Vlad thinks he's infallible. He has controlled false narratives ever since he came to power in 2000.
Even the warning from DC, which was direct, precise and specific, shows that he is now believing his own fake propaganda. In a briefing to his intell and military chiefs, he said that the terrorism warning from Washington DC was blackmail and that it was a warning of direct attacks on Russian territory from Ukraine.
People like that are held in power by sycophantic yes-men.
It would be ludicrous if semi-senior intell officers, assistant directors and colonels in the Army could continue to believe Putin.
The public, most of whom would be able to access non-Russian social media, can no longer be fooled by the initial blame attributed to Kiev.
With bodies of Private Ivans piling, the stalemate in Ukraine, the heavy losses in men and materiel, is something Russians historically and grudgingly accepted. Now this attack on Crocus and Putin's simplistic reaction is surely the last straw for many Russians. The 'special military operation' has made Putin take his eye of the ball.
One cannot know what he has been advised; perhaps the Yes-Men just told him what he wanted to hear.
However, as mentioned, many in the intel services and the colonels might not tolerate this. They might make a move. This could be the end of Putin's reign and the war in Ukraine. The Generals won't move, so it is up to the
second and third tier in the chain of command to take action.
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Erm, the indoctrination level is such that most of the population will believe that Ukraine did it. If anything it will strengthen his position.
The thing a lot of people in the West don’t appreciate about Putin: most Russians would vote for the khunt even without the propaganda. He is merely a particularly awful symptom of the wider post-Cold War chippiness, xenophobia, racism and callousness that is modern day Russia.
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Precisely nobody is going to believe this is ukraine. But most of the 100% of people who know this was not ukraine will be too scared to say so.
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No.
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There isn’t a stalemate in Ukraine anymore.
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After several days of persuasion those gunmen will be prepared to say the church of england hired them, let alone Ukraine (before they are quickly disposed of). 100% of right minded people will not believe this but the "global south" and useful idiots everywhere will lap it right up.
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Fantasy unfortunately. Russia is a diseased society. Most of them genuinely support the war in Ukraine now and will swallow any old shite Putin pumps out, and the others are unbelievably supine, matched only in their pathetic apathy and ignorance by us Brits among the nations of the world.
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Come now threep, we all know you're not British.
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I always thought threeeps was one of those scousers who hates england because of ingrained shoulder chip, or a surrey boy cosplaying as a scouser.
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Sorry if I’ve missed this but how on earth did the alleged terrorists get captured? If ISIS-K is the most brutal splinter group ever, why didn’t they have suicide vests to take out as many infidels as possible when the game was up?
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Why do we assume that IS did actually do this? They’re hardly reliable.
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Some delightful downvoting from RoF’s frothers I see. Why aren’t they on planes to Minsk yet?
Blyat
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JCDenton24 Mar 24 01:14
The thing a lot of people in the West don’t appreciate about Putin: most Russians would vote for the khunt even without the propaganda.
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this, is complete and utter bullshitt but helpfully shows how good and insidious Kremlin propaganda really is
Do you think the Kremlin would bother with this fiasco if Putin was going to win all along because he is so popular?
if a free and fair election was held tomorrow, I guarantee Russians would vote for a change
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You say that Sumo (and I really appreciate your work on here), but I think the picture is a bit more nuanced
The difference between Ukraine and Russia is that the former is democratic with a more or less free press and the latter isn't
But both countries suffer from large scale corruption and a state/political system that historically hasn't really done a lot for ordinary people, including to avoid economic crises
(Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Ukraine and Russia are the same, that the 2024 elections in Russia were free or fair or that Ukraine are the bad guys along with Russia)
What I am saying (and I have said it before) is that we shouldn't underestimate the extent of apathy amongst ordinary Russians and we also shouldn't overestimate our ability to understand what really goes on in Russia
Hardly anyone that covers Russia is a Russian speaker (pretty fundamental if you want to understand what's going on) and those that do live and operate in the big cities (and therefore don't really know what's going on in the provinces -- remember Brexit voters??)
