtle attempts by the Kadyrov family to assert their autonomy and independence from Moscow. Chechnya plays an occasionally outsize role in Russia’s foreign policy, with Kadyrov and the regional elite playing a leading role in parts of Russia’s engagement with the Middle East through their religious links, including buying up assets in places such as Dubai through which to conduct semi-official business. Kadyrov is Putin’s unofficial emissary on the Middle East, trusted to project Russia’s interests abroad, theoretically with little personal independence. Yet in a departure from his role, Kadyrov appears to be conducting unauthorised conversations with other Middle Eastern countries, occasionally creating uncertainty about who is speaking for Russia. Kadyrov’s growing ambitions abroad have put pressure on his relationship with the Kremlin.

Rumours of Kadyrov’s serious ill-health – which seem to be quite genuine and to which he has been forced to respond on numerous occasions – have prompted concerns in the Kremlin about stability and succession plans in Chechnya. 

The centrality and personalised nature of Kadyrov’s leadership in Chechnya is itself a considerable challenge for the Kremlin, as his family holds many regional clan relationships in check, with the clan-based system in Chechnya operating in the liminal zone of Russian law. Aside from his family and network of associates, Kadyrov has few allies in the Russian government, and there are grievances against him held by elites across the North Caucasus. This makes his position, and the possibility of smooth succession, more tenuous. 

More ominously, Kadyrov appears to be making moves to insulate his family from politics: in February 2025 he removed three of his daughters from their senior government positions – one was deputy prime minister of Chechnya – and appointed one of them as the owner of Chechnya’s largest export company, the Chechen Mineral Water company. This company is under Western sanctions, and yet its revenue rose by 16% in 2023 to ₽1.4 billion. Chechen Mineral Water’s export data is restricted, but the company is an important part of Russia’s import substitution policy (to replace foreign-made goods with domestic products) and is focused on deepening Russia’s engagements abroad. All these moves suggest that Kadyrov is thinking about his family’s long-term future. 

In a sense, the above questions have been an inevitable part of a centralised and personalised leadership, and the Kremlin is likely to have planned a scenario in which managed succession in Chechnya requires input from Moscow. However, it is likely that Kadyrov’s relative youth – he is only 48 – has put off the question of succession until relatively recently. There are, of course, potential successors, such as Adam Delimkhanov, who represents Chechnya in the State Duma and who has played an important role in the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine. 

Kadyrov is taking ever greater risks with the autonomy that the Ukraine war has facilitated, perhaps due to his imminent incapacitation, which has not allowed sufficient time to prepare a successor. Allegations that he has offered his resignation to Putin several times – and been rejected – suggest that Moscow does not have an imminent successor in waiting, and that this emerging political issue has not been prioritised amid the war in Ukraine.

Kursk: Russia’s Soft Underbelly

Other security blind spots in Russia that have resulted from the war appear to be the product of age-old corruption problems. While the self-enrichment of public officials is not a new story, there does appear to be a shift in the preparedness of the state to hold the elite accountable for their corrupt practices if they begin to have an impact on Putin’s war goals. The Kremlin’s responses to Ukraine’s border incursions in Russia’s southern Kursk region is an example both of how the authorities can harness security concerns to their advantage, and how corruption can have more serious security implications. 

Russia’s regional corruption problems came to a head in 2024, when its weak borders were tested by the Ukrainian military. The problems began over a year earlier, in June 2023, when small anti-Kremlin groups infiltrated the Russian border near Belgorod and captured several villages, probably in an attempt to probe Russia’s defences. A much larger-scale incursion by Ukrainian armed forces in June 2024 was more serious, and Russia did not regain control of its border until April 2025.  

The Russian authorities’ responses to these incursions were initially limited, even after the June 2023 attack, when Russia’s civilian defences were proven to have been ineffective – locals were instead drafted in to fortify the border, many of whose salaries were not paid – and no new air defences were forthcoming. Kremlin-affiliated media maintained that if local residents had not yet seen a response, it was because Putin was biding his time for the right reaction. A belated injection of inexperienced North Korean troops months later, around the time of the US presidential elections, offered little counteroffensive, even though Russia did subsequently commit forces successfully to remove the Ukrainian armed forces. 

As with many of the examples illustrated here, the Kursk incursion could have been anticipated some 18 months earlier, beginning with the Ukrainians’ first probing attack in 2023. It was unclear why the Kremlin did not refocus its military resources on regaining its border, whether due to genuine inability, prioritisation of other resources, or a grander plan to use this to its advantage. It is possible that it might have been all three. 

