‘A permanent state of siege’

Journalist Maxim Trudolyubov explains why he thinks the Kremlin is preparing for life after the war

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in Alaska on August 15, as part of Washington’s ongoing effort to broker an end to the war in Ukraine. According to Bloomberg’s reporting, the Kremlin is weighing its options for concessions, which could include offering Trump an “air truce” with Ukraine. The planned meeting comes on the heels of a recent increase in Moscow’s diplomatic contacts with the West. In July, a Russian delegation led by Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko attended the World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in Switzerland, and in early August, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow to discuss a deal that could head off sanctions on buyers of Russian oil. In an essay for Meduza, journalist Maxim Trudolyubov argues that the Kremlin’s diplomatic dealings and evolving domestic repressions both signal preparations for the war’s eventual end.

Why Moscow wants an air truce

The Kremlin has maintained regular contact with the White House throughout the first half of 2025. From February to July, the Russian and U.S. presidents spoke by phone six times — almost once a month — discussing the war, a potential ceasefire, and a host of other issues. In February, the two sides’ top diplomats met in Riyadh, agreeing to restore embassy staff and setting the stage for talks on Arctic and energy projects. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met again in July on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit. In April, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, visited Washington for discussions that included possible steps to end the war, as well as investment in rare earth resources, energy, and northern trade routes, including through the Arctic.

As of early August, the Kremlin appeared to have the upper hand. Without making a single significant concession, Russia had projected a readiness for dialogue all while spending six months continuing its war against Ukraine.

Over the past three months, the Russian military has advanced faster than before, seizing an average of 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) every 30 days. For the second month in a row, civilian casualties on both sides of the front are at their highest levels since January 2024 — all against the backdrop of steady Moscow–Washington contacts.

On the American side, the lead negotiator has been special envoy Steve Witkoff, who arrived in Moscow in early August for his fifth visit, which was widely covered in Russia’s state media. Earlier, Trump had pledged that after August 8, the United States would impose secondary sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports — in effect, sanctions targeting Russia’s main buyers, India and China.

A swirl of rumors and leaks has surrounded the prospect of talks. Washington allegedly offered Putin a ceasefire in exchange for de facto recognition of Russia’s territorial gains and the lifting of sanctions, without any promise to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Bloomberg has reported that American and Russian officials are discussing Moscow’s demand to gain full control of Donbas, in return for halting advances elsewhere along the front.

Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today.

Another proposal — likely originating from the Russian side and floated even before Witkoff’s latest visit — is an “air truce.” This would temporarily halt Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities, as well as Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities and aviation infrastructure.

For Ukraine, such a truce would primarily mean fewer civilian casualties. But it would also deprive Kyiv of a key pressure tool: strikes on Russian oil refineries and air bases, which in recent months have inflicted significant damage. The very emergence of this plan, which would clearly benefit the Kremlin, signals the scenario Moscow hopes to see unfold.

For Putin, it offers a way to appear ready for peace while retaining freedom of action on the ground, where Russian forces would continue their offensive. Another major advantage, from Moscow’s perspective, would be sharply reducing the war’s visibility in global media and in the daily lives of Russians. Coverage of strikes on Ukrainian cities is far more intense than reporting from the front lines, and refinery explosions or Internet outages related to counter-drone measures have become constant topics of conversation — and a source of memes.

If the deal were to collapse, the Kremlin would likely resume large-scale strikes and shift the blame for escalation onto Ukraine.

Trump’s readiness to meet with Putin soon is harder to explain, given the torrent of leaks about potential arrangements that suggest there’s no clear plan for a deal. One can only assume that Trump simply intends to present the summit itself as a diplomatic win, sparing him the politically and economically fraught step of imposing secondary sanctions on India and China.

The end of the war will mean different things to different parties: a time of mourning for the dead, a moment for political calculation, a period of reassessment, or a chance to breathe a sigh of relief. But not for the Kremlin. For Moscow, it would bring a potential crisis — the loss of the mobilizing force that has justified repression, concentrated power, and explained economic hardship.

Questions would arise about the war’s cost, about accountability, and about what comes next. To avoid entering that phase, the Kremlin is already retooling its control system — shifting wartime rhetoric into a permanent “state of siege,” codifying new repressive laws, and building a roster of internal and external “enemies” that can replace the war as the primary means of keeping society in check. It is also moving aggressively to tighten control over the Internet and social media users — another element of its vision for the postwar future.

How the Kremlin is tightening control for the postwar era

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and the muted but nonetheless tangible negative reaction within Russian society — pushed the Kremlin to sharply ramp up repressive measures.

In the first weeks after the start of the full-scale war in 2022, the state mobilized its security apparatus and rushed to add new provisions to the Criminal and Administrative Codes — including the so-called “fake news” law and other statutes allowing it to punish public doubt about the “goals of the special military operation” and commentary that contradicts the official narrative. Within six months, the human rights group OVD-Info counted more than 16,500 people detained at anti-war protests — 90 percent of them in the first month. Nearly 4,000 misdemeanor cases were opened, along with 237 criminal ones. In effect, wartime censorship was imposed across the country, and independent media were silenced.