Yes, there are Russian exiles that comment from the sidelines but they are on the sidelines and their opinions are (at least to a certain extent) informed by the society they now live in and provides them with their salary (a bit like that generally sensible German fellow in the FT who has made a long career out of being a Euro sceptic -- I'm sure he means what he says but plays to the gallery)
I seriously doubt that your average Ivan sees things the way you/the West do or agrees with the 5 points you list above
I also think there may be a bit of a 'better the devil you know' syndrome. I suspect a lot of people think that, yes, Putin has been in power too long and he's now lost touch (and perhaps that, yes, Putin has deliberately eliminated any credible opposition), but what's the alternative? Putin hasn't delivered the degree of stability and prosperity that he was supposed to in recent times (in return for absolute power), but Russians have enjoyed a period of relative stability during the Putin era. And things are relatively stable even now, if you keep your head down. If you are a couple with two kids, a mortgage and two cars on finance, do you want change at all cost?
In the U.K. 20% of voters (probably more in practice) will vote Tory later this year, even though the real world implications of voting Labour are negligible and the evidence of Tory incompetence is overwhelming and discussed openly in the media. People will vote Tory because it's what's best for them
Why do you expect Russian people, who are both way poorer and more disengaged/cynical, to be braver and more radical than your average Brit?
People have been predicting the end of Putin (and his version of society) for a long time on the basis of 'surely this will prove to be unacceptable'. Sadly it never seems to happen
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Plenty of Russin speaking journalists who travel out of big cities and speak to the locals and they report that most people outside the big cities detest Putin. There are certainly now several hundred thousand families in the far east of Russia who know that the war in Ukraine is going very badly.
The increase in crime as a result of Putin pardoning criminals who've served in Ukraine for six months is also going down rather badly especially amongst of the families affected by it.
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Also his attempts to tackle alcoholism by taxing booze have backfired and Russia has an epidemic of people dying from drinking industrial chemicals instead that's not far off the opioid problem in the US. People don't feel the need to drink moonshine floor cleaner if they're happy with life...
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My Russian friends in London say that what the average Brit doesn't understand is:
How bad Russia was pre-Putin in the 90s. Much of this was due to naive advice from western economists and politicians who had little understanding of Russia.
How small the state is in Russia. If you are criticising government obviously the state gets heavily involved. Other than that they do v little and the population generally ignores the state and has low expectations of it. As an example, she said that whenever there was a pothole on their middle-class road in Moscow, the residents would just club together to pay a contractor to fix it.
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Putin has been president for 30 years and things have only gotten shitter in Russia;
This isn't true. The standard of living in Russia, particularly in Western Russia, is now way way higher than pre-Putin.
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Sumoking’s understanding of Eastern Europe is very poor at best, and twisted at worst, yet he appears to perceive himself as some sort of an expert on the subject matter. It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so pathetic.
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King Canute the Great25 Mar 24 09:11
What I am saying (and I have said it before) is that we shouldn't underestimate the extent of apathy amongst ordinary Russians and we also shouldn't overestimate our ability to understand what really goes on in Russia
Hardly anyone that covers Russia is a Russian speaker (pretty fundamental if you want to understand what's going on) and those that do live and operate in the big cities (and therefore don't really know what's going on in the provinces -- remember Brexit voters??)
