https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/18/economy/russia-inflation-new-heights-intl-analysis/index.html
Inflation is being driven by the rapid rise in wages as the Kremlin pours billions into military industries and sends millions of men to fight in Ukraine. In the middle of a war, companies outside the defense sector can’t compete for workers without paying much higher wages. In turn, they charge higher prices. So the spiral continues.
“Prices are rising because of the war,” Alexandra Prokopenko at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin told CNN. “Demand in the economy is distorted in favor of unproductive spending. Wages rise because employers have to compete for labor.
No see Putler and Ruzzzia are all totally dumb irrational actors and they can't possibly think of a complicated solution such as "put all those soldiers to work on public things". They'll surely just let all those soldiers go instantly unemployed and let them be disgruntled and that will lead to a western friendly revolution! Putin cooked himself here and can't possibly think of ways to prevent it!
cool and good scenario: Putin does big government FDR style programs post-war to keep vets productive, people begin to trust the state's capacity again, Putin dies naturally, United Russia breaks up into it's constituent parties without a solid successor, Russian Communist Party gains a slim majority and leverages this state power, we get a reborn but significantly more lib Soviet Russia closely aligned to China
Sino-Soviet split finally vindicated
this is exactly what all western governments would do though
They can, because Putin is a