By 2025, however, Russia’s repressive system has shifted from the wartime pattern of blunt, heavy-handed suppression toward a more stable, entrenched, and selective form of control. Under sustained state pressure, street protests have all but disappeared — and with them, the intensity of repression.

Instead of sweeping arrests and cases over anti-war statements, the law enforcement system now focuses on charges of extremism, terrorism, and treason. According to a July report by OVD-Info, the share of criminal cases directly linked to public criticism of the war fell to 43 percent in 2024, down from more than 60 percent in 2023. In the first six months of 2025, there were 173 new politically motivated cases, of which 37 percent were “anti-war.” That compares with 850 such cases in 2022, 778 in 2023, and 733 in 2024.

At the same time, the authorities are intent on keeping alive a public expectation of harsh punishment for crossing the boundaries of what is permitted. Judging by their actions, their strategy is to be selective while increasing the severity of penalties, rather than the volume of prosecutions. The regime is seeking what it views as “repressive stability” — a state in which intimidation is coupled with the predictable, routine logic of criminal prosecution.

In June, Nadine Geisler (Nadezhda Rossinskaya), founder of the Army of Beauties volunteer group that aided Ukrainian refugees, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of treason and financing terrorism. A month later, a court in Ufa sentenced RusNews journalist Olga Komleva to 12 years on charges of collaborating with the Navalny-founded Anti-Corruption Foundation and spreading so-called “fake news” about the military.

Security forces have also been waging an intensive campaign against people who, at various times, donated money to the Anti-Corruption Foundation. In a conversation with one detainee, police described the crackdown as a “federal program.” By Mediazona’s count, the “program” has so far led to 76 cases in 38 regions of Russia.

Another top-priority “federal program” for the Kremlin is building the infrastructure of digital authoritarianism — a system not only to make monitoring citizens easier, but also to shape their behavior and opportunities. For now, however, the successes China has achieved in this area remain far out of reach for Moscow.

Particularly alarming is the historical revisionism aimed at legitimizing the severity and extraordinary nature of current policies: the official annulment of rehabilitations for victims of Stalinism and revisions to the state’s framework for remembering political repression. All of this normalizes political pressure. The authorities are “training” society and aiming to achieve “model behavior” through ever fewer means.

Russia’s possible future

The Kremlin can’t help but worry about the stability of the regime in the event of the war ending and the possible departure of Russia’s leader. “Post-Putin Russia” scenarios are discussed not only among the opposition in exile, but also among wartime elites eager to keep their positions. That future must not only be secured, but also protected from competing visions — especially those developed beyond Russia’s borders.

In this environment, repression becomes not just a tool for quashing dissent, but a means of shaping a future populated by a loyal society. With the disappearance of war as a mobilizing force, the regime will face a lack of legitimacy when it comes to wielding violence and control. This is why it is already using the threat of punishment to define the boundaries of permissible speech and behavior.

Long-exploited themes — “Russophobia,” “foreign agents,” and gender and religious identity markers — have again taken center stage. But they are already losing their potency.

From a tactical standpoint, it is reasonable to expect that the next target of repressive policy will be the fight against alternative visions of Russia’s future and the people advancing them. Some of these plans are almost certain to make the Kremlin want to neutralize them early. Opposition roadmaps, for example, often call for dismantling the country’s repressive institutions (the FSB, the Interior Ministry’s anti-extremism units, Roskomnadzor), acknowledging responsibility for crimes of aggression, and rapidly establishing a political framework that would make a new seizure of power impossible.

A hallmark of most non-Kremlin reform proposals is the idea of “zero hour” — a sharp, crisis-driven turning point after which the country would begin living under new rules. In scenarios involving a change of power, the collapse of the regime, or a dramatic foreign policy resolution, some reform advocates propose acting with maximum speed to “install” the new rules and build a reliable barrier against a return to authoritarianism or revanchism.

But convincing society of the need for a new path requires time and effort, and carrying out any reforms demands legitimacy. For that reason, Russia’s free forces — scholars, activists, politicians, artists — must work more actively on their visions for the future and make them known to the Russian public. The Kremlin is already prepared to seize the initiative and occupy the space where an alternative could take shape.

The second and third tiers of Russia’s elite hope to outlast their current bosses and rise to the top by evolution, not revolution. If the current regime remains stable and moves into a postwar phase without catastrophe, its new leaders will have no need to spend much time explaining any potential new program to the public. By then, they will already have a politically “schooled” and “trained” population accustomed to submission, to choices without real choice, and to an agenda set from above. And with that foundation, they will be able to offer society whatever they want.

Maxim Trudolyubov