Yes, there are Russian exiles that comment from the sidelines but they are on the sidelines and their opinions are (at least to a certain extent) informed by the society they now live in and provides them with their salary (a bit like that generally sensible German fellow in the FT who has made a long career out of being a Euro sceptic -- I'm sure he means what he says but plays to the gallery)
I seriously doubt that your average Ivan sees things the way you/the West do or agrees with the 5 points you list above
People have been predicting the end of Putin (and his version of society) for a long time on the basis of 'surely this will prove to be unacceptable'. Sadly it never seems to happen
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yeah, hard to argue against any of that and there has been a push under Putin to make people care less and less about politics
but, I am going to dig in that the line "Putin would win anyway" is bullshit propaganda - you had in the 90s full on secession of parts of Russia (famously chechnya but parts of sibera for example wanted more of the money from the natural resources spent locally etc)
I do absolutely accept that the average westerner doesn't understand Russia (and I'm an average westerner - albeit one who spend 10 years being surprised at what his russian colleagues did) and I think what gets ignored under that line is the legion of conservative types who think Russia is a sort of moral and conservative ally against militant islam and wokeness and ultimately china and which is in many ways I think why so many conservative leaning people at least begrudginly admire and support Russia (there was a bundeswher general I think caught on mike or wrote about Russian being an ally against asia - which tells you all you need to know about the modern german military)
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BarryZuckercorn25 Mar 24 09:55
Sumoking’s understanding of Eastern Europe is very poor at best, and twisted at worst, yet he appears to perceive himself as some sort of an expert on the subject matter. It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so pathetic.
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for example?
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The standard of living in Russia, particularly in Western Russia, is now way way higher than pre-Putin.
In a tiny part of Russia yes but way east plenty of people still live in very primitive housing and basically survive on what they grow on their smallholdings. They generally don't rock the boat because if they do their conscript son will be shipped off to Ukraine as they already know that thousands of other soldiers from the local area have died. Putin is very careful not to send troops from the metropolitan areas where people do feel he's made them vaguely wealthy.
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BarryZuckercorn25 Mar 24 10:48
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if it helps, I am sorry that you poured all your hopes and dreams into "russia stronk" memes and got burned but that's what happens when you trust politicians, lesson learned eh?
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How widely known in Russia is it that the US had intelligence on the attack beforehand and that ISIS-K has claimed responsibility and shown receipts? Or has the Kremlin been able to suppress all related coverage so they are free to spread the "It's Ukraine!" theory?
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I'd definitely put a tenner on the two blokes who've been charged simply being a bit a dark skinned and in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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But wouldn't Putin try to cast someone LESS dark-skinned to fuel the Ukraine theory?
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This attack won't be Poots' downfall. Not big enough. I'm not saying he won't be taken down one way or another, but this attack won't do it by itself.
disclaimer: just another amateur Kremlinologist, like everyone here.
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PP he’s already pivoted to just saying that Ukraine liaised with IS to help them escape.
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Mironova estimates “hundreds” of former Isis fighters have decamped to Ukraine. But it is not the numbers that should be of primary concern, she said. The cluster of terrorists in Ukraine were by their nature a “self-selecting” elite: “This isn’t a random selection. The slower guys stop as soon as they get to Turkey. After all, it is a multiple-step operation to get to Ukraine. The ones who get there are the dangerous ones.”
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Surely even the Russians must be uneasy about wheeling an unconscious man into court in a wheelchair?
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Pez Vela25 Mar 24 12:42
This attack won't be Poots' downfall. Not big enough. I'm not saying he won't be taken down one way or another, but this attack won't do it by itself.
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there must be a tipping point where Putin's incompetence becomes too much for his backers to laugh off
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I was rather hopeful that the tanking Russian economy and sanctions might be enough to persuade his backers to get him to walk past an open window.
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Good to see that the presence of ISIS actors in Ukraine as of 2019 as confirmed by the western media at the time doesn’t raise any eyebrows now - I guess y’all have “moved on”.
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Depends if they're the hard core zealots or the rent a mob who'll fight anywhere as long as they have free board and lodging.
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Don’t see how this will have any impact on Putin. The people on which he relies weren’t directly affected so why does he care. If anything it’s useful propaganda.
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https://youtu.be/XecOhc0qLCg
As I say, an absolutely diseased society
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It is increasingly looking like there were FSB agents in the building all dressed in blue. Very suspicious.
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Rof Royalty27 Mar 24 09:07
It is increasingly looking like there were FSB agents in the building all dressed in blue. Very suspicious.
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weirdly, a false flag narrative is probably better for Putin than just being incompetent, at least then he's in control and ruthless
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