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Leonid Volkov, the chief of staff of , is visiting Australia this week to meet with senior foreign affairs officials and representatives of Foreign Minister Penny Wong to push his message that only sustained economic, military and political pressure on Russia would put enough strain on Putin that he would make a mistake.

Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov is in Australia to talk to politicians and the media. Simon Schluter

Putin equals the war, Volkov told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Putin will not, and cant, stop. He cant admit he lost; he cant admit he was wrong.

The military burden of the opposition to Putin was being shouldered by the Ukrainian people, Volkov said, and the global sanctions regime was hitting the Russian economy and causing pain to both its citizens and its oligarchs.

The job of imposing political pressure was being done by organisations such as Navalnys Anti-Corruption Foundation.

There is no silver bullet, but what we really need is patience, and everyone has to do their job, Volkov said. We have to work with public opinion in Russia to decrease the support for the war to make it harder for Putin to mobilise more men.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.

Volkov said it was impossible to accurately gauge public sentiment in Russia towards the war because state TV was a propaganda machine, dissent had been criminalised and Putin had encouraged political apathy among ordinary people for so long.

However, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, now based in exile in Vilnius, Lithuania, was trying to measure the level of support for the war by using indirect questions in polling.

We asked the question, Imagine there is additional money in the Russian budget, how would you like to spend it? Less than 10 per cent are in favour of additional military spending, despite the fact that propaganda is telling them 24 hours a day ... We are at war against the evil NATO, and we have to invest everything we have in defeating NATO.

So ... we can actually figure out that, well, there is no such thing as a popular support for the war there, Volkov said.

Putin had also lost the support of the elites, he claimed.

Theyve lost everything. Their lifestyle is ruined. No more kids in London, no more ski vacations ... and he doesnt present them with an exit strategy. They are asking him, Whats next? Whats the end game? and there is no answer. And they are getting more and more angry.

On calls for sporting bodies to prevent Russian athletes from competing in international events, Volkov said bans did have some impact on Russian society, but that Putin had also tried to weaponise them as an example of Western discrimination.

Ukraines sports minister recently renewed a threat to boycott the Olympic Games in Paris next year if Russia and Belarus were allowed to compete, and the sports ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland and sporting organisations to ban athletes from those countries. But the IOC held firm, saying Russians and Belarusians could compete under neutral status if they were not actively supporting the war.

Vladimir Putin on a recent visit to Mariupol in Russian-controlled Donetsk, Ukraine. Russian TV

Volkov said that individual athletes who condemned the war, and make clear statements against the war, should be allowed to participate, but only under a neutral flag.

The good news, said Volkov, was that the war and the criminal warrant for Putins arrest issued by The Hague this month were likely to hasten the presidents demise.

Its a black swan event for him, Volkov said. Until the invasion, the most probable scenario was he would remain in power for 20 more years, until he dies.

Now the probability for this scenario ... has decreased dramatically.

Once Putin was off the scene, there was no reason Russia could not become a democracy, Volkov said.

There is no such thing as a nation thats incapable [of democracy].

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Putins death would end Ukraine war, says Russian opposition figure - Sydney Morning Herald