Russians are waking up to Putin’s Ukraine folly

Since the start of its war of aggression against Ukraine some two-and-a-half years ago, the Kremlin has worked diligently to shape the domestic narrative surrounding the conflict. Among other things, it has done so by promoting a vision of a patriotic struggle against fascism, deploying extensive domestic censorship measures, obscuring damning figures about battlefield casualties and passing new laws that effectively criminalize any critical coverage of the conflict. 

Cumulatively, this campaign has succeeded in maintaining a comparatively high level of support from ordinary Russians for a fight that has lasted much longer and exacted a much heavier toll than authorities in Moscow originally advertised. But since mid-July, Ukraine’s unexpected incursion into Russia’s Kursk region — and Moscow’s inability to marshal a serious response to it — has shaken public sentiment within Russia. 

By just how much? This is documented in a new study by OpenMinds, a Ukrainian data analytics and communications firm. By extensively parsing Russian social media and news outlets, it chronicles that the events in Kursk have impacted popular support for the war among ordinary Russians, as well as increased their dissatisfaction with the Kremlin.

Specifically, it notes a surge of content relating to the war as a result of Ukraine’s raid, as well as a significant decline in positive sentiment in posts, broadcasts and messages regarding the broader conflict. This, the study attributes to two causes. 

First, it notes, “there have been fewer cheerful publications about the war” by Russia’s extensive state propaganda organs. Second, “there were more grievances compared to the previous two months … [both] blaming the Russian authorities and general panic regarding the incursion.”

Local fears are indeed rising. Russia’s September 2022 “partial mobilization,” as Vladimir Putin’s domestic conscription effort was euphemistically known, proved to be profoundly unpopular at home, sparking a mass exodus of citizens eager to avoid the draft. Now, worries are rising anew that Moscow’s ongoing struggles on the Ukrainian front could prompt the Kremlin to launch a new effort to beef up its military ranks. 

The study documents “a growing concern” for renewed mobilization to respond to Ukraine’s incursion. During the first week of Ukraine’s offensive, it notes, “approximately 39 percent of the publications about mobilization mentioned the Kursk incursion” as a potential precipitating factor. So significant was the furor that Russian lawmakers were forced to speak out publicly to refute rumors that plans for a new conscription drive were in the works. 

All this has profoundly constrained the Kremlin’s options. Ordinarily, Moscow would be quick to rally the country around Kyiv’s incursion, which it would invariably depict as an “existential threat” to its sovereignty. However, it hasn’t yet done so — something the OpenMinds study suggests is because “the Russian government understands the sociopolitical risks of a new wave of mobilization and fears the potential consequences related to it.” 

What all this might mean for Russia is still too early to tell. Policymakers in Moscow have initiated an array of measures in response to the Ukrainian incursion, ranging from declaring a state of emergency in Kursk as well as the neighboring Belgorod region, surging troops into the area, and creating new administrative units to manage the crisis). Still, as NATO officials have noted, Russia’s official response has been “slow and scattered” — at least so far. 

Whether it stays that way is still an open question. It’s already clear, however, that Ukraine has accomplished one of the principal aims of its daring military raid: to bring the conflict home to ordinary Russians and underscore that the war of choice embarked upon by their president carries potentially dire consequences for them personally. 

Ilan Berman is senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.