Russia’s President Vladimir Putin takes self-isolation seriously. For the past two years, even his closest aides could not do as much as breathe the same air as the 69-year-old Kremlin leader without weeks of quarantine, Covid testing and hyperbolic social distancing measures. But as the world has seen during Putin’s February 11 meeting with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, compromises are hard to reach across a six-metre-long negotiating table.

On February 24, Russia’s military forces crossed the Ukrainian border, waging war on a scale that the region had not seen since 1945. The ferocity of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, with a mounting civilian death toll and heavy shelling of critical infrastructure, exacted a joint response from Western countries – a blend of financial sanctions, a mass exodus of foreign companies and a ban on importing Russian petroleum. His decision to invade a neighbour has signalled that Putin is done isolating alone. He is now dragging Russia’s entire population to join him in the bunker. 

But is a desert-island Russia of any benefit to global security, or is it a “Lord of the Flies” scenario waiting to unfold?

Sanctions and boycotts are a tried and tested mechanism through which the West can put pressure on a belligerent regime without entering into direct military confrontation, which in the case of Russia could be nuclear. Although these measures are unlikely to stop the Russian war machine in its tracks, their long-term impact can chip away at the pillars which have, for years, been upholding the Kremlin’s power – the support of Russia’s elites and domestic public approval.

The Russian economy has taken a major blow as the EU, US and UK have barred the country’s central bank from about half of its $630 billion in foreign exchange reserves, making it harder to salvage the plummeting rouble through currency intervention. As investors rushed to shun the risky rouble, it lost 30% of its value, which is a plunge not seen even during Russia’s 1998 default. Citizens wishing to withdraw cash formed meandering queues outside their local bank branches, where foreign exchange displays, which were made to only fit two-digit numbers, could not physically show the rouble’s value falling beyond 120 against the dollar.

But the Russian population is not uniform, and the top echelons of power, that are most responsible for the war, are also the ones least affected by Western measures to contain it. “Because oligarchs keep most of their wealth outside Russia, they don’t really care about sanctions”, says Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland, a book which investigates how Russia’s super-rich hide their illicitly gained money offshore. “Their wealth is not in roubles, it’s in pounds, dollars, euros or Swiss francs.”

A fraction of Russia’s elites have seen their foreign assets frozen by the West’s sanctions package, including Putin himself, as well as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, head of the Russian armed forces Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu among others. But the Kremlin clan is family friendly – “they often hide their wealth in the names of their children, wives or friends”, says Bullough. “I would prefer to see 30 oligarchs sanctioned with their family members, rather than a list of 100 oligarchs without their family members, because the first list would have a much bigger impact.” 

Such a list is only beginning to take shape. The administration of US President Joe Biden has recently extended its sanctions purview to include the billionaire families of Nikolai Tokarev, the head of Russia’s oil pipeline monopoly Transneft, as well as businessmen Arkady Rotenberg, Yevgeny Prigozhin and several others. Putin’s own suspected children, the relation to which he had never officially confirmed, have so far been left untouched. 

The assumption driving these measures is that Putin’s coterie of close associates, who have amassed their fortunes under the aegis of their patron president, has influence over his policies. If war in Ukraine becomes costly enough to the elites, they might be prompted to persuade Putin to behave differently. 

Yet, the concern is that “the effect of sanctions will be felt mainly by ordinary Russians, people who rely on buying imported food, or want to use Apple Pay to use the metro in Moscow”, notes Bullough. According to Rosstat state statistics service, by 2021, 14% of Russia’s population, 20 million people, were already living below the poverty threshold, set at a monthly income of 12,700 roubles, or 72 pounds, per a single man under 65 and a single woman under 60. 

The West’s response has also targeted Russia’s commercial aviation, as the EU and US banned industry giants Boeing and Airbus from exporting components for aircraft manufacture, as well as from selling and leasing planes to Russia. According to analytics firm Cirium, Russian airlines rent 515 out of their 980 passenger jets from foreign lessors. For a country the size of Russia, which has 11 time zones, a shortage of planes does not just mean that people will find it harder to fly abroad – the EU, US and Canada have already imposed a blanket ban on Russian flights anyway. It will hamper domestic travel too, effectively cutting many Russians off from the work and relatives they might have in other cities. Now, those who can afford it are buying one way tickets out of the country. 

“The real problem for Putin is that the people who are out on the streets protesting against the war are the usual suspects. It will get worse if — when — the people queueing at the ATM turn the (metaphorical) corner and join the protests”, tweeted Samuel Greene, director of the King’s Russia Institute at King’s College London. Putin, who came to power in 1999 under the promise of economic and social stability, which was much longed for by the end of a turbulent decade, has reason to be weary of public dissent.

“Putin’s approval ratings have been sensitive to economic conditions and policy in the past. Take, for example, the hit his approvals took following the announcement of the deeply unpopular pension reform of 2018”, notes Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London. Thousands of Russians joined protests against plans to raise the retirement age in 2018, which forced the government into softening the proposed measures. Putin’s approval ratings, monitored by Russia’s independent Levada Center polling agency, slid by 10% following the reforms. 

However, it would not be the first time that aggressive foreign policy boosted a leader’s popularity against the backdrop of falling living standards at home. According to Levada, Putin had himself seen his public approval ratings sky-rocket from 65% in 2013 to 82% in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In 2015, a record 89% of the population supported their president, despite the country’s economy having contracted by 3.7%.

By now, the Kremlin knows how to straddle public sentiment in the face of economic hardship. Last week’s most liked tweet by a satirical Twitter account Neural Meduza, which posts AI-generated headlines by analysing Russia’s independent media outlets, reads: “Russia calls for a ban on everything”. 

“For the Kremlin, the crucial thing is to maintain control of the narrative, blaming any economic troubles on the West and not on Putin personally,” adds Noble. “That explains the extraordinary steps taken against independent media and the crackdown on anti-war protests across the country.”

Following the invasion, anti-war protestors gathered in over 147 cities across Russia, with over 13,000 people detained since February 24, according to OVD-info monitor. The protests are held despite Russia’s prosecutor-general announcing that participation could qualify as extremist activity, punishable by six years in prison. 

On March 4, the Russian parliament passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years on anyone accused of spreading “fake news” about the war in Ukraine, which includes calling it a “war” rather than a “special military operation”. Faced with the choice between partaking in Kremlinspeak or seeing their entire newsroom imprisoned, Internet broadcaster Dozhd announced indefinite closure the day before the law came into force. Most of Russia’s independent media followed suit, while Western outlets including the BBC and Bloomberg disbanded their Moscow bureaus. 

Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor has also blocked Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. While YouTube is still standing, it no longer allows creators in Russia to make money from ads or subscriber donations, which might force many to leave the platform. YouTube had for years served as the country’s safe haven for uncensored content, where Kremlin critics like opposition politician Alexei Navalny and popular video blogger Yuri Dud reached millions of people, at times surpassing the viewership of state-run TV channels.

“If YouTube is blocked in Russia, several dozen million Russians will lose access to news and information that help them right now to guide their way through this war,” tweeted Anton Barbashin, editorial director of Russian affairs journal Riddle. “YouTube is the main source of alternative content in Russia now. Losing access to it would be a catastrophe.” 

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that since February 24 Russia’s invasion killed at least 579 Ukrainian civilians, including 42 children, with the actual figures likely being much higher. All Western measures to contain the Kremlin’s war machine must remain on the table. But as much as isolation can hurt Putin’s regime, when the doors of Russia’s bunker shut there will be nothing but the echoes of state rhetoric bouncing off its internal walls, and so the ignorance of the population might well become Putin’s strength.