Anger Over Russia's Battlefield Defeats Bursts Into The Open, Posing A Challenge For Putin
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-battlefield-defeats-ukraine-putin-challenges/32063612.htmlFor weeks now, on the uncensored Telegram channels of hard-line nationalists and Russian military bloggers, there's been a litany of angry criticism of Russia's military commanders amid a stunning Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region and elsewhere resulting in substantial Russian losses.
Now with the Ukrainians' weekend victory in Lyman, a Donetsk region city and strategic rail hub southeast of Kharkiv, that criticism is bursting into wider public view, hitting the front pages of some of Russia's biggest newspapers.
That's a serious problem for Russia's military brass -- and potentially for the Kremlin.
"I wouldn't predict a palace coup imminently. If there were one, we'd almost be the last ones to know about it, these things happen pretty swiftly when they do," said James Nixey, who heads the Russia and Eurasia program at the Chatham House think tank in London. "But obviously, there is increasing discontent in the upper Russian echelons about the course of the war, and that is being manifested in various ways, people can’t hold it in."
"The problem is Putin's grip in all sorts of ways is too strong for people to mobilize and consolidate and form an alliance, to move against him," he told RFE/RL. "I personally think...the Russian elite has never been as at risk of collapse quite frankly than it is now."
Over the 23 years Putin has been in power, Russia's once freewheeling media has been squeezed into submission. After the February 24 invasion, he signed legislation that in many cases criminalizes independent reporting on the war, as well as criticism and dissent, by outlawing "discrediting the armed forces."
That dovetailed with the closure of some of the country's best-known independent outlets, like the Ekho Moskvy radio station and the newspaper Novaya gazeta. Even Internet resources and social-media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and VK have been censored or brought to heel.
The messaging app Telegram, however, has remained uncensored by Russian regulators. The result has been a flood of information, criticism, and discussion, including about how badly the war is going for Russian forces.
And pro-Russian military bloggers have taken full advantage.
'Send All These Bastards...Barefoot To The Front'Inside Russia, discussions of the military's early setbacks in Ukraine have been muted. Even after Russian forces failed to capture Kyiv in the early weeks of the invasion, thwarted by Ukrainian defenses, Russian commanders and bloggers characterized the withdrawal and shifting of forces to the Donbas -- the Donetsk and Luhansk regions -- as merely a tactical decision.
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