Ukraine and Russia’s Collapsing Home Front

By S. Frederick Starr

Since February 22, 2022, when Russian forces poured into Ukraine, Western observers and foreign governments have concentrated their attention on the fighting front. Intelligence agencies in Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries and the U.S. have provided their policymakers with steady updates on the action, while independent bodies like the Washington, DC-based Institute for the Study of War have done as well or better for the public at large. News organizations have proven less successful, in part because they tend to give equal time to official reports from Moscow.

Over the same period, however, Western governments and the press have largely neglected related developments on Russia’s home front. The few Western journalists still functioning in Moscow self-censor in the hope of preserving their accreditation and visas. Their work is further hampered by the fact that nowadays, few official Russians consent to being interviewed. A bold and subtle young Russian, Daniil Orain, has filmed “man on the street” interviews, but most of his subjects also engage in prudent self-censorship.

To be sure, a few highly respected Russian journalists who fled abroad continue to offer well-informed blogs on Russia’s domestic scene. Dmitri Gordon provides bold and intelligent insights from his residence in Kyiv, as does lawyer and activist Mark Feigin, while the mathematician and journalist Andrei Piontkovsky presents keen assessments of U.S. Ukraine policy from his new home in Bethesda, Maryland.

But because people like Piontkovsky, Gordon, and Feigin report in Russian, few of their commentaries end up reaching Western readers. Instead, most Western journalists and analysts focus on unpacking the significance of Putin’s latest ominous threats and those of his long-term sidekick, Dmitri Medvedev.

Whatever the causes, the West has largely missed developments on Russia’s home front. Having just published an academic book, I found myself with time on my hands – time which I filled in recent weeks by becoming an avid consumer of Russian online blogs, both official and unofficial, as well as C-SPAN-like coverage of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma. I offer here some samples drawn from this late-night addiction.

SECOND THOUGHTS ON THE WAR

Perhaps most striking is the increasingly gloomy domestic view of the progress of Russia’s “special military operation” against Kyiv that now predominates among Russia’s state-controlled and -directed media. Thus, an official Russian war correspondent, Evgeni Lisitskin, recently reported that "Russia does not control the front." And Yuri Devich, a Duma member and friend of the jailed chauvinist Girkin, opined that “It is now likely that the enemy will take a major [Russian] city." In the same vein, Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the Duma Committee on Defense, declared that "Black days have begun for Russia." Even more blunt is the hard-nosed commentator Sergei Mardan, who declared: "Enough of the lying. Victory is not in sight." Meanwhile, over in the Duma, a loyal ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin named Oleg Matveevich declared on October 29th that "the very concept of Ukraine should not exist," but it does, and as a result, "Hell has begun for us all."

Only last week, one of the most zealous Moscow tele-journalists, Olga Skabeeva, bemoaned that "Our Special Military Operation hangs by a thread" and that the Ukrainians are " hitting us with such blows that we cannot survive." To those of her viewers who were amazed by her volte face, she explained earlier this year that "We were forced to hide the truth from Russians." A more sophisticated regular on the same program, film director Karen Shakhnazarov, the well-known son of one of former Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev’s confidants, averred that "The outcome of [the present process] is a collapse akin to death, civil war, atomic bombs, etc.” 

Not to be outdone by these outbursts of despair, Skabeeva’s and Shakhnazarov’s boss, the fanatical and passionate Vladimir Soloviev, had already announced on September 27th that “The Ukrainian army is fiercely wiping out our technology,” “Our victory is now impossible,” he argued, and "it's time for a retirement [e.g., Putin's]." The writer Mikhail Veller has been even more blunt, saying that the Special Military Operation "is leading to Putin's self-liquidation."

INTERNAL POLITICAL DIVISIONS

Meanwhile, some of the few insights on Russian domestic scene to reach Western audiences concerns corruption in the senior ranks of the Russian army and Putin’s effort to stamp it out by sidelining (but not firing) Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and replacing him with economist Andrei Belousov. Instead of mounting a top-to-bottom purge of the officer corps, however, Belousov attacked profiteering and venality by senior members of the Russian Duma. The resulting turmoil has yet to reach a conclusion, and has at the same time failed to quell criticism of the army’s top command. But could it be otherwise? As explained by Duma member Alexander Borodai, another friend of the jailed nationalist and Putin opponent Girkin, to carry out army reforms while the army is fighting a war is simply impossible.

In the meantime, Russia’s Minister of Defense has embroiled himself in other battles that extend beyond the Duma. This has reached such a pitch that the usually phlegmatic Prime Minister and former head of tax collection, Mikhail Mishushtin, felt compelled to intervene on the grounds that the spat was discrediting the government. Pulling no punches, the Prime Minister on October 29th told the Minister of Defense that if he would not cease attacking Duma members, he [Belousov] should consider resigning.

