For more than three years, he's managed to wage a brutal war without forcing most Russians to personally bear its cost.
Instead of mass mobilisation, he built a system around money.
Huge signing bonuses, salaries several times higher than the average wage, and massive compensation payments to families if a soldier is killed.
It allowed the Kremlin to recruit volunteers while keeping life in Moscow and other major cities relatively normal.
But Jamison Firestone argues that model is beginning to break down.
According to his analysis, Russia has burned through much of its wartime financial cushion.
Its National Wealth Fund has shrunk dramatically, the government has piled huge liabilities into the banking system by forcing lenders to finance defence companies, and the flow of volunteers is no longer keeping pace with battlefield losses.
If that's true, Putin faces a problem money alone can't solve: Manpower.
Jamison believes Russia may soon have little choice but to launch a major mobilisation, and that's where the real political danger begins.
Putin's unwritten deal with the Russian people has always been simple:
Accept fewer political freedoms and in return, I'll give you stability, security and a comfortable life.
A mass draft changes that equation overnight.
The war stops being something happening somewhere else; it arrives on people's doorsteps.
Jamison isn't predicting a popular revolution, but he thinks the greater danger could come from inside the system itself.
If the mobilisation produces hundreds of thousands of new troops, casualties continue to mount, the economy remains under pressure, and Russia still fails to secure a decisive victory...
The security establishment surrounding Putin may eventually conclude that the war has become more dangerous than replacing the man leading it.
