The Ukrainian War as a Catalyst for Deglobalization and a Return to Totalitarianism for the Russian Federation

This article provides a historical overview of the evolution of Russia and the Russian Federation and how its rulers contributed to the current economic and political landscape leading to the invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, the article includes cultural dimensions, international indexes and rankings which frame Russia’s current state of affairs. President Putin’s background and orchestrations during his reign further explain Russia’s situation with possible trajectories for the Russian Federation. The research design employed secondary research of published materials. The research then provided a starting point from which four scenarios describing Russia’s future were developed. The Russian Federation is at a crossroads. Given its unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has been forcibly decoupled from the global financial and global trade systems. Currently, Russia is losing the Ukraine War and future scenarios for Russia are bounded between a pessimistic scenario and an optimistic scenario. The pessimistic scenario is one in which Russia again becomes a totalitarian state that has limited economic contact with countries of the Western alliance. The optimistic scenario is one in which Putin is deposed, the country’s political system turns away from dictatorship and Russia rejoins the globalized world economy. This study was conducted using a qualitative approach. This approach meant that a time-intensive review of a large number of publications was necessary. However, given the timely nature of the topic, the article excludes developments reported after December 2022 to develop four plausible future scenarios for Russia. This article seeks to understand the Russian Federation’s future trajectory and how this trajectory will affect trade, foreign direct investment, economics and business. This article critically examines Russia’s political, economic and social environments, as well as the sanctions that have been placed on Russia circa December 2022. These materials allow analysts to better understand Russia’s decoupling from the global economic environment and if Russia might return to the global economic environment or not.