Kremlin reaction to Kursk offensive Putin's image as a protector is cracking

Until now, President Putin has played down, indeed almost ignored, the Ukrainian advance into Russian territory. This is not the first time he has reacted slowly to a crisis. Will there be consequences this time?

A year ago, President Vladimir Putin took to a stage in the Kursk region to mark the 80th anniversary of one of the Soviet army's proudest moments in the Second World War.

In front of a cheering audience - including soldiers returning from battles in Ukraine - the Kremlin leader called the victory in the decisive Battle of Kursk "one of the great heroic deeds of our people".

Now, as Russia celebrates the 81st anniversary of that battle this Friday, Kursk is once again in the headlines - but for a completely different reason. On August 6, Ukrainian forces launched a lightning advance into the region.

They captured villages, took hundreds of prisoners and forced the evacuation of villages with tens of thousands of civilians. Russia has been caught cold by the offensive and is reportedly drafting conscripts to push back some of the most battle-hardened Ukrainian units.

Kremlin plays down invasion

Overall, Putin has so far played down the Ukrainian advance. At a televised meeting of his security staff regarding Kursk on August 12, he appeared uncomfortable, cutting off the acting regional governor when he began to list the localities taken by the Ukrainians.

Both the president and his staff were clearly at pains not to call a spade a spade, referring to the offensive as "events in the Kursk region", a "situation" or a "provocation".

The state media followed the same line, showing residents of the evacuated villages queuing for relief supplies and donating blood - as if the events in Kursk were a humanitarian catastrophe and not the biggest attack on Russia since the Second World War.

Putin's image as a protector is cracking

In his 24 years in power, Putin has portrayed himself as the only person who can guarantee Russia's security and stability. But this image has suffered since the war began two and a half years ago, even if support for him remains strong. Russian cities have been attacked and shelled by Ukrainian forces using drones.

The head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who later died in an airplane crash in unexplained circumstances, launched an uprising last year to oust his military superiors. In March, armed men stormed a concert hall in Moscow and killed 145 people.

While state television drives support for Putin, it is more difficult to gauge the opinion of his key supporters - the Russian elite. Putin is dependent on their tacit approval, says political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, an external expert at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank in Berlin.

"Is the old man still an asset?"

What is constantly going on in their heads, she says, is the calculation of "whether the status quo is to their advantage or not". Since the war began, life for these elites - Putin's inner circle, top bureaucrats, security and military officials and leading businessmen - has gotten worse, not better.

If the war has also enriched many of them, they have fewer opportunities to spend their money due to Western sanctions. The question they ask themselves about Putin, says Schulmann, "is whether the old man is still an asset or already a liability".

One could say that Russia's elites are in a state of "unhappy conformity", says Nigel Gould-Davies from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. They are dissatisfied with the status quo, but are worried about who would win in the event of a leadership struggle.

Putin's crisis management of the Kursk submarine

And they might be holding out hope, the expert says, that Putin's response to what happened in Kursk follows a pattern of being slow to respond to a crisis before acting at the end.

It is something he has been known to do since his earliest days in power - starting with the events surrounding the nuclear submarine "Kursk", which sank in the Barents Sea 24 years ago after one of its torpedoes exploded. All 118 crew members on board perished.

Putin initially remained on leave, which earned him widespread criticism, and waited five days before accepting Western offers of help. Earlier action might have saved some of the sailors who had originally survived the explosion.

Putin also slow to react to the Wagner uprising

Putin also appeared cautious in his response to Prigozhin's uprising in June 2023, which became - albeit briefly - the most serious challenge to his position of power to date.

After the mutiny petered out, the Wagner chief was initially allowed to remain at large, but according to Schulmann, it was ultimately Putin who "had the last laugh" when the mercenary leader was killed a month later in a still-mysterious crash of his private plane.

As the Kursk offensive recently entered its third week, Putin continued to stick to his program. He even went on a two-day trip to Azerbaijan. On August 20, he briefly mentioned the crisis, promising to "fight those who commit crimes in the Kursk region".

As dissenting opinions are suppressed in his own country and the media loyal to his own line are in charge, Putin can afford to make the "completely cynical" decision to ignore the events in Kursk, says Schulmann. But the longer the Ukrainian advance continues, the more military and political challenges it poses.

Russia seems to be struggling to muster suitable forces to repel the attack. And as the offensive continues, says Gould-Davies, a key question will be what happens "if Russia's elites conclude that the conflict is unwinnable or that it will not end as long as Putin is in power".

dpa