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analysis
Russian oligarch Andrei Melnichenko warns President Vladimir Putin.
July 9, 2026, 2:16 p.mJuly 9, 2026, 2:21 p.m
Things are not going well for Vladimir Putin at the moment. The tide of battle seems to be on Ukraine’s side again. At the same time, the Russian population is increasingly realizing that the war is not just a matter of paid mercenaries, but rather affects them directly. Experts estimate that between 20 and 40 percent of all oil refineries have now been shut down by the Ukrainians. That’s why motorists have to wait in long lines for fuel that is now rationed and Moscow has to import additional gasoline from Belarus as an emergency.
The geopolitical situation is also deteriorating. The Europeans have massively increased their aid to Ukraine and Putin can no longer rely on even the moody US President. “In reality, the chances that Trump will conclude a deal in favor of Putin have become smaller – and they are getting smaller and smaller,” says Russia expert Alexander Gabuev in “Foreign Affairs”.
Queue in front of a gas station in Moscow.Image: keystone
The Economist sums up the Kremlin chief’s concerns as follows: “Reality belies Mr. Putin’s oft-repeated promises that the special military operation is going according to plan and that a breakthrough is imminent. Although the Russian economy is neither on the verge of collapse nor is a popular uprising likely, Russians feel that their country has reached a dead end.
Andrei Melnichenko, one of the richest Russians, also shares this feeling. Although he lives mostly in St. Moritz, he is closely connected to his fatherland and is anything but a Putin critic. He has made a billion-dollar fortune with fertilizer, coal and steel, and he follows Russian politics very closely.
As a qualified quantum physicist, he also knows how uncertain the world is and that nuclear war has now become possible again. “Whatever has brought us into the current situation, we must be aware that we are in uncharted territory,” explains Melnichenko in the Economist. And he warns: “Any strategy that assumes that nuclear escalation is a manageable expansion of conventional pressure attempts is based on a false assumption: that a complex system can be pushed to its limits and stopped exactly when it is politically desirable. Real systems don’t behave like that.”
Fertilizer Tsar Andrei Melnichenko.image: wikipedia
Melnitschenko spoke to The Economist for 60 hours and also wrote a guest essay. In it he describes four possible scenarios as to how the Ukraine war could end.
A defeated and humiliated Russia would behave a bit like Germany after the First World War. Even if the historical circumstances have changed, the structural logic remains the same: the sovereignty of a great power is broken, but it does not disappear. She returns in an even more dangerous form.
In a second possible scenario, Russia becomes a client state of China. The Middle Kingdom takes the place of the West. Russia would retain the symbols of a great power, but in reality it would have to follow the dictates of Beijing. “The obvious asymmetry of such a connection would be toxic,” said Melnichenko, “and one can easily imagine that an anti-China coalition would emerge from it.”
It is also possible that Russia will become ungovernable after a defeat. There would then be power struggles over ownership of nuclear weapons, raw materials and borders. It would be an apocalyptic scenario and, according to Melnichenko, would “destroy the concept of nuclear deterrence.”
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un have fun.Image: keystone
His fourth scenario doesn’t look much better: Russia almost hermetically seals itself off from its environment and becomes a huge North Korea. “Technology, science, capital and civil society cannot develop under these circumstances in a state of permanent emergency,” said Melnichenko. «Such a situation does not end the war. He is turning the state into an institution to organize this war.”
But how can these dystopian scenarios be prevented? What is crucial for Melnichenko is that the West accepts Russia’s sovereignty. “There is no choice between a friendly or hostile Russia,” he states. “It’s about whether Russia’s behavior is predictable or not. In the world that is emerging, predictability is more important than sympathy.”
Melnichenko does not answer the question about Ukraine’s sovereignty. However, the fact that a man of his caliber is getting involved in the discussion about a possible outcome of the war is a ray of hope in a bleak world.
Andrei Melnichenko’s yacht.Image: EPA/DPA
Alexander Gabuev also calls on leading European statesmen to seek dialogue with Putin. “The news that Europe is looking for a way out for the Kremlin will sooner or later reach the Russian elite,” he writes. “And if Europe can signal to this elite that a more peaceful Moscow can also find partners in the West, then this could put additional pressure on the Kremlin.”