Faced With His Failures in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin Is Cornered by the Russian Elites.
The hawks no longer hesitate to publicly question the failures of the Russian army, without the approval of the Kremlin.
While Putin had just spoken a few days earlier of a period of “stabilization,” the explosion that occurred on October 7, 2022, the day of his 70th birthday, on the Crimean bridge, puts his new motto to shame. The defeats of the Russian army on the ground in Ukraine as well.
This bridge, built at great expense and inaugurated by Putin in 2018, symbolized the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. Today, the “massive retaliation” promised by the Russian dictator is boosting the hawkish camp. But they also discredit the past assurances of the Kremlin czar. Vladimir Putin, who regularly practices the inversion of facts, assured just last week that the situation would “stabilize.”
Putin seemed to minimize the latest military defeats of the Russian army in Ukraine. He signed the order on the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions at the very moment when they were under pressure from the Kyiv army and when, in Moscow, the discontent of the elites was rising. “Inevitably, in the Kremlin, there are discussions. With optimists and pessimists ...,” confided to Western media one of the advisers of the Russian president whose promise of “stability,” key to his social contract with the Russians, is wavering.
Until September 2022, the head of the Kremlin was seen by the Russian elites as a guarantee against defeat. But now the losing scenarios are legion, and the Kremlin dictator is weakened. However, a European diplomat in Moscow warns: “Let's not take our desires for realities! For the moment, the elite in power is united behind its leader who, as usual, is playing a balancing act.”
Divided Russian elites
With the strikes in Ukraine on Monday 10 October 2022, Putin satisfies the hardest fringe in Moscow. But anxious not to cross the red line, he did not declare war. “The Russian president was under pressure from the hawks: he conceded them the annexation of Ukrainian territories and the nuclear scarecrow. The general staff demanded troops: he launched the mobilization of 300,000 men. But this is only partial. And Moscow is hesitating about the extent of the land it will take,” said a European observer well connected to the Kremlin, assuring that any radicalization of the conflict, in case of defeat, could undermine the power in Moscow.
The Russian elites seem to be divided.
“The message is sent to Kyiv: your loss of territory has only just begun!” reassures a hawk, happy to see the Ukrainian capital under the missiles. For him, there is no doubt: defeat is not an option; the recent Russian military setbacks were mere tactical retreats; Russia is starting the counter-attack and will win; Vladimir Putin will remain in power for a long time.
“No one can talk to Putin freely anymore”
“The worst is probably ahead of us,” fears instead an ex-high Kremlin official who has kept influential contacts at the top. “Putin has pushed himself to the wall, helped by his elites and by ... the Westerners. Around, no one can talk to Putin freely anymore.”
The strikes on Monday, October 10, 2022, marginalize the liberals a bit more and strengthen the hawks who, with the recent Russian military failures, had expressed their anger. “Our people are not stupid. They can see that we don't want to tell them even part of the truth,” said Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Duma's Defense Committee.
The former general was speaking to Vladimir Solovyov, the star presenter of the Kremlin television. An ultra-patriotic voice, this commentator himself suggested that within the military command, “culprits should be punished.” Both could not have spoken publicly without the endorsement of a part of the authorities. A staging that speaks volumes about the prevailing feverishness.
Far, therefore, from the apparent stabilization of which Putin spoke only a few days ago.
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