Its Defense Ministry announcement for the annual Victory Day celebrations included an unpleasant surprise that, amid a prevailing political-economic atmosphere not favorable to the Kremlin, symbolizes the general deterioration.
Cuts
The surprise concerns the program of the May 9 parade in Moscow, which after two decades will not include armored vehicles or missile systems, and the participation of military school students is also not planned. Although since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its parades have been limited in terms of the scope of demonstrations and the number of guests, the latest development is real news, as the new restrictions are directly attributed to “Ukrainian terrorist activity”.
The smooth rhetoric is interpreted as an admission of failure to deal with the “thorn” of Ukrainian drones, which military bloggers and analysts say could target military equipment before or during the parade. Military analyst Ruslan Leviev told TV Rain: “The equipment is vulnerable even at the stage of preparation, as the phalanxes are stationed and rehearsing outside Moscow, in open training areas that are easy targets for drones.
This is a serious propaganda blow, given that it is a ceremonial culmination of events dedicated to the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. This is not an isolated incident, since in St. Petersburg, the second largest city of the country, the municipal authorities announced that only 310 citizens will be allowed to attend the corresponding military parade, compared to the 5,600 originally planned.
Decreased popularity, increased fatigue
The headaches for the Kremlin do not stop at the callisthenically vigorous events, with all the connotations of propaganda they contain. In its poll, the Russian Public Opinion Center (VCIOM), the largest state polling agency, records a significant drop in the popularity of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The 73-year-old Putin’s approval rating stands at 65.6%, down 12.2 percentage points from the previous poll taken earlier this year and more than twenty from the all-time high of 89.9% he enjoyed in October 2015.
One factor that largely explains the poll decline is the material and human cost of the war in Ukraine. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that since the start of the war, 1.2 million Russian soldiers have lost their lives, while the economic cost is estimated at $2.5 trillion. The strain on regional budgets due to the monetary incentives given to recruit young men into the army is another “hot” issue, while Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries and fuel depots significantly reduce the benefits of rising oil prices due to the war in Iran.
Another factor, in direct correlation with the first, is the general economic stagnation plaguing the Russian Federation. Indicative is the announcement of the national statistical agency Rosstat that last January a negative record was recorded in overdue commercial debts, which reached a historic high of 109 billion dollars. Accounting services company Aktion Accounting estimates the number of businesses that owe the Kent government at 439,000.
“The general mood is summed up in the phrase: Enough is enough.” says the Russian official on condition of anonymity. He even notices the contradiction that the same army that claims the heroic heritage of the Red Army and the Great Patriotic War cannot occupy the periphery of a much smaller country. This contradiction between claims of grandeur and unpleasant reality is not only pointed out from one side. At the recent Moscow Economic Forum the criticism from members of the economic elite was unusually sharp. “The GDP of the country has been growing since 2015 with an average of 1.5% per year.
Consumer prices have risen 77% in the meantime over the same period. We have reached the point where the poorest regions of Russia fall behind the poorest of China significantly,” observed Robert Nigmatulin, a veteran economist and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, sounding the alarm about demographic collapse. In a similar vein, the head of Sevestal steel, Alexander Sevelev, warned of the poor state of the sector, saying: “We may have to close some units with high production costs.”
As if the voices from the business world weren’t enough, influencers intervened. Monaco-based Russian Viktoria Bonia, a TV presenter with at least 13 million Instagram followers, addressed Putin directly on the network, accusing the government staff of failing to manage and resolve crises such as the deadly floods that hit the Dagestan region in early April and the deadly infection that struck cattle in Siberia in March, leading to the massive their extermination. “People are afraid, bloggers are afraid, artists are afraid, governors are afraid. But you are the president of our country and the citizens should not be afraid. I’m not afraid,” he said, before referring to government restrictions on internet use. Bonia’s post prompted the intervention of the leader of the Russian Communist Party, Gennady Zhuganov, who called on the Kremlin to take her words seriously “if it does not want a new revolution like that of the Bolsheviks”. A more gloomy picture, which suggests resignation rather than anger, is however witnessed by the Post report, where, among other things, 19-year-old Igor describes the future in Russia as “difficult, expensive and sad”.
