Tensions in the Kremlin are rising as the economy tanks and trust in the president is starting to wane. There is a growing consensus it’s high time to end the war in Ukraine.

Two factions have appeared and are vying for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attention: the doves that want to freeze the conflict along the current lines and declare victory; and the hawks that want to call a general mobilisation and flood the Donbas with Russian troops to overwhelm the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

Putin himself also seems increasingly keen to bring the conflict to an end. Following the Victory Day parade on May 9 he said the “end of the war is close” and has repeatedly said in the last month that he is willing to talk to the EU, which has taken over the negotiations from the Trump administration.

But that comes with some caveats. This week he repeated those remarks, but added any deal should follow the format of the failed 2022 Istanbul peace deal that includes a no-Nato guarantee for Ukraine and a dramatic reduction in the size of the AFU. And he has added some new conditions, demanding that Kyiv take the “new realities on the ground” into account, code for: Ukraine will have to recognise the loss of the five regions Russia has annexed as well as give up the rest of the Donbas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is accepting none of this. At the E3 London summit on June 8, the leaders of France, Germany and the UK came back with a five-point list of demands that starts with an unconditional ceasefire before negotiations can begin. Putin has ruled that out.

The peace talks are now stuck in a violent stalemate of tit-for-tat drone and missile strikes. Both countries are bleeding. Frustration with the lack of progress is driving the Kremlin tensions.

How to break the deadlock? In reality there is a third camp and it’s the largest: the wait-and-see camp that is advocating doing nothing for the meantime. And it seems that Putin belongs to this camp, security analyst Mark Galeotti, the CEO of Mayak Intelligence, told IntelliNews in an interview in Berlin.

"Effectively, there are three camps," Galeotti said. "One of which is kind of a fairly large, but quiet camp, which is the 'let's not make a decision'. And Putin, being Putin, tends to favour not making decisions."

The troika remains balanced for now which has locked the conflict into limbo. Russia’s spring offensive has made little progress leading to a raft of the war has reached a “turning point” and “Russia is losing” commentaries. But Pokrovska, a key logistics hub in Donbas, fell ro Russia earlier this month, in an underreported story, and now Kostiantynivka, another key city in the Donbas defence, has been infiltrated by Russian forces. The campaign to take Donbas is making slow but steady progress.

The war cannot last forever

Galeotti rejects the common description of the first faction as "doves", which he prefers to describe as a group that are calling a spade a spade.

"I don't think it's all the doves. Pragmatists is the best we can say," he said. “The problem is that what we see is an emerging clash between people who say that it's time to freeze the war now. Just declare a triumph, try and get some sanctions relief, and move on, and those people who say: “yes, we agree this war cannot be allowed to last forever. Therefore, what we need to do is escalate”,” Galeotti says.

The Russian elite is increasingly united by the view the war has become economically unsustainable if it drags on indefinitely. But they disagree about what to do about it.

"It is clear that there is a growing consensus within the elite that this war cannot be allowed to last too long. It can't become a forever war. That would be catastrophic,” says Galeotti.

The pragmatists, concentrated in the financial-macro team that actually run Russia’s economy, believe Russia has already secured enough military gains to declare victory, freeze the conflict and seek a gradual easing of Western sanctions.

Their argument has gained traction as Russia's economy slowly grinds to a halt after two years of war-driven growth. Labour shortages, high interest rates, record military spending and mounting budget pressures have increasingly exposed the limits of the Kremlin's wartime economic model.

Hawks push for one final offensive

The solution for the hawks is to scale up. They want to hold a generation mobilisation, flood Ukraine with Russian soldiers, flatten the country with a barrage of powerful missiles against which Ukraine is now largely defenceless after it used up all its Patriot interceptors, and rapidly overrun Donbas.

"They say, yes, we agree this war cannot be allowed to last forever. And therefore actually what we need to do is escalate," says Galeotti. "A new mobilisation wave, sending in conscripts... all the way up to—and I mention it because it gets raised—even though I think it's monstrously unlikely, the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons perhaps as a demonstration."

