Russia could face a "number of economic issues in 12-18 months" if Ukrainian forces continue to inflict damage on Vladimir Putin's forces on the battlefield, a leading think tank has warned.
The war has placed a heavy burden on the Russian economy, with inflation skyroceting to extraordinary highs. The country's central bank raised interest rates to 21% at the end of last year to counteract this inflation.
Russia has also suffered heavy losses on the battlefield during the Ukraine war over the three years - believed to amount to hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
The Institute for the Study of War think tank has now predicted: "Russia's protracted war in Ukraine, however, is straining Russia's economy, including by increasing inflation, spending down Russia's sovereign wealth fund, and exacerbating existing labour shortages.
"Russia will likely face a number of materiel, manpower, and economic issues in 12 to 18 months if Ukrainian forces continue to inflict damage on Russian forces on the battlefield at the current rate — likely increasing the economic burden that the Russian population will feel in the future."
Russian news outlet Moskovsky Komsomolets reported this week that there will be a "possible big increase in the price of bread from March 1."
The report added: "Major producers of bread and flour products have informed stores that from March 1, the cost of their goods will rise by 10-12%.
"Russia is the world's largest exporter of wheat. And yet bread, which is the staple of life, is constantly going up in price."
George Barros, the Russia Team & Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) Team Lead at the Institute for Study of War in Washington said: "Fundamentally, Vladimir Putin did not prepare to wage and sustain a protracted war.
"He thought this was going to be a war of six months maximum and what we've really seen is the absence of a long-term strategy. And because he didn't plan to do this, he's had to rob Peter to pay Paul in a variety of places.
"The bottom line is, Russia has been cannibalising the national wealth that Putin built for Russia, starting in around the 2000s with the high oil prices that Putin used to build the sovereign wealth fund.”
He added: “The central bank overnight lending rate is 21%, which is insane, the official inflation rate is between 8% and 9% – but those numbers are inaccurate."
A Russian, also speaking anonymously for safety, tells the Express: "In Russia, from 2014 everybody got accustomed to living with high inflation.”
Suggesting older Russians were used to hardship, the man says his parents' generation were "OK to live with high prices". Yet, he adds, "even they were shocked by the last inflation figures, with grocery products rising nearly 28% in one year."
Another added: "I won't say that our life has somehow worsened but we feel that now we can't save money for holidays or anything else to the extent that we could afford before, provided we have our own place, for which we don't have to pay mortgage or rent, and we don't eat in restaurants."
But according to recent polling, the economic burden faced by the majority of the general population has not hampered support for the continuation of the conflict.
A recent poll conducted by independent Russian opposition polling organization Chronicles this month found that 37% of people had been left financially worse off as a result of the conflict.
But despite 54% of respondents admitting that the war had impacted them negatively in some way, nearly half of those asked would not support troops being withdrawn from Ukraine.
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