Putin slow to respond to the Kursk invasion

It was another busy week for news coming out of Ukraine and Russia. We will look at Ukraine’s continued offensive inside of Russia, new attacks against Russian infrastructure, and some surprise diplomatic visits. 

So far, Russia has been somewhat unsuccessful in attempting to push Ukraine back in the Kursk region of Russia. Ukraine has solidified its hold in some of the territory and Russia appears to be looking at the situation as something that will last. Putin has directed his propagandists to spread the message that this is the new normal. Putin has at times minimized the significance of Ukraine’s offensive, while at other times honestly expressed the severity. This follows Putin’s normal mode of operation with crisis situations that surprise him. In fact, the first crisis he faced as President is somewhat analogous. 

In August of 2000 torpedoes on board the Kursk submarine exploded, killing most of the 118 crew members. Putin was on vacation, and it took him a week to issue a statement and return to Moscow. The blast was picked up by European countries and the U.S., who offered to help in rescue efforts. Putin downplayed the severity and rejected help. It was only nine days later that he finally accepted British and Norwegian help, and they discovered that everyone on board had died. Twenty-three people survived the blast and barricaded themselves inside a compartment of the submarine. Putin’s hesitation and reluctance to deal with the reality of the situation cost them their lives. 

It is probably too much to hope that a crisis with the Kursk submarine began Putin’s presidency and a crisis in the Kursk region of Russia will end Putin’s presidency. But both situations illustrate Putin’s lack of crisis handling skills. The same basic pattern followed with terrorist attacks in Moscow, southern Russia, and the recent terrorist attacks during the invasion of Ukraine. Putin is often thought of, by some at least, as a decisive and strong leader. But in situations like these he reveals he is more cautious and weaker. 

His fear in fully recognizing what has happened in Kursk, and in Russia in general, is evident in his reluctance to launch a larger mobilization of conscripts from Russia’s population. Putin knows that his support is largely reliant on a relatively small group of elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg and providing stability and prosperity to that small group. His downplaying of the crisis, desire to limit the effects of his illegal invasion to only those outside of that small group and outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg helps explain why he is not using this situation to recruit the soldiers he needs for his war in Ukraine. These are not the actions of a leader who feels secure in his office and in charge of a successful war. It demonstrates the actions of a leader who is overseeing an invasion that is not going so well and who is trying to limit the negative fallout for his own domestic power. 

Two other things highlight this theme as well. First, Ukraine keeps attacking Russian infrastructure. Using mostly drones, Ukraine has attacked one of the largest oil depots inside of Russia, again attacked the Kerch bridge that connects mainland Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, and increased the number of attacks around Moscow leading to concerns of power outages in Moscow. Disrupting oil and gas supplies and exports could severely impact Russia’s economy, threatening the prosperity for the small group of elites Putin needs. Attacks around Moscow, that could lead to power shortages, threaten the stability Putin promises. It will make it increasingly difficult for Putin to lie about how the invasion is going. 

Second, Putin visited Chechnya for the first time in 13 years. Why is Putin visiting Chechnya? Because he needs the troops that Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is offering. Rather than mobilize troops from more “Russian” areas of Russia, he would rather mobilize troops from the various ethnic regions of Russia, which are less important for him to stay in power. Putin even visited a mosque and kissed a Koran on his visit to the predominantly Muslim region. The visit was not only required to ask for the troops but also, in some ways, as an apology/recognition for the number of Chechens who have already died in Ukraine. 

The other surprise diplomatic visit was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Ukraine. India has been one of the largest buyers of Rusisan energy since the invasion of Ukraine. India, as the most populous country in the world with a growing economy, needs a lot of energy and took advantage of Russia’s need to sell its oil and gas. Ukraine, and others, have criticized India for this pointing out that this money leads to weapons and ammunition that kills civilians inside of Ukraine. Modi has been seen as mostly a friend of Putin, but the visit to Ukraine and Modi’s embrace of Zelensky has given some hope that India’s role could change.  

I am somewhat skeptical about this. India has a long history of staying neutral in situations like this and trying to maintain relations with both sides. I think Modi’s visit is probably more of the same. In addition, the energy that India gets from Russia is vital to their country and is difficult for them to replace. Because of Russia’s desperation, India is getting it much cheaper than they could from other countries, so I fear that will continue to drive Modi’s reluctance to condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine. But...who knows. Perhaps being in Ukraine, speaking with Zelensky, and seeing the true horrors of Russia’s actions will change his behavior. 

Finally, Zelensky has confirmed that Ukraine did not tell the west about its invasion of Kursk. The failure to inform the west was apparently driven by a fear that if governments in Europe and the U.S. were informed, then Russia would find out about it. Many in Ukraine believe that the counter-offensive they launched in 2023 that was largely unsuccessful, failed because Russia had information about when and where Ukraine was planning to attack. The significance of this story is that Ukraine has reason to not fully trust its western allies, and Russia may have some effective intelligence sources inside of European and/or American governments.