This did not deter Belousov, however. The very next day, he lashed out at a member of Putin’s ruling “United Russia” party who had publicly criticized the war effort. His target, Konstantin Zatulin, serves as the first deputy chair of the Duma committee on relations with former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. Though Zatulin’s writ explicitly includes interacting with Russians abroad, Belousov attacked him on the floor of the Duma for being in contact with emigres. Belousov, meanwhile, himself has a daughter in the U.S. 

These and many other frontal conflicts at the highest levels attest to the mood of mutual distrust and anxiety that has arisen within Putin’s own ranks due to the Ukraine war. However, they pale in both number and intensity when compared with the more numerous attacks on the Putin regime that are launched not frontally but indirectly. Nearly all of these arise from opposition to the impact of the Ukraine war and of Putin’s related domestic policies on the well-being of the Russian public at large.

A CRUMBLING ECONOMIC FACADE

The most audible focus of domestic criticism is what is seen as the disastrous impact of the Ukraine war on the Russian home front. While many in the Western press express amazement that the Russian economy is still functioning, Russians who bother to follow the televised debates in the Duma know that this has been possible largely due to government contracts with civilian firms to shift production from consumer goods to military hardware. But, as several Duma speakers have pointed out, interest rates are at an all-time high and are killing even the producers of military hardware. They know, too, that Putin is paying for these contracts by drawing on what were once huge reserves piled up by the oil industry over previous decades but are now only a fraction of their former value. Putin himself has often groused that Russia’s $300 billion reserves abroad are frozen and inaccessible.

Against this background, Duma member Andrei Kuznetsov delivered an impassioned critique based on official data from the State Statistical Committee that concluded with his blunt assertion that "Russia is today a poor country." Parodying glowing reports from the war front, he said that “OUR front [as opposed to the war front] must be the social and economic development of our country." If this does not become our number one goal, he argued, Russia will face a "catastrophe."

A full year before this blast was aired on national television, an even sharper attack on Putin’s economic policies had been broadcast, but only on the social media app Telegram. The event was a meeting of the Communist Party of Russia chaired by the Communist warhorse of the Yeltsin era, Gennadi Zyuganov. The main speaker was a highly regarded mathematician, physicist, oceanographer and president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Robert Nigmatulin. 

Bemoaning Russia’s economic collapse, Nigmatulin stated that Russia’s economy was now on a par with that of Argentina, and lower than Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Belarus. "Yes,” he said, “we invest, but nothing is produced… We are the most ineffective country on earth at investing." In our current situation, he explained, "China can't help us.” "Indeed, he moaned, “We're stuck in a blind alley."

Then Nigmatulin unloaded with both barrels: "We must acknowledge that every policy of our President is negative.” Nigmatulin’s ire was not reserved for Russia’s president alone, however. He asserted that “The Minister of Defense [then Shoigu] and the other ministers area all incompetent." In spite of this, Nigmatulin observed, “Every time they speak they begin by praising the President." Russia, he concluded, is in the grip of a new "Cult of Personality," – that is, Putinism.

More was yet to come. On October 29th, Elena Petrova of the TASS news agency reported that the cost of home heating had risen ten times in ten years. In 2024 alone, it is up 150% in the province of Tambov and 40% in Tver. Russians, she concluded, are now being forced to devote a fifth of their income for heating alone.

It’s no wonder that Russian officials are looking for someone to blame. Duma deputy Valeri Gartung, for instance, attacked fellow Duma member and director of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Naibulina, saying that "She does everything possible to hinder economic growth." Thanks to her, "Our banks do everything possible to kill the economy." “The few positive signs that can be discerned are all in spite of the Bank of Russia, not because of it," he said.

Taking a different tack, Duma member Aksentia Sardana attacked the government for failing to address the collapsing urban infrastructure. Speaking for the twenty-five governors and thirty-one mayors who are Duma members, she attacked the central government, criticizing it for the huge differentials in subsidies of local authorities and holding it responsible for policies that have created Russia’s plummeting birth rate in a November 3rd Telegram post.

A MEETING OF THE MINDS

Notably, these diverse assaults on Putin’s are arising from both the political right and left, from Communist members of the Duma and from members of reform-minded political parties who are generally deemed acceptable. For all their differences, their many criticisms are directed against government policies that have been inextricably linked with Vladimir Putin since his rise to power. Moreover, the negative effects of every one of the policies they denounce have been greatly exacerbated by Putin’s war on Ukraine.

It is in this context that one must consider Russia’s mounting demographic crisis, which nowadays is felt in all policy discussions like a deep, rumbling undercurrent. While to some extent Russia’s crisis parallels the low replacement rate of other populations in Europe, it has been profoundly worsened by the country’s enormous loss of life due to the army’s appalling disregard for its soldiers’ lives in the current conflict. Russians know that, even if the war were to end tomorrow, the country’s demographic crisis will deepen for years, as will the economic crisis caused by the inevitably slow process of converting war production back to civilian industries, and the lack of funds to do so. 

It is not necessary to cite here the countless statements by dissident officials, publicists, and ordinary citizens that Russia can no longer dream of “winning” the Ukraine war. But with the rare exception of such nationally acknowledged (and hence protected) notables as Dr. Nigmatulin, few of these critics mention Putin by name. Yet even this is changing. Six months ago, it was common for Duma critics to criticize Putin’s party, “United Russia.” Then they shifted to criticizing “the leadership,” without naming names. Then critics from both right and left began referring to “our leaders” and later, increasingly, to “our leader.” Now, more Russian elites are taking off the gloves and attacking Putin directly and by name.

A DIFFERENT PICTURE

The Russian voices cited here offer a necessary corrective to Putin’s oft-quoted fulminations. They represent a significant and growing chorus of officials and ordinary Russians who are fearful about their country’s future and do not look to Putin to remove the dark cloud he himself has brought over the land. Their very existence is evidence that Putin is operating from weakness, not strength, and that on the home front his luck is fast running out. No wonder Russia’s president shied away from renewing the draft, and is instead now throwing hired North Koreans into the Ukrainian maelstrom.

Many pundits in Russia and abroad, recalling the Red Army’s tenacity in World War II, are still convinced that Russia can somehow endure and perhaps even prevail. As the president of Kazakhstan ruefully put it some time ago, “Russia does not lose wars.” But that’s not accurate; for instance, it decisively lost the Crimean War of 1853-1855, which in many respects was a precursor to the present conflict. The internal crisis that followed the Crimean War led to a crisis of leadership and the dawning of an age of reform that included the emancipation of Russia’s serfs (a year before Lincoln’s emancipation of America’s slaves), a new legal system, and a degree of local self-government.   

Of course, we can only speculate about what might follow Putin’s inevitable fall, but we should at least be scoping out the possibilities. Unfortunately, the U.S. is even less well-informed on Russia’s domestic social and political realities today than it was on the eve of the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Instead of accepting the imminent end of Putin’s rule and the collapse of his regime as a serious possibility, Washington remains narrowly focused on the fighting front and increasingly divided over urgently-needed support for Ukraine.

Judging by what is being said by Russians at home, however, Putin has already lost the war. The only question is what face-saving measures can be extracted through a settlement. At this point, the Kremlin’s best hope would be to reach some kind of territorial deal that will enable Putin or his successor to withdraw what’s left of the Russian army. Even this will be painful, for Kyiv will understandably demand the return of Crimea as part of the bargain. Other possibilities are at least as real and even more devastating for Putin and his Russia.  

Indeed, even this brief sampling of Russian official and unofficial opinion suggests that Russia may be heading for a major upheaval, akin to what followed the Crimean defeat in 1855. Nicholas I conveniently died a year later, while Putin’s personal fate remains for now unknown. But it is too late for the U.S. and Europe to devise face-saving measures for Russia’s ruler, because Russians themselves sense that their country is near or at the end of Putin’s rule and the policies that defined it. And it is also too late to prevent Russia’s destabilization, for that is already occurring.

Yet even after Putin there will still be a few Putinists who remain committed to the Eurasian fantasy of a continent-spanning empire ruled from Moscow. Any settlement that leaves this force intact will invite a repeat of Josef Stalin’s promise, after he called off his murderous program of collectivization, to wait a while, then “hitch up our pants” and renew the fight. Thus, in order to be effective, any settlement must address Russia’s lingering imperial dreams. As for the fear of nuclear escalation, Russian leaders of all stripes know all too well that Putin’s nuclear threats have proven ineffective, and that in any case the U.S. is capable of responding to any reckless moves on Moscow’s part with devastating effect.

The best first step toward solving both the Ukraine war and the problem posed by Putin’s Russia is for the West to acknowledge the existence of those official and unofficial voiced who are considering what Russia’s president has wrought. It should likewise indicate that the U.S. and Europe are prepared to work with any emerging leaders in Russia who seek a post-Putin order that brings their country back into the accepted international order.

S. Frederick Starr is Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC.