Over the past weeks, if not months, we’ve been noticing an apparent trend in the public discussion.
The key actor, the Russian government, has gone missing.
The biggest headlines as of recent are Prigozhin vs. Shoigu feat. Gerasimov beef.
It’s been packed with quite a few plot twists, too.
Flanks collapsing in Bakhmut, public haggling over ammo, mutual projectile rousting, propaganda wars,
competition for the officials’ sympathy — you name it.
It even came down to high treason allegations.
The Washington Post, a media outlet trusted by many,
reports that Prigozhin was about to reveal the Russian troops' location in exchange for the Bakhmut conqueror title.
Other hot topics are Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his relationships with the Western allies, and the upcoming Ukrainian offensive.
But there’re two entities that seem to have vanished from the limelight: the Russian government and Vladimir Putin.
This may not be apparent. Take Prigozhin vs. the Defense Ministry standoff.
The latter represents the Russian government, right? However, there’s no government involved.
We see no reaction from the machine. It’s a mere clash of the three feudal lords: Prigozhin, Shoigu, and Gen. Gerasimov.
The extent of the Russian government’s self-isolation is reflected in Google Trends.
“Prigozhin” query is on par with “Putin” and even pips it for popularity.
Why is it so? To answer it, let’s see how the Russian government sheds its vital parts that ceased
to have any impact on the war. We’ll start with arguably the most prominent one, the propaganda.
PROPAGANDA
If someone who was doing reality detox before the war reengages now and tries to suss
out what’s happening through the Russian state-run media lens, they’ll get a pretty certain picture.
They’ll think that Ukraine has been occupied since week one of the invasion, and the main question now is if Russians
will take a detour to Warsaw or head straight to Berlin.
Imagine we’re living in a world with no internet and a plethora of independent media outlets.
Imagine it’s 80 years ago, and the only source of information is a bulky radio voiced by a sole propagandist mouthpiece.
The image of the war would be completely different. There’d be no Bakhmut, god forbid.
There’d be the holy war against the collective West, the crusade against the World LGBTQ+ Government
for the sake of traditional values. There’d be solemn discussions on the post-war world order.
They’d be deciding the fate of the world, not just a few residential blocks. The entire world, no less.
They say soccer is thousands of beggars watching 22 millionaires chasing a bag of wind in their underwear.
This war beats it. Those labeled as cannon fodder are watching millionaires exercising their Napoleon complexes.
That being said, the official rhetoric of Russian propaganda hasn’t changed a notch over the past 15 months
no matter what.
There’s been a long way from Russian battle tanks stationed 12 miles away from Zelenskyy’s residence
to abandoning Kharkiv and Kherson, and scrapping it out over ammo.
Russian cemeteries are expanding as if there was another deadly pandemic raging on.
The professional army has been wasted and replaced by levies of blue collars and convicts.
But none of this happened, according to propaganda. Zelenskyy is still a buffoon, and the enemy is still not the
Ukrainian army but mercenary throngs from all over the world. There’s still no Ukraine, only the “Kyiv’s regime” and its thugs.
Constant nuclear saber-rattling has become a nauseating earworm no matter where one stands politically.
Propagandist cliches like “firm response,” “decision centers,” and “war-time economy”
have made everyone sick to their stomachs. Let alone the memetic “red lines” they dare the enemy to cross.
Tune in to any TV show, today’s episode or last year’s, and you’ll inevitably stumble upon this verbiage.
Propaganda has failed to adapt. It’s been waging a purely virtual war since 2012.
And while the real-life Russian army gets its a*s kicked by the real-life Ukrainian soldiers, while the invaders are bogged
in trenches lacking equipment and basic supplies, trembling over the upcoming Ukrainian offensive,
the Russian state-run media threatens the World LGBTQ+ Government with alien military technology.
Such a victorious and daring tone has its audience, though.
It’s catering to the supine majority that only wants the TV to provide cheap thrills.
They may be talking about seizing Kyiv or surrendering a Russian city — the audience will still get their kicks
from it as long as the news is delivered in a solemn and assertive way.
The audience enjoys TV presenters threatening, arguing, conquering, and dominating the world 24/7,
submerging the U.K. and nuking Washington D.C. in their reveries.
Russian propaganda isn’t even propaganda as such nowadays.
It doesn’t advocate for anything, and it doesn’t seek to elicit a particular response from the audience.
It’s The Kardashians for politics buffs. TV is a type of entertainment that requires conflict, a drama.
It needs a s**tshow, pardon my French. And that’s what the Russian state TV is selling to the mass audience.
It isn’t informational or propagandist. It’s purely entertaining.
Seeking the truth in it is as absurd as hoping for an M.S. in physics after you’ve binge-watched The Big Bang Theory.
This doesn’t mean the audience is dumb. It’s targeted at those who failed to move the needle
and decided to roll with the punches. It surely is conformity, and it doesn’t look appealing now.
But conformity is a psychological norm.
The vast majority has shunned the war, and the TV shows on this subject have become a mere distraction.
They may as well televise the Jedi-Sith war. It’d be as interesting as it’s irrelevant.
There’s an adverse effect of it. For those who know a tad about the situation, who are aware of war realities
or are at the frontlines, the state-run media have lost any authority.
It’s crystal clear to them that the government lives in a fairy world and wages a fairy war.
The emergence of the Russian independent “jingo journalists” stems from there.
They fill the void left by the official propaganda. They meet the demand for information that doesn’t blatantly defy the reality.
For those who are interested in this war or, worse yet, fight it, the state propaganda falls on deaf ears.
All of the frontmen including Putin live in a parallel universe.
It doesn’t stop there. If we dissect a more tangible aspect of war, we’ll see the same.
There have been a drone attack on the Kremlin, assassination attempts on public warmongers, and a collapse
of the flanks at Bakhmut.
There still is the menace of the Ukrainian offensive that calls for meticulous preparation. All of that stirred no reaction.
Where’s Putin during this plight?
When was the last time Russia’s Supreme Commander commented on regular attacks on the Russian territory,
let alone faraway Bakhmut?
ACTIVE ROSTER
It feels odd to remind you, but we’re living in a personalist autocracy.
There supposed to be the sole decision center around a sole person. And that person’s missing.
Everyone mentions, appeals to, or roasts him like a Sunday BBQ, but he’s vanished into thin air.
On the one hand, such behavior is familiar. He’s lying doggo.
He’ll remain silent on the topic of the war until there’s any success to report.
On the other hand, you’ve got your motley military formations publically cussing at each other.
You’ve got high treason surfacing. Allegedly Prigozhin, one of your war pigs, directly collaborates with the enemy.
Isn’t it the time to pop up, when some goon is gaining more attention and prominence than all of your generals combined?
Military logic suggests it is. It’s time for the government’s comeback, time to restore the basic unity of command.
The enemy, the easy prey you paint clownish and pathetic, has its generals, Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Oleksandr Syrskyi.
It has its Supreme Commander, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
And all three wield unquestionable authority, whereas you’ve only got generals with zero combat experience,
“d**khead grandpas,” and other entities whose names don’t align with YouTube language policy.
It’s impossible to fight the enemy that has the power and control hierarchy
when all you’ve got is show-offs vying for the limelight.
This isn’t hard to grasp in terms of military logic. But Putin is infinitely far from it.
His logic is to stay distant from problems and defeatist headlines, and avoid any associations with failure.
Let’s recall the years of Putin’s rule to reveal the pattern of the Russian government's self-isolation.
Every time something blew up or burned, every time a disaster struck