For a Duma member to publicly backtrack and criticize a weighty decision in this way is highly unusual — especially when that decision has come straight from Vladimir Putin’s office.

But Matveyev’s post hasn’t been the only surprise in recent days.

Even as the Kremlin has made a show of the supposed political consensus around its “special military operation” to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine, Russian civil society is exposing the cracks. Since last week there have been spontaneous protests in dozens of cities throughout Russia — from the north, to the Urals, to Siberia — attended by thousands of outraged Russians.

Though that constitutes only a fraction of Russia’s 140-million strong population, the turnout is nonetheless significant considering the context — “after a year in which the protests against the jailing of Alexei Navalny were crushed with violence, and the opposition was either jailed or forced out of the country, completely demoralizing any opposition,” said political analyst and former Kremlin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov.