Russia Policy Monitor No. 2643

IN RUSSIA, THE WAR NARRATIVE IS CHANGING...
Since the start of its war on Ukraine some two-and-a-half years ago, the Kremlin has worked diligently to shape the domestic narrative surrounding the conflict. It has done so by promoting a vision of a patriotic war against a fascist regime in Kyiv, as well as through the deployment of extensive domestic censorship, new laws effectively criminalizing critical coverage of the conflict, and sundry other measures. Cumulatively, this has succeeded in maintaining comparatively high support from ordinary Russians for a conflict that has lasted much longer, and exacted a much heavier toll, than authorities in Moscow originally expected.

But, since mid-July, Ukraine's unexpected incursion into the Kursk region – and the Russian government's apparent inability to marshal a serious response to it – has shaken public sentiment within Russia. A new study by OpenMinds, a Ukrainian data analytics and monitor, notes a surge of content relating to the war as a result of Ukraine's raid, as well as a significant decline in positive sentiment in posts, broadcasts and messages regarding the broader conflict. This, the study attributes to two causes. "[F]irstly, there have been fewer cheerful publications about the war" by Russia's extensive state propaganda organs. "Secondly, there were more grievances compared to the previous 2 months... [both] blaming the Russian authorities and general panic regarding the incursion."

Local fears are indeed rising. Worries appear to be growing anew that Moscow's ongoing military struggles could prompt the Kremlin to launch a fresh effort to beef up the ranks of the Russian armed forces. The study documents "a growing concern about [a] potential new wave of mobilisation in Russia in response to the incursion." During the first week of Ukraine's offensive, it notes, "approximately 39% of the publications about mobilisation mentioned the Kursk incursion" as a potential precipitating factor. (OpenMinds, August 22, 2024)

...AS REVOLT SIMMERS IN THE RANKS
The Russian public is not the only segment of society increasingly discontented with the war, and Vladimir Putin's stewardship of it. In an echo of late Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin last year, Georgy Zakrevsky, the founder of the Paladin militia, has issued a public statement calling for Putin's overthrow and blaming the Russian president personally for the military missteps that have plagued Russia's "special military operation" against Ukraine. "Our country is not just on the brink of disaster or already right next to it, our country is already in trouble - in big trouble," Zakrevsky laid out. "Drones are flying all over central Russia, right up to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They even attacked the Kremlin. Our Black Sea fleet is being pushed out. It's being pushed out as if we are not a great power with a great fleet, but some third-rate country."

"Our aviation is practically not working because it is also being pushed out," Zakrevsky continued. "We are standing in the same positions that we took more than two years ago, and partly in those to which we retreated. The population is dying out, becoming impoverished, drinking itself to death - no one cares. All they have time to do is bring in migrants. And all this was done by the so-called 'president' - 'The Great' Putin." (Express, August 16, 2024)

ANOTHER "UNDESIRABLE," THIS TIME WITH A FAMILIAR NAME
Russia's list of "undesirable organizations" keeps growing. The Kremlin has listed the U.S.-based Clooney Foundation, which was founded by popular American television and film actor George Clooney and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, as undesirable because of its work against Russia, which authorities say is being carried out at "a Hollywood scale." Among the foundation's sins, according to Russian authorities, is that it "supports false patriots" that have fled Russia, promotes measures to hold Russia's top leadership accountable to international justice, and has issued criticisms of Russian domestic legislation. (Reuters, August 19, 2024)