ANALYSIS || The defenses protecting Russia’s capital were not up to the scale of the attack launched by Ukraine, which left Russians wondering what was happening
News of the damage certainly reached even the most isolated bunkers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of isolating himself from the increasingly serious reality of his invasion of Ukraine. But those on the Moscow skyline on Thursday certainly mark a time when not even the thickest layer of protection around the Kremlin could protect it from the sound of repeated explosions just 10 miles away, which destroyed refineries and left thick black smoke hanging over the Russian capital.
Videos posted by Russians on social media tell two stories. First, from the capital’s air defenses – apparently all three rings – pierced by cheap, mass-produced drones, from which Ukraine was once hit hard, but which now strike back nightly against Russia. The lid of an exploded refinery. Multiple fires 10 miles from the Kremlin itself. An environmental disaster certainly in progress. The damage itself will affect fuel supplies, perhaps leading to queues at gas stations in a city the Kremlin fought hard to protect from the consequences of war.
The second factor is the growing discontent of the population of Moscow and the political instability that this may entail. The incessant publication of videos, which Russian authorities have tried to limit, demonstrates growing dissent and message management that has ultimately failed. Since a small drone hit the Kremlin in May 2023, Moscow’s skyline has been disturbed by Ukraine, even causing a drastic reduction in last month’s Victory Day parade. Thursday’s cacophony of alarming videos – with Ukrainian drones arriving in waves over the flames to follow up successive attacks – marks a global moment of clarity in which the Kremlin is truly in trouble.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attacks a response to Russia’s relentless nighttime shelling, which on Monday targeted the complex of Kiev’s oldest and holiest church. Zelensky appears to have emerged even more encouraged from the G7 meeting in Evian, where President Trump expressed both indifference and support for the Ukraine situation.
Zelensky appears to have reduced his expectations of Trump to zero. However, he got the crucial point he was looking for: the suggestion – still vague – that Ukraine might be able to mass-produce, under license, the air defense systems and missiles that the US and Europe manufacture, are running out of and are slowly restocking. This suggests an extremely transactional relationship – in which Kiev, to survive, could build the weapons that NATO factories are basically too slow and expensive to produce – and shows that Ukraine has tricks up its sleeve.
Trump’s wavering stance at the G7 summit makes it clear whether there is still interest in seeking peace. Even he must consider the Kremlin’s disregard for data.
Europeans still have some hope that an envoy from a country that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called a “middle power” could promote negotiations. The United Kingdom, France and Germany released a statement 11 days ago reiterating their starting point for an agreement – including the condition initially discarded by Moscow: a unilateral ceasefire.
Hope seems to be dying that Putin will seek some way out, given the critical stalemate on the battlefield and the difficulty in defending Russian airspace. In fact, he made some statements indicating a reconsideration: that an agreement and the capture of the entire Donbas are not “mutually exclusive” ideas (whatever that means), that the war will end soon, and that he may welcome former German Foreign Minister Gerhard Schröder as a mediator with Europe. However, even as Putin acknowledged the economic damage caused by the Ukrainian attacks last week, his response was to suggest further retaliation.
As videos emerge of black rain falling on cars in Moscow, the decision on the rumor of war falls once again to its progenitor: Putin. Perhaps it is too optimistic to think that he will opt for diplomacy and the gradual reduction of a conflict that, according to Western intelligence, has already killed half a million of his compatriots, to take over a part of Ukraine that is equivalent to around 0.7% of Russia’s vast territory.
Putin’s choices have been over the war: from believing it would only take a few weeks to take Kiev; trust that its supply lines would withstand the Russian collapse in late 2022; allowing wasted manpower in the brutal 2023-2024 attacks in Donbas that left even massive Russia with recruitment problems; Until he believed that Donald Trump could – through flattery and persuasion – somehow extract useful concessions from Kiev.
Over the decades, Putin has built an image as an imperturbable and precise master of politics. The scale of the disaster outside its walls – and on the distant front line, where Ukraine’s medium-range attacks daily disrupt Russia’s supply lines and cause fuel shortages in wealthy Crimea – certainly influences its decisions. But this may not mean an immediate call for a resolution – perhaps the opposite.
This is a time when Putin cannot afford a show of show. This is your war, and it will decide your fate, both in the years to come and in history. Its problems on the frontline are palpable, but we can convince ourselves that this is just another reversible downturn in war fortunes – which will soon match Russia, Ukraine’s proficiency with drones and accelerate the pace at which it conquers territory.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Russia-ASEAN summit this Thursday (Anastasia Barashkova/AFP/Pool/Getty Images)
It is domestically that Putin is suffering the most serious consequences. Last week he was forced to admit the economic damage caused by Ukrainian attacks, to accept that territory is not being conquered at the desired speed and to endure growing discontent over internet cuts. These are all admissions of reality, coming from a Kremlin whose war effort has rarely accepted anything less than total victory.
There are few obvious and practical ways in which Putin can escalate the conflict without worsening the challenges he faces. Attacking eastern NATO countries – as some have warned – would be a risky bet, given that their armed forces are fighting to dominate a smaller neighbor. The use of tactical nuclear weapons – a long-standing concern of some analysts – risks the fury of the United States, Europe and possibly even China, for little strategic gain. (A show of power would do Putin little good if the consequences were dire). And Russia is already attacking Ukraine with everything it has – the use of the fearsome Oreshnik ballistic missile, limited by its own arsenals.
Major political changes occurred in Russia after previous failed wars. The main Moscow newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, warned last month that “major geopolitical defeats are sometimes more useful than brilliant victories.” Russia’s exit from World War I led to a brutal revolution; its defeat in Afghanistan foreshadowed the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union; and Moscow leveled much of Grozny before granting autonomy to Chechnya in 1996. Don’t expect easy changes, if they come at all, as they seem unlikely.
Putin’s 26 years at the helm of Russia were – until recently – marked by skillful maneuvers, pragmatism and an outsized geopolitical weight. Not because of the dogged pursuit of military gains of the last four years. Moscow’s next step, as its horizon fills with sooty smoke, must be to find a way to accept its weakness and adapt to it, without projecting anything but strength. An almost impossible task, but in the system that Putin has doggedly imposed on Russia, it falls solely to Putin.
