“While acknowledging the important role of politics and ideology, it remains crucial to analyse how Russia’s model of capitalist accumulation created the structural conditions — the framework — within which subsequent political decisions were made.
“Despite the regime’s pivot toward military-industrial expansion and sanctioned self-reliance, the basic logic of peripheral capitalist accumulation — rooted in natural resource exports, particularly hydrocarbons — remains intact.
“Capitalists positioned in sectors aligned with state priorities — especially construction firms, arms manufacturers, and logistics companies — have seen profits rise even amid macroeconomic uncertainty.
“For this cohort, the war has become not a disruption but a condition of accumulation. Any form of peace agreement that reopens Russia to global competition and winds down public investment in military and reconstruction sectors would likely erode these profits and restore the stagnation characteristic of the late 2010s. Thus, peace — particularly under Western terms — represents not an opportunity but a threat to the new accumulation regime.
“Rather than escaping the structural logic of global capitalism, Russia has re-embedded itself within a different core–periphery dynamic — this time with China at the centre. Moscow may aspire to become a hub in an 'alternative globalisation', but economically it remains on the receiving end of unequal exchange.
“The war is not merely a geopolitical blunder or an ideological crusade. It has become a structurally functional component of Russia’s current capitalist order — serving as a mechanism of class cohesion, rent distribution and geopolitical realignment. As long as these functions remain intact and the costs contained, structural incentives will continue to favor prolonged confrontation over peace.“
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