Since 2022, the Western policy toward Russia has been based on a promising and not naive assumption—that the Kremlin, facing enormous economic and military losses, would ultimately reconsider its geopolitical strategy and genuinely soften its stance. However, the Kremlin perceives and publicly reinterprets current Western countermeasures as a validation of its own strength. Russian leaders publicly call the record number of sanctions a trophy, while state propaganda explains battlefield failures by claiming that Russia is at war with all of NATO.

This memo explains Moscow’s behavior as being driven not by irrationality, nor by a desire to strengthen Russia’s position toward achieving a mutually beneficial peace with the West, but by Ressentiment. This mindset reflects a deeply rooted logic with its own internal consistency and a perspective on rationality that differs from the Western cost-benefit approach.

To prove its main argument, this memo, covering up to July 15, 2026, inclusive, first provides a clear definition of Ressentiment and describes its features, Russian context of this phenomenon, and how it differs from other concepts in the field of international relations. Then the analysis examines Russian Ressentiment through the prism of the Russian war economy (including the “deathonomics”), Western sanctions regime against Russia, U.S. efforts to promote rapprochement with Russia, the “Reverse Kissinger” strategy, and Russia’s relations with China.

This research results in identifying the actionable weak spots of Russian Ressentiment, as well as the means to counter it. It also builds these weak spots into a model of the Kremlin’s behavior.