Vladimir Putin’s failure to complete his initial war aims in Ukraine is so complete, it is unclear to what end Russia fights on, except to protect the president from the humiliation of admitting defeat. Since the Kremlin’s territorial ambitions have been checked, Russia’s offensive capabilities have been directed more at terrorising civilians and degrading Ukrainian infrastructure. The plan is to plunge the country into freezing darkness through the winter in the hope of depleting the will to resist.
There is no sign of that working. Mr Putin’s failure to understand the resilient character of Ukraine as a proudly independent nation was the foundational error of his war. The Russian president has also miscalculated when measuring his own people’s appetite for war. It looked voracious in the opening weeks, when state propaganda channels had little difficulty whipping up a bellicose fervour. That ardour subsided in the military quagmire and has drained away since mass conscription was introduced in September. That is not to say masses of citizens are turning seditious. Dissent is muted by fear and the habit of allegiance to the flag at times of crisis.
But hundreds of thousands have also fled the draft, probably more than the number successfully recruited (exact figures are a shrouded in official secrecy). Many of those who report for duty have been appalled by the lack of equipment, training or purpose for their deployment. Those who see themselves as cannon fodder make unmotivated soldiers. Despairing videos lamenting their plight circulate widely online. An equivalent disorientation comes across from official channels, but expressed as increasingly unhinged demands for the annihilation of Ukraine, tinged with contempt for military leaders who appear unable to deliver it. Mr Putin himself is still above criticism, but the myth of his strength and superior judgment has been shaken.
It is hard to measure the public mood in a quasi-totalitarian regime, but the evidence points to war fatigue. A leaked private poll conducted for a Russian state security agency last week showed 25% of respondents wanting the military campaign to continue and 55% wanting peace talks. In February, Mr Putin’s invasion commanded about 80% support. There is also evidence that the Kremlin is losing full-spectrum dominance of the information space. Russians are now the world’s biggest users of virtual private networks – online services that can circumvent state censorship of the internet. Exile communities furnish their compatriots with more truthful accounts of what is happening in Ukraine than anything legally broadcast inside Russia.
It would be premature to imagine that Mr Putin’s position is much weakened. He has levers of coercion to compensate for any decline in enthusiasm for his rule. But the signs of brittleness are still encouraging as evidence of some potential appetite among Russians, inside and outside the country, for a different kind of politics. Cultivating that interest, supporting the exiles, and recognising and amplifying the difference between the Russian people and their criminal leadership will be increasingly important in the months and years to come. While Mr Putin’s defeat in Ukraine is a strategic and moral imperative for European democracies, and normalisation of relations with Moscow seems like a remote prospect, the ambition cannot be abandoned altogether. For that ambition to be plausible, the seeds of a different Russia must be nurtured wherever they grow.
