Following the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Vladimir Putin held a closed-door meeting with Russia’s top business leaders and directly urged them to contribute financially to the war effort. The president made it clear to the oligarchs that he intends to continue fighting — at a minimum, to reach the administrative borders of Donbas. Russia’s federal budget is already facing a serious deficit in 2025, and in the first months of 2026 the shortfall has approached the full-year target. To sustain aggression against Ukraine, Putin needs «private investors.»
According to The Bell, the mechanism of quasi-voluntary contributions was suggested to the president by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. The idea is straightforward: Kremlin-loyal businessmen are expected to purchase government bonds. Suleyman Kerimov has already signaled his readiness, along with at least one other major oligarch (the Financial Times suggests it may be Oleg Deripaska).
Putin tried to play the role of the «good cop.» He told the businessmen he had been prepared to accept Donald Trump’s proposal for a demilitarized free economic zone in Donbas, but Ukraine allegedly refused to withdraw its troops, causing the deal to collapse. This version looks highly implausible. The entire course of the negotiations shows that Putin is determined to establish full control — at least over Donbas, and most likely over all the territories written into the Russian Constitution.
Media reports indicate that, amid the worsening economic situation, both civilian officials and business figures have been increasingly warning the president about an approaching crisis and gently suggesting that a peace agreement might be timely. Putin’s slip about the «deal that fell through because of Ukraine» was clearly intended to reassure the entrepreneurs: the peaceful option supposedly existed, but it couldn’t be realized due to circumstances beyond Russia’s control — so now they will have to pony up money for the war.
This fundraising drive may enjoy limited success for a while. Oligarchs whose past is not directly tied to Putin will need to demonstrate their loyalty to the country’s leadership to avoid nationalization (which so far has mainly affected regional businesses). Yet even the businessmen themselves may eventually run out of spare cash — the coal and metals sectors, for example, are already in the grip of a serious crisis.
Bears Without Medvedev
Several months still remain before the official launch of the campaign for the State Duma elections, but United Russia is already in full pre-election mode. The party is holding a series of forums under the brand «There Is a Result.» These events are scheduled to take place in the administrative centers of all federal districts. Last week saw two such forums — in Rostov-on-Don and Nizhny Novgorod. The first one was held over a month ago in Yekaterinburg.
The formal pretext for the forums is a discussion of the «People’s Program» with which United Russia ran in the previous Duma elections. In practice, however, the events also cover future plans. The presence of federal deputy prime ministers, ministers, and governors is meant to underscore the seriousness of the party’s intentions. In this way, United Russia is trying to show that it possesses real resources to deliver on its promises: representatives of the executive branch are on hand to confirm that funding will be allocated for the program’s points.
Each forum has its own theme, so a relevant deputy prime minister is «attached» to it. In Yekaterinburg they discussed industry with Denis Manturov; in Rostov — housing construction with Marat Khusnullin; in Nizhny Novgorod — education and upbringing, where the government was represented not by Tatyana Golikova but by Dmitry Chernyshenko, the deputy prime minister for digital technologies.
What immediately stands out is that at two of the three forums the main party frontman was Secretary of the General Council Vladimir Yakushev, who received the executive-branch representatives. Party Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has so far appeared only at the inaugural event in Yekaterinburg.
This automatically raises serious questions. If the former president really plans to head the party’s federal list and strengthen his role within it, his presence at key party events should be mandatory — especially at those where he could publicly demonstrate his influence over government members, presidential envoys, and governors: issuing them assignments and demanding reports on previously undertaken obligations.
For rehabilitating Dmitry Medvedev’s public image — which, since he lost the prime ministership and with the start of the full-scale war, has increasingly been perceived as that of an internet troll — such forums would have been extremely useful. They could have prepared both the public and the elites for his possible leadership of the list. It is quite likely that the forums were originally conceived with precisely this task in mind. However, the ex-president himself appears not particularly interested in playing that role.
If until 2020 Medvedev’s detachment from party life could still be explained by the demands of the premiership, that excuse no longer works now that he holds the post of deputy chairman of the Security Council. The chairman’s low level of activity leaves only two possibilities: either he has abandoned plans to lead the list, or he simply does not want to spend time and effort on the campaign.
In any case, Medvedev’s absence from the key forums will have a negative impact on the party’s agitation efforts. It inadvertently emphasizes the secondary nature of these events — including in the eyes of officials who are supposed to provide the administrative resource for the elections. And for United Russia, that is far more important than how the forums are evaluated by the general public.
The Military Line
The political bloc of the Presidential Administration is already preparing what is known as the «military line» for United Russia’s campaign. Boris Rapoport, deputy head of the Kremlin’s department for social monitoring under Alexander Kharichev, formulated the main thesis of the upcoming UR campaign as follows: «A convincing victory for United Russia in the elections brings closer victory at the front.» He voiced this at the congress of the Russian Association of Political Consultants — one of the key gatherings of Kremlin-loyal political technologists.
Rapoport, who oversaw the ruling party’s campaign in the previous State Duma elections, called for «useful» and «psychotherapeutic» agitation: in his vision, party members and their consultants should calm a tired society. Exactly how the military and psychotherapeutic lines are supposed to complement each other, Rapoport did not explain in detail — and it is doubtful that such an explanation is even possible.
The main source of public fatigue and anxiety is the war itself. It generates fears of a new mobilization wave, weighs on public mood, and causes economic difficulties and everyday problems, including internet blackouts. The Kremlin and United Russia will have to take a clear position in the campaign and choose the main emphasis. So far, the «military line» is firmly in first place. And that means any attempts to calm society will automatically be nullified.
All the more so because the positive part of the ruling party’s program has long since become a pure formality. Since the mid-2000s, United Russia has not even tried to offer a meaningful agenda, relying exclusively on its association with Vladimir Putin, with power in general, and on administrative resources. Against this background, the «military line» as a negative factor will be especially noticeable to voters and will most likely cause the party’s ratings to fall rather than rise.
Rapoport’s statements also indicate that the Presidential Administration’s political bloc is from the outset building the campaign on the assumption that the war will continue throughout the entire Duma campaign period and on election day. It is unlikely that Sergey Kiriyenko and his subordinates would promote such theses without knowing Putin’s real position and without coordinating the key campaign messages with him. Given the timelines for preparing and approving such presentations, Rapoport began working on them even before the war in Iran. This suggests that, before the start of hostilities in the Persian Gulf, Putin most likely was not even considering the option of winding down aggression against Ukraine.
