Throughout its war against Ukraine, the Kremlin has gone to great lengths to inseparably bind the identities of ordinary Russians to the conflict while also insulating them from its immediate effects. It was always a difficult balancing act, but Ukraine’s invasion of Kurk has now made this all but impossible. The rapid advance across nearly 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory has eliminated whatever remained of the Russian public’s security bubble.
Putin and his propaganda machine would seem to be carrying on as normal, referring in typical Moscow Newspeak to the advance as a “terrorist attack” or “provocation”, or even merely as “the events in Kursk”, and launching a media blitz to reassure Russians that they are in control. But it is obvious to everyone, including the Russian people themselves, that things are different this time — more threatening even than the short-lived Wagner mutiny, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, in July 2023. Ukraine has not only turned the tables on Moscow, but has fundamentally altered the rules of the game, extending the frontline to include the entire Russo-Ukrainian border — areas where Ukrainian forces can strike decisively at Russia’s soft underbelly. Now, Russia is being forced to defend its own sovereignty too.
Something else, however, is happening on the home front that may be even more dangerous. As the illusion of security and disconnect from the war in Ukraine disintegrates for those Russians living in Kursk, residents across the country’s southwestern border are feeling increasingly abandoned by the Russian state itself. Some are even holding Putin personally responsible. At the same time, dissatisfaction with Russia’s military brass, which in part fuelled Prigozhin’s insurrection last year, is continuing to escalate within the country’s nationalistic military blogosphere. Influential voices are furious not just with the military’s handling of the crisis in Kursk, but also with the state media’s ongoing obfuscation of the realities on the ground.
A growing realisation is setting in that these lies from the Russian establishment have led to a real and immediate threat to Russian national security. And for Putin to have allowed such a threat to continue unabated for over a week undermines the central guarantee he had made to the people about his war in Ukraine from the start: rebuilding Russia’s imperial sphere of influence and keeping Nato at bay would make the Russian heartland safer and more prosperous.
The Kursk incursion won’t convince Russians that the war in Ukraine was a bad idea — that ship has long sailed. But it may finally convince a growing number of Russians that the people running the show in Moscow are no longer up to the task of executing the national vision that Putin set in motion in 2022.
So far, it appears locals from Sudzha, the largest town captured by Ukraine in Kursk, have taken this red pill. “Vladimir Vladimirovich, tell your officials responsible for truthful information to show the real situation,” said a Sudzha resident in a video addressed to Putin and posted on Telegram before the town was fully captured by Ukraine. The residents complained about the wholesale downplaying of the realities in Kursk even as the town was on the brink of conquest by Ukraine. “These lies are causing civilians to die.”
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