When Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner contractors launched their fateful but failed mutiny on 24 June 2023, the shockwaves reverberated not only in Russia but also throughout Europe. The brief period of uncertainty concerning a potential regime change in the Kremlin kickstarted discussions in Western capitals about Russia’s various potential futures – and the impact they might have on European security. These discussions were not new: there is a vast body of foresight studies that attempt to map out Russia’s potential pathways, including different scenarios for transitions of power or domestic instability.

However, before Prigozhin’s mutiny these discussions had taken place predominantly behind the scenes or within the expert community. There has generally been a cautious attitude among Western politicians when discussing Russia’s future, in order not to further fan already deeply held suspicions within the Kremlin that the West is pursuing a regime change. Apart from a short and quickly downplayed remark by President Biden in March 2022 that “Putin cannot remain in power”, Western officials routinely state that Russia’s political future “is a domestic affair that is up to the Russian people”.[1] Ukrainians, on the other hand, are much more up-front about their preferred future: one in which Russia is weakened through internal strife and in which Russia no longer poses a threat to its neighbours.[2]

Despite this Western aversity to express any preference about Russia’s future, it is by now obvious that the fate of Putin's regime has become inextricably linked with the war of aggression that it launched against Ukraine. As the equation of regime security with national security is one of the cornerstones of Putin’s regime narrative, a threat to one is perceived as a threat to the other as well. Russia’s future will therefore shape the outcome of the war – and vice versa. But it will also shape the broader European and global security architecture for the years to come. Will Europe face an isolated and vengeful Russian Federation that continues to undermine the international rules-based order? Might a change of leadership take place, after which a more constructive Russian government could try to improve its ties with the West? Or could Russia become unstable, face civil unrest and violence and perhaps even disintegrate?

In order to enable Western policymakers to prepare for and cope with the potential consequences, this paper constructs a scenario framework that aims to offer insight into the potential future pathways that Russia might take in the next five years, until roughly the year 2028. It will investigate three key uncertainties that are of particular importance for European security:

To map out Russia’s potential futures, this paper uses a mixed methodology based on the scenario method of the Clingendael Institute.[3] Based on an extensive literature review of studies on Russia’s futures, the research team has identified a range of factors of influence that are grouped in five clusters and submitted to a multidisciplinary panel of Dutch and international experts from Western, Central and Eastern Europe. The experts then scored each of the factors according to their relevance through a survey method and subsequently discussed them at a scenario workshop in April 2023. During this workshop a scenario matrix with two axes was constructed and a number of potential scenarios were identified, which have been refined by the research team into five distinct scenarios that will each be discussed in turn. The paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations for the different sets of scenarios.[4]