The real news was an implicit message that the war in Ukraine is not ending anytime soon and that Russians must get used to living with it – especially as, in Putin’s telling, it presents an economic opportunity that’s greater than the sacrifice it requires. That Putin chose to deliver this message a year into the Russian invasion of Ukraine means he has no idea how Russia wins – and that, for want of better options, he’s decided to semaphore that he doesn’t really mind a long war.
A day before the dictator’s speech, his only credible domestic opponent, Alexei Navalny, laid out his message to Russians and the world in a series of tweets – a format necessitated by his continued imprisonment. The thread is based on a certainty that Russia will lose the war. But, just as Putin doesn’t see a path to winning, neither Navalny nor anyone else who has opined on the subject really understands how Russia might lose.
The conflicting state-of-the nation messages from the ruler and his jailed nemesis describe a country stuck in limbo between victory and defeat, collective guilt and collective defiance, an economy modeled after Western examples and a growing dependence on China. Put simply, Putin’s Russia is incapable of delivering itself from its own self-inflicted misery.
[Will Russians figure out that Putin got them into a war with no real path to victory after the initial incompetent attempt to decapitate the government in Kyiv? They may have some inkling of it now, even buried within the propaganda produced by the Kremlin. Most of them have been far removed from the consequences of the fight, with the exception of the disappearance of Western companies and capital from the economy. However, the next round of mobilization will necessarily have to start impacting Muscovites, and the endless disappearance of an entire generation of young Russian men won’t go unnoticed for long. And that’s when the political question will come to a sharp point for Putin. — Ed]
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