From a personnel perspective, pulling soldiers from the front to engage in Kursk might have been detrimental to the Kremlin’s ability to push the frontline further into Ukraine. With the Kremlin eager to avoid another unpopular recruitment drive, it might not have played well domestically. Politically, the focus remained on the frontline and pressing deeper into Ukraine, and it is likely that Putin’s own eagerness to subjugate Ukrainian territory trumped the security of the small Russian border area. But the most likely reason is that Putin did not believe Ukraine’s Kursk incursion presented a grave threat to Russia’s security. He barely mentioned it, and it was not until March 2025 that he visited Kursk in military garb – a first on both counts – and only against the backdrop of negotiations with the US, sending a pointed message that Russia did not intend to halt the war anytime soon. Here, concerns that any ceasefire agreement might crystallise along a frontline that included parts of Russia itself probably drove Putin’s refocus on Kursk, which had otherwise been sidelined from the discussion. 

When the incursions into Kursk became a matter of economics, it appears that the Kremlin paid more attention to them. What they did reveal was the poor defence of Russia’s southern border, and how corruption networks in the Kursk regional government had enriched themselves at the expense of civil defences.

Since the start of the war, the Kremlin had spent more than ₽10 billion on defensive structures, including dragons’ teeth (concrete pyramid-shaped obstacles to impede the movement of tanks) and bunkers to fortify the border, as well as enlisting civilian contractors to construct a more permanent border. Prior to the war, the border between Russia and Ukraine was long and largely unguarded, although it has since been upgraded with electronic detection systems and is now essentially the contact line of the conflict. 

It subsequently came to light that Roman Starovoit, the regional governor (2018–24) and later minister for transport (2024–25), and his associates had embezzled billions in kickbacks from construction companies hired to deal with Kursk’s defences. Multiple criminal cases were opened against members of the regional government, who had also received kickbacks from contractors by using porous non-industrial materials. As a result, the structures crumbled in the rain and snow. 

Starovoit was under investigation for several months before his apparent suicide in July 2025, as the corruption allegations against him took shape and he was fired. Despite his deep connection to the Rotenberg brothers – powerful businessmen who are personal friends of Putin and control large infrastructure projects in Russia – this was not enough to have prevented his dismissal. 

There were two important consequences from the Kursk incident. The first was political, in that it demonstrated the limits of the elites’ self-enrichment when it has serious security implications for the war. The three waves of well-documented purges of the Ministry of Defence throughout 2024, including Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, have continued into regional and municipal politics and have focused mostly around corruption allegations that have had a concomitant effect on the war, such as inferior products, improper uniforms and difficulties around procurement. It does appear therefore that the Kremlin is serious about cracking down on corruption when it might affect the war. More interestingly, the Kursk case also indicated the limits of the elite proteksiya (the patronage networks that sustain the system) in the current political system, which has been so shaped by the war. For example, despite Starovoit’s connection to the Rotenbergs, no elites were prepared to vouch for him and prevent his political downfall, given the egregiousness of his failings. 

The second consequence was the usefulness of the border problems to the Kremlin’s war narrative. Perhaps cognisant of the fact that the border incursions were unlikely to create a broader destabilising security threat to Russia, the Kremlin attempted to harness the political opportunities it created. By bringing the war home to locals in Kursk, it highlighted the importance of continuing to target Kyiv. 

Demobilisation on the Horizon 

Another pressing security challenge that Russia will face in the coming years is the risk from demobilised fighters from the war in Ukraine. Some of the fighters are former convicts, potentially now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which might create social and political problems. Unlike in the examples above, it appears that the Kremlin is more aware of this threat than it seems from the outside, and while it is an emerging security problem, the Kremlin has acknowledged aspects of it and attempted to remedy it. However, the Kremlin’s fixes are not failsafe, and there could be several unintended consequences of attempts to integrate veterans into politics, as has been the official policy. 

There were similar problems with returning soldiers from the Second World War and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, with increases in reported violent criminal activity and limited social care to address veterans’ needs. The police, the prison service and the judiciary are all already under pressure across Russia, with low salaries and overstretched staff a reality before the war. The possibility of reintegrating up to 700,000 people will be a challenge, even if some are reabsorbed into the army, the National Guard or private security firms. In December 2024, Putin ordered that Russia maintain a standing army of over 1.5 million personnel, but that is unlikely to include all the returning veterans. 

There is a risk that demobilised veterans, potentially dissatisfied with the outcome of the war, might be able to translate their grievances into a political organisation. Historically, in Russia’s postwar periods, veterans’ movements have been useful tools for addressing trauma and have also played a role in domestic politics. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988–89, civil society groups with organisational credibility emerged, capable of channelling social grievances into politics. 