While Galeotti dismissed tactical nuclear use as highly improbable, he outlined what a hawkish strategy might look like.

"If I was a hawkish figure... I would say yes. Mobilise 300,000 guys in mid-summer. Throw them at the Ukrainians, basically trying to take the rest of the Donbas. Then you've got winter, hammer the Ukrainian energy infrastructure again. And then declare a victory."

Putin prefers waiting

In between the two extremes Galeotti believes a wait-and-see faction dominates Kremlin decision-making. Putin continues to do what he has done throughout much of his quarter-century in power: postpone difficult choices while allowing competing factions to argue their case.

"The options aren't seeming uncomfortable, so let's just sit back and wait. Putin being Putin tends to favour not making decisions. This is a man who likes to sit on the fence as long as possible," says Galeotti.

Putin is normally – with the glaring exception of the decision to invade Ukraine – not a political risk taker. He likes to move slowly, telegraph his intentions, test the water and build consensus before he acts. Unlike Ukraine, Putin has avoided mandatory conscription, apart from a partial mobilisation in September 2022 to reverse the debacle of the failed invasion.

Instead, he has spent Russia’s treasure on astonishingly generous sign-up payments to raise a force of “volunteers.” One of the ironies of the war is that the poorest Russian regions have been the biggest winners because of a flood of money – up to and over a whole year’s average wages – spent on filling the ranks. At the same time, most of the recruitment has gone on in the backward regions of the interior, while big cities in the European part of Russia, where the bulk of the, mainly white Slavic, population live have been untouched. For most Russians the war years have been a time of prosperity and rising real disposable incomes that created a War Middle Class.

But now that plan is starting to fall apart. After Russia’s economy went into recession in the first quarter of this year and sky high interest rates are crushing economic growth. The SMEs feeling the brunt of the pain, and they employ millions of people.

The upshot is Putin is increasingly keen to end the conflict, but caught between the two camps, he is not willing to compromise on his core demands.

Since the collapse of US-mediated ceasefire talks earlier this year, the Ukraine conflict has become “Europe’s problem” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Trump administration made good progress towards ending the conflict, culminating in the Moscow meeting on December 3 and a 27-point peace plan (27PPP) that Putin said was “largely acceptable.” But now forced to deal with the EU, Putin has repeatedly declared himself willing to negotiate while simultaneously insisting any talks begin from Russian conditions that Ukraine has consistently rejected. It’s become a game of chicken with both sides waiting to see who can endure more pain for longer.

A controlled debate

More strikingly, Galeotti believes Putin is deliberately allowing this internal debate to play out in public. Economic concerns that would previously have been voiced only behind closed doors are increasingly appearing in public commentary from establishment figures. One of the features of Putin’s increasingly authoritarian regime is public criticism of the Kremlin is usually not tolerated.

"The pragmatists are much, much more open in public than normal," Galeotti said, noting that arguments suggesting Russia has reached "the point of diminishing returns" were once confined to private conversations but are now appearing openly.

The fact that influential Kremlin insiders – including Sergei Kiriyenko , the head of the president’s staff – are increasingly associated with those arguments suggests the debate has official blessing rather than representing a challenge to Putin's authority.

"Putin is allowing this debate to happen, which is a classic Putin tactic," Galeotti said. "That way, if he then makes a decision, he is the benevolent Tsar reacting to these people's requests. And politically he has someone to blame if he's wrong."

For now, however, Galeotti believes the Russian president remains committed to postponing that choice. While hawks argue for one final offensive and pragmatists urge an early settlement, Putin appears content to wait in the hope that developments on the battlefield, political changes in the West or mounting manpower and funding pressure on Ukraine will eventually improve Russia's negotiating position. Far from indecision, Galeotti suggests, wait-and-see has itself become the Kremlin's strategy.