A temporary US diesel licence and a much wider budget deficit strengthen lines already in the vision, the WHO finds no plague case, and the vision is unchanged.

Vision for 2036

This is a baseline, not a prophecy. It pictures the Russian Federation on 12 October 2036. The living baseline was last revised on 30 September 2026 and is carried forward. The horizon moves with the publication date: always ten years on. Nothing here is the necessary path of Russian history.

Political system and succession

Russia in 2036 is still a highly centralised state. Power sits in the presidency and the security services, behind managed elections — neither competitive democracy nor a formal one-party state. Who occupies the centre, and how much of the system is personal rather than institutional, stays open.

Vladimir Putin, born in 1952, would be 83 on this date. A continuing presidency, a managed handover, an elite bargain, or a sharper break after death or a loss of control are all open, and this text does not choose. Elites settle any transition in the central case before voters see it. Courts, governors, and the legislature are instruments of that centre more often than checks on it. A successor may inherit the offices without the same authority. Organised opposition stays repressed. A military setback, a fiscal squeeze, or a split in the security services could loosen control faster than any reform. Official talk of stability is not evidence that leaders can be changed without fear. A larger standing force and a heavier defence budget raise the stakes of any succession bargain; they do not settle who wins it.

Economy, technology, and sanctions

The economy has adapted to war without the openness of the 2010s or a collapse into autarky. Oil, gas, metals, agriculture, and the state sector still carry the budget. Consumption is weaker than a peacetime path. Military industry is larger and, on present plans, funded more heavily into 2027–29 than the opening baseline. Civilian technology depends on imports, copies, and partners outside Western export controls.

Sanctions still bind: thinner access to Western finance, advanced chips, machine tools, aircraft parts, and some energy equipment. Evasion and substitutes limit the damage without erasing it. A full return to Western finance and technology would still take a political settlement this baseline does not assume. Weekday news splits statute from practice: U.S. authorities to tighten further, including secondary tariffs on major buyers of Russian energy, now sit on the books, while early signals point to possible partial easing for prisoner deals before any Ukraine settlement. Secondary sanctions that China and India refuse to absorb would make the constraint harder. Neither automatic secondary tariffs nor an early broad relief package is the default. The state can steer credit to priority plants and is worse at productivity in ordinary firms. Artificial intelligence shows up as imported tools, uneven local models, and military and surveillance uses, not a broad productivity shift. Planned tax rises and National Wealth Fund draws are early signs of that squeeze. This text still forecasts neither a sovereign default nor easy fiscal room.

War and security

The war against Ukraine that began in 2022 still shapes security, whether active, frozen, or settled. This text does not choose an ending. A frozen line, a ceasefire neither side treats as final, a settlement that leaves Ukraine independent but constrained, and continued attrition all fit. Occupation of all of Ukraine does not, nor a collapse that removes Russia as a regional military power. Either is possible and would force a rewrite.

The attrition path through the late 2020s is firmer: authorised force levels keep rising on paper, defence spending is planned at wartime peaks, and diplomacy has restarted without closing the gaps on territory or alliances. The armed forces are larger and more experienced than in 2021, and worn. Drones, artillery, and air defence have raised the cost of a land war. Stockpiles are only partly rebuilt. Nuclear weapons remain the ultimate guarantee and a limit on how far others push. Use is not the base case; accident and misreading are less remote than in the 2010s. Belarus stays closely tied to Moscow, with its own succession open. The South Caucasus and Central Asia have a little more room to diversify partners, and less than they want. NATO’s eastern members spend and host more than before 2022.

Society and demography

The population is smaller than in 2021 from low births, war deaths and injuries, and emigration. Counts will be argued over; the direction is clear. Fewer young adults tighten the labour market and tempt the state to hold people with law, pay, and propaganda. A larger authorised force deepens that temptation. Many accommodate the leadership because leaving is costly and chaos is the advertised alternative; a smaller group does not. Polls under repression are weak evidence; emigration, enlistment, and births are better. Moscow and a few cities keep more skilled work. Regions that supply soldiers and raw materials do not automatically share the gains. Poor health and male mortality, worsened by the war, limit extraction and do not predict revolt.

Energy

Oil and gas still fund the state, for different customers. Pipeline gas to Europe is smaller than before 2022. China, India, Turkey, and others take more oil, often at a discount, on routes sanctions have not closed. New pipelines and LNG toward Asia have not replaced the old European volumes or prices. China buys and sets terms. Domestic power is gas, nuclear, hydro, and a slow remainder. Climate targets do not bind policy. Heat, fires, floods, and thawing Arctic ground cost more by the mid-2030s. Ukrainian long-range strikes on refining and related infrastructure, and tighter secrecy around refinery and export data, underline a vulnerability the opening baseline named only lightly: energy income can be hit at home as well as by price and sanctions abroad. A long stretch of cheap oil would hurt the budget more than slogans about sovereignty can repair.

China, the West, and the Global South

China is the main economic partner, not an ally under orders. Trade, some technology, and a shared interest in limiting American pressure hold the tie. A treaty alliance, a Chinese guarantee of the budget, and unlimited tolerance of secondary sanctions are outside this picture. Beijing keeps its own line on the war and on price. If the relationship is marked down, nothing of the same scale replaces it.

The United States, European governments, and the rest of the sanctions coalition are rivals and a lost market, not a closed file. Contact continues, including intermittent U.S. mediation attempts. Trust does not. Re-entry to Western finance and advanced technology still depends on the war and on politics in those capitals. A change of government can shift enforcement at more than the margin — including contested talk of pre-peace relief — and still cannot, alone, return trade to the 2000s. Arms, grain, and nuclear deals elsewhere win contracts. Few states organise their security around Moscow. India keeps other partners. Turkey hedges. They do not replace what was lost.

Russia in 2036 is a nuclear power, a large commodity exporter, and a regional military state living with a long war. It is strongest where it can bear costs and sell what others need, and weakest where productivity, demography, and partners who trust it decide the outcome.

How to read this revision

Each claim can be kept, narrowed, or dropped by a later weekday edition.