Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service Chief Rosin Assesses Growing Russian Elite Discontent With War Could Trigger Rapid Collapse

Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service director Kaupo Rosin told The Telegraph that Russia's budget deficit has already exceeded its planned target for the year and will reach roughly 10 trillion rubles (£86bn/€100bn), equal to half the defence budget 12. Rosin said Russian battlefield deaths have reached roughly 500,000 by GCHQ's estimate, that losses now exceed troop replacement numbers, and that "overall unhappiness levels with this war are increasing in all echelons of society," including among oligarchs 1. He said he does not foresee a street revolution but that any change in Russia "will happen in a very rapid manner" and come as "an overnight thing" 12. Rosin put "an equal chance" on a new mobilization being ordered as soon as next month 1. He said Russian sabotage operations in Europe, run primarily through the GRU, are increasingly targeting defense-industry production and logistics sites, citing a recent arson at a Milrem Robotics-linked building in Tallinn that led to three suspects being detained in Latvia and an August 4 armed-drone strike on a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane at Germany's Leipzig-Halle Airport whose bomb failed to detonate 12.