Page 73 - bne monthly magazine October 2022

bne October 2022
Opinion 73
They also poured scorn on economic data that shows Russia’s economy has doubled in size under Putin’s tutelage and that the quality of life has materially improved.
"Your views, your management model are hopelessly outdated and impede the development of Russia and its human potential,” the deputies said in their statement. The deputies appealed to close Putin confidant Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, saying that the system of local self-govern- ment does not actually work in Moscow, and dual power has developed at the district level, which hinders any initiatives of local residents and their representatives.
A similar protest earlier this week by seven deputies from
St Petersburg’s local government ended with a summons to the local police where they were fined, RFE/RL reports. The lawmakers demanded that Parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, charge Putin with high treason over his decision to launch his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
“One of the goals declared by the President of Russia is the demilitarisation of Ukraine, and we see that exactly the opposite is happening. It’s not that we fully support the goals declared by President Putin, but simply within the framework of his own rhetoric, he harms the security of the Russian Federation," Palyuga explained in an interview with The Insider. “We want to show people that there are deputies who do not agree with the current course and believe that Putin is harming Russia. We want to show people that we're not afraid to talk about it."
The loss in Ukraine was so large that even the military authorities had to admit to the setback, saying the Russian forces had withdrawn from several key cities and were “regrouping”. However, state-controlled media carried almost no reports on the scale of the losses and Muscovites in particular were distracted by the annual founding-of-the city celebrations, as life on the street in the rich Russian cities has changed little since the war started.
However, the news of the big setbacks was seeping out and the Ministry of Defence was placed in the humiliating posi- tion of having to admit that it was pulling out of the Kharkiv region and abandoning Izyum, a key Russian-held city and a major logistics base for Russian supplies in the region.
“To achieve the declared aims of the special military opera- tion to liberate Donbas, the decision has been taken to regroup Russian troops located in the Balakliya and Izyum areas in order to boost efforts in the Donetsk area. With that aim, over the last three days an operation has been carried out to draw down and redeploy the Izyum-Balakliya forces to the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Russia’s military spokesman said in his latest update of the military action.
As the troops pulled back, Russia struck civilian infrastruc- ture in Kharkiv on the evening of September 11, plunging the city into darkness.
The retreat is a major failure and the tone on Russia’s political chat shows immediately changed. A top Russian political pundit, Boris Nadezhdin, was on the evening shows and raised some uncomfortable questions as the blame game got underway.
“The people that convinced President Putin that the special operation will be fast and effective, we won’t strike the civilian population, we will come in with our National Guard along with Kadyrovites, will bring things to order. These people set us all up,” Nadezhdin said. “Someone told him that Ukrainians will surrender, that they will flee, that they’ll want to join Russia.
“Now we are at the point where we have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using those resources and colonial war methods with which Russia is trying to wage war... A strong army is opposing the Russian army, fully supported by the most powerful countries, in the economic and technological sense, including European countries... I'm suggesting peace talks about stopping the war, and moving on to deal with political issues... Either we mobilise and have full-scale war, or we get out,” Nadezhdin went on to conclude.
Putin remains popular
Putin is not threatened by a popular revolt, as he has once again played the “enemy at the gate” nationalist card that was so effective in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, and his approval rating, like then, has rallied on the back of Kremlin war propaganda.
Putin’s approval rating is hovering above 80%, and 50.7%
of those polled approved of the Russian government’s work, according to the most recent poll from state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) released at the end of last week.
Putin’s rating inched back up 0.8 percentage points to 80.3%, but before the rout of Russia’s forces in Ukraine was reported.
"Asked if they trust Putin, 80.3% of the respondents answered in the affirmative (down 0.8 percentage points over the past week). Thus 76.8% approved of the president’s activities (down 1.3 pp over the past week)," the pollster said, Tass reported.
In addition, 50.7% of those polled (down 0.1 pp) approved of the Russian government’s work, while 51.5% (down 0.3 pp) approved of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s endeavours. At the same time, 61.5% of the respondents said they trusted Mishustin (down 1 pp over the past week).
If regime change is to come, it is much more likely to be a palace coup, led by disgruntled members of the siloviki, or security services faction in the Kremlin.
However, Putin has long cultivated his relations with the FSB, which remains the core of his powerbase, and has been careful never to do anything that undermines this organ.
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