- Sara Rainford
- BBC correspondent for Eastern Europe
3 hours ago
photo released, Reuters
In the past month, Ukrainian forces have pushed back the Russian army and regained control of much of the occupied territories
“The truth is on our side and the truth is the force!” Russian President Vladimir Putin said over the microphone in Red Square last week, after a grand ceremony in which he announced that four large parts of Ukrainian territory had become part of Russia.
He added: “Victory will be ours!”
But in the real world, things look completely different.
Although the Russian president signed illegal annexation treaties to the Kremlin, Ukrainian forces were advancing into the areas he had just conquered.
Hundreds of thousands of men have fled Russia to avoid being recruited to fight in an expanding war.
Things are going so badly on the battlefield that Putin and his supporters are now reformulating what they claimed was the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine and the protection of Russian speakers as an existential battle against the entire “collective” West.
This is the truth, but it is not in favor of Russia.
victim of his system
“He’s in a blind spot. He doesn’t really seem to see what’s going on,” said Russian President Anton Barbashin, chief editor of the Russian website Riddle.
As with many, the Russian political analyst believes Putin was somewhat surprised by the strong Western support for Kiev, as well as Ukraine’s fierce resistance to the occupation.
With the Russian leader in his seventies today, and after more than 20 years in power, he appears to have become a victim of his regime, his authoritarian style prevents him from accessing solid intelligence.
“You can’t question his ideas,” says Tatiana Stanovaya, president of the analysis firm R-Politic.
“Everyone who works with Putin knows his worldview and with respect to Ukraine they know his expectations. Therefore, they cannot give him information that contradicts his vision. That’s the way it is.”
The president’s recent speech, delivered under the Kremlin’s golden chandeliers, reaffirmed his vision of a new world order.
This vision centers on a strong Russia, a weary Western world forced to learn Kiev’s respect and submission once again to Moscow.
To achieve this, Ukraine is Putin’s battleground of choice.
Although his ambitions seem very deceptive, he doesn’t seem ready to back down.
“Many of the key calculations the Kremlin counted on have not worked and Putin does not appear to have a plan B other than to keep pushing people to the front lines in hopes that this huge number of fighters will prevent Ukraine from advancing. further, “says Anton Barbashin.
Recruiters
For Barbashin, “pushing people to the forefront” is in itself a major change.
Vladimir Putin continues to describe his invasion as a “special military operation”, describing it as limited in scope and short-lived.
And many Russians accepted – and even argued – this when it didn’t concern them directly. But the mobilization of reservists has transformed something remote and abstract into a very close and very personal risk.
Regional politicians are eager to engage in a Soviet-style race to meet the required number of fighters and summon as many men as possible.
“This is a defining moment,” says Barbashin. “For most Russians, the war only started two weeks ago.”
“In the first few months, the people who died came mainly from the suburbs and smaller towns. But the mobilization will eventually change things, as the coffins will return to Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
“just awful” conditions.
The mobilization led to a plethora of social media chatter from the wives and mothers of the new recruits, those who had not rushed to the border when the mobilization was announced.
Some of their posts – and videos posted by the men themselves – reveal horrific conditions: shoddy food, old weapons, and a lack of basic medical supplies. Women talk about sending sanitary pads to line men’s shoes and tampons to bandage wounds!
The governor of the Kursk region described the conditions in many military units as “simply appalling”, to the point that there was a shortage of uniforms for the soldiers.
Such findings pierced one of Putin’s proudest claims: that he rebuilt the Russian military into a professional fighting force patriots will want to serve.
But for now, the wives of most of the recruits seem to be focusing on rallying behind the Russian forces.
“We are at a point where much of Russian society still believes that ‘Russia is a superpower fighting NATO in Ukraine’ and that sending tampons, socks and toothbrushes to the crowd is a sign of patriotism,” Barbashin said. in a tweet this week.
photo released, Getty Images
A large number of Russians have fled across the border into Kazakhstan to avoid being drafted into the army in the past two weeks.
Censorship is collapsing
But the chaos of military mobilization and Russia’s embarrassment is prompting leading figures to speak out.
When the Liberals condemned the invasion of Ukraine, they were arrested and many remain behind bars.
It is even illegal to describe what is happening as a “war”. But in circles loyal to the Kremlin, the word is now popular, despite heavy criticism of the Russian military leadership.
Another deputy, Andrei Kartapolov, this week called on the defense ministry to “stop lying” about the Russian difficulties, because “our people are anything but stupid”.
Margarita Simonyan, director of the television channel RT, cited Stalin’s execution of “cowardly” and “incompetent” generals.
But there are no public doubts about the invasion itself, let alone Vladimir Putin.
Simonyan refers to Putin as “the president” and enthusiastically speaks of the annexation of Ukrainian territory as a historic achievement.
Tatiana Stanovaya notes that “there is no political movement against war”, especially in a politically repressive climate.
“Even those who oppose the mobilization choose to flee”, he says, “some try to leave the country, others are hiding. But we see no attempts to create political resistance”.
Note that this could change if Russia continues to lose and absorb more forces.
“Putin has to score some victories,” he says.
A “holy” war with the West
The president also mentioned this week’s problems, describing the situation in the annexed areas as “troubled”.
But there is a huge effort to claim that the reason behind Russia’s setbacks is the “collective” West supporting Ukraine.
State media hosts now describe land grabbing in Ukraine as something much bigger, seemingly pushing the nation into an even bigger struggle.
“This is our war against complete Satanism,” Vladimir Solovyov told viewers this week.
He added: “It’s not about Ukraine. The West’s goal is clear, which is regime change and the break-up of Russia so that Russia no longer exists.”
This is the “truth” that Vladimir Putin believes in, and that is why the current moment of weakness for Russia is also a time of risk.
“This war is existential for Russia, and therefore victory should be possible for Putin,” says Tatiana Stanovaya.
He bluntly says: “He has nuclear weapons.”
“I think he hopes the West will move away from Ukraine at some level of nuclear escalation,” he says.
And Stanovaya was not the only one to notice Putin’s more radical tone: “It seems that this is what he really thinks: this is the last stand of the Russian Empire, an all-out war with the West,” Barbashin says.
“We are at the finish line, whether Russia succeeds or not,” he adds.
Of course, this is also the “truth” that Vladimir Putin now needs to believe in the West more than ever.