The Kremlin has anticipated this threat and has set up several initiatives to contain it, absorb the veterans and neutralise them in advance. Education initiatives such as the Time of Heroes course – a specific fund targeted at rehabilitating former soldiers – and the establishment of several Kremlin-controlled associations, such as the Military Brotherhood Movement, are all designed to pre-empt civil action, coopting veterans into Kremlin-approved bodies. A similar tactic has been deployed since the war to stifle important activist groups such as Soldiers’ Mothers organisations. In the 1990s, these groups were considered powerful tools for improving military conditions for soldiers, but they are now stymied by a lack of state funding and by legislation that does not permit criticism of the war, with remaining organisations amalgamated into the Kremlin’s own approved movements. 

These measures, alongside the Kremlin’s domestic neutralisation of paramilitary organisations such as the Wagner Group, are designed to curb attempts by veterans to organise movements against the government. Punitive measures appear to be slightly more effective thus far than some of the state-sponsored plans to control veterans’ access to politics. As previous protests against the war have demonstrated, families of mobilised soldiers have a range of grievances, often without a specific agenda. The Kremlin’s strategic restraint in responding to these protests, while addressing some specific problems, indicates the caution with which they are treating the situation, aware that a heavy-handed approach could have more serious consequences. 

Putin has expressed personal interest in attracting veterans into politics, promoting the establishment of various education schemes, master’s programmes and training courses. The effect of these processes is unlikely to be borne out before the State Duma elections in 2026, but the picture across Russia’s regions already indicates that, despite Putin’s wishes, establishment figures have fought to keep political outsiders from holding serious governmental posts in regional assemblies. Veterans in local politics who have attempted to harness a cause and criticised official corruption have faced backlash from the authorities, including threats to be redeployed. 

Although it appears that the Kremlin has anticipated the challenges and attempted to offset them by integrating veterans into the system, this is not without risk. Aside from the likely pushback from seasoned bureaucrats who have little regard for political outsiders, any true integration of veterans in Russian politics – capable of harnessing post-war grievances and patriotism while channelling them into a political cause – might pose a more realistic threat to Putin and United Russia than other kinds of organised opposition groups that the Kremlin has traditionally sought to repress. While the Kremlin has been focusing on some of the security issues around returning fighters in terms of crime and social problems, the solutions may have unintended political consequences.  

Conclusion

The war in Ukraine has become the organisational base around which Putin’s system is constructed: it is increasingly used as the justification for important policy decisions, financial budgets, patriotism and the ideological basis for educational activities. This means that key policy decisions, including domestic security matters, must necessarily be seen through the prism of the war.

In launching and perpetuating the war, Russia’s decision-makers have prioritised the conflict, which has pulled attention and resources away from other security issues, as the cases of domestic terrorism and political succession in the North Caucasus have indicated. The war itself appears to be opening new vulnerabilities, as the Kursk border incursions highlighted, which are exacerbated by existing corruption networks that are proving to be a systemic weakness with occasionally serious security implications. 

While the Kremlin may have handled some of these difficulties for now, the fixes are often temporary, and similar corruption networks across the country may also carry security risks as yet unknown. The war has offered Russia a new enemy, which is responsible for its security problems: the demonisation of Ukraine has particular use as the memory of the Second World War fades. This detracts from the real security problems that Russia faces, which are handled unevenly across the country. Putin’s system may prove resilient enough to suppress these threats for now, but they might still have a discernible impact on how the system works in future, and on those who control it. 

It would be premature to suggest that these potential weaknesses are a sign of regime fragility, but they do reflect an ongoing struggle over finite resources. As the war has become the entire organisational logic of the political system, it will necessarily continue to be the priority for attention and funding. It is likely that the longer the war continues, additional security gaps will emerge – either politically or practically – and the Kremlin’s resources will be spread even more thinly. 

Key Findings 

• While the FSB’s reactive rather than proactive approach is not new, the Kremlin’s refusal to heed international warnings over an imminent attack, and focus on a narrative that brands the West and Ukraine as ultimately responsible for domestic terrorist attacks (even though resources are not actually expended on this threat) highlights how pervasive narratives against the collective West have become since the war began, at the expense of Russia’s own security environment.
   
• One of the most significant threats facing Russia is the succession plan for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov amid his ill-health. With few well placed as a successor, and amid Kadyrov’s apparent attempts to court Middle Eastern countries for future refuge for himself and his family, Moscow may need to revisit its relationship with Chechnya sooner than expected. This could have potentially serious security consequences for stability and the balance of power in the North Caucasus if they are not handled with care. 
   
• The Kursk incursions and Russia’s vulnerable border with Ukraine have also demonstrated an interesting new political dimension delineating more clearly the limits of elite patronage networks. Corrupt practices that had led to weak border defences and a resulting security problem meant that high-level officials were dismissed despite their strong personal connections to powerful oligarchs, who are themselves close to Putin. In this new political reality, it is clear that few elites are willing to stand up for their protégés if their actions go against the war.