The Russian President is silent on the setbacks in Ukraine. Warmongers are calling for more toughness, and elsewhere doubts about the approach in the neighboring country are suddenly being voiced. But many may not even know what exactly happened.
Russian soldiers in front of a poster with Vladimir Putin’s likeness.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to his economic policy officials in a video conference on Monday. The country is on course for a new growth phase, he summed up with satisfaction and was informed about the budget planning for the next year. Only others have serious problems, especially the West, which in the eyes of Putin and his television propagandists is driving itself into the abyss. But Russia, as he almost cynically stated last week in Vladivostok, hasn’t lost anything and won’t lose anything.
That confidence contrasts in a stunning way with the reality – that of the Russian economy and, more than ever since the weekend, that on the battlefield in Ukraine. Kiev’s surprising military successes near Kharkiv, the disappointment with the Russian army leadership among ardent supporters of imperialist war policy and the resulting tentative debates in politics and on television seem to roll off Putin.
Subdued mood on TV
The “special military operation” will be carried out to the end as planned, and there is currently no basis for a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – that was the Kremlin’s only official comment on the events so far. In the absence of a civil society public, atmospheric shifts can at least be observed in social networks and on television.
Dmitry Kiselyov, one of the chief propagandists, resigned in his Sunday weekly review He wore a black tie and looked subdued, almost dejected. A very difficult week is coming to an end, he said, before adopting the official terminology: the first post was titled “Regrouping”, the euphemism for withdrawal and bitter defeat. The reports of the war correspondents, who otherwise exude fighting spirit and confidence, also made it clear that what is currently taking place in the Ukraine is not a Russian triumph, but a tough, unpleasant defensive struggle. It is blatantly referred to as “war.”
At the same time, there is a lot of talk about Western weapons and “mercenaries” on the part of the Ukrainians, who made their successes possible in the first place. The civilian population expects a regime of terror in the areas. “We are Russians, God is with us” – this slogan sounds flat in the face of reality and at the same time refers to the hubris with which this war was unleashed from the highest vantage point in February.
The «war party» celebrates a blackout
A discussion program on the NTW television channel, which belongs to the Gazprom group, was even interpreted in the West as an example of how the Kharkiv turnaround shook the foundations of the previous war policy. The former liberal politician Boris Nadezhdin questioned the premises of the campaign – the unity between Russians and Ukrainians and the latter’s “desire for liberation”. Other guests suddenly expressed doubts about the way the Ukrainians were being treated and how this “special operation” was planned.
However, such frank arguments have not yet made it into the mainstream propaganda programs. On the contrary, an additional radicalization can be seen with the talk show host Vladimir Solovyov, where the most determined supporters of the Kremlin line meet. “Now especially!” is the slogan of the “war party” within the establishment. Solovyov even suggested shooting hysterics immediately. These commentators had long wondered why Russia was clinging to the limited possibilities of a “special operation” when the enemy turned out not to be Ukraine but NATO.
When half of Ukraine sank into a blackout on Sunday evening because Russian cruise missiles had hit power plants, i.e. civilian infrastructure, they rejoiced. The electricity would have to be shut off for the whole of Ukraine, and in the face of water shortages, hunger, darkness and cold, they might finally come to the “right” conclusions. In his Telegram channel, political scientist Sergei Markov brushed aside the contradiction between the supposedly “humanitarian mission” to “liberate the Ukrainians from the Nazi yoke” and deliberate attacks on the civilian population and their livelihoods: The more brutal Russia Treat Ukraine today, the more Russia will be loved there tomorrow. That is the psychology of the masses, who despise mildness and love harshness.
The population is bored with war issues
The shades of gray that appear here and there in the reporting, the doubts even among unscrupulous warmongers, reflect the indecisiveness of politics. The president cannot simply dismiss these circles, which are ideologically close to Putin, as troublemakers influenced from outside. Your rumblings attack the tacit consensus of the past few months. The political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya speaks of the division into a «war» and a «peace world».
The latter had spread over the summer, precisely because of the lack of military successes and the weariness in society of negative, depressing news. Entertainment has recently returned to TV channels that had previously been dominated by Ukraine-related topics for months. An abrupt about-face, including partial or even general mobilization and the introduction of martial law and a war economy, would destroy the carefully cherished self-image of the shaken but steadfast nation that can lead a “normal” life despite all challenges.
Putin, writes Stanovaja, can therefore not please anyone in the current situation. There are now functionaries who are demanding this about-face from the Kremlin. Significantly, however, so far they have only been political backbenchers, while parliamentary heavyweights explicitly see no need for it. Of course, that can change quickly.
There is no longer a civil society and a political opposition that would come up with an alternative concept for overcoming the self-inflicted crisis. For 23 years, the Kremlin drummed into the citizens that high politics and military affairs did not need to interest them. The journalist Andrei Pertsev suspectedthat Putin would only draw the attention of some parts of society to the disaster in Kharkiv by abruptly turning away from the “world of peace”: The extent of the defeat is probably unknown to many Russians.
Concessions to the radicals?
Nevertheless, there are attempts among regime opponents to demand political consequences. Some compare the defeat at Kharkiv with the sinking of the tsarist fleet at Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the prelude to great upheavals. A group of independent municipal deputies from Moscow and St. Petersburg demanded Putin’s resignation – his policies were no longer up to date. Some of them are already under investigation. In Russia, political protest ends in a holding cell, in prison or in exile.
Balancing between the “worlds” described by Stanovaya is not new to the Kremlin; Putin has always had to seek a compromise in order to secure his authoritarian rule. This time the challenge is greater not only because of the fundamentally new situation after February 24th. The political fronts are also different: the nationalist voices do not make up the “Putinian majority”; this consists mostly of opportunists and conformists. But they are among the Kremlin’s regular clientele.
One or two course corrections – a change of personnel, even more brutality in the conduct of the war – cannot be ruled out, according to the journalist Pertsev. However, there is no indication that Putin will face reality and recognize his disastrous decision to attack Ukraine as such, nor is a palace revolution by the disaffected currently conceivable.