Russia‘s international reserves are at all time high at the moment (800B$), of which only 300B are frozen by sanctions. Doesn’t look like a sign of a death zone. The arguments for it are questionable:
>Consider the arithmetics of descent for the Kremlin. Russia’s defence sector now accounts for around 8% of GDP. Demobilising without falling into a crisis would require five conditions to be met simultaneously: credible security guarantees that satisfy the Kremlin’s threat perceptions (which in turn will determine the extent to which it rebuilds its military capabilities);
Likely result of a peace deal. Trump wants to sign it and focus on China, so some pragmatic arrangement to be expected.
> mass demobilisation with effective retraining programmes;
The easiest part. The scale of mobilization was relatively small compared to total workforce. Not sure why effective retraining sounds like a problem.
>at least partial sanctions relief for technology access;
Russia has gaps in electronics (can buy from China) and in aviation (sanctions likely to be lifted in exchange for opening transit routes). In software it is still ahead of Europe, having strong national players in AI, banking, marketplaces etc. It may need Western tech to roll out 5G, but given that they already plan it, they probably already have access to Chinese tech.
>a revolution in defence procurement that prioritises efficiency over budget absorption;
Not clear why this is relevant. The defense spending will wind down gradually, it is likely already more efficient than before the war.
> and a healthy ecosystem of small and mid-size firms capable of absorbing reallocated resources and boosting innovation.
Will likely happen as soon as tax relief will be affordable, i.e. in 1 or 2 years after the peace deal. Resilience of Russian SMEs is something developed over decades. It might happen that Dubai and South Caucasus Russian tech hubs will go home. Most importantly, there will be a huge amount of money spent on new territories similarly to infrastructure investments in Crimea, which will add few percentage of growth to GDP.
> The probability of all five converging is near zero.
This is the most interesting part of the article, but it left unexplained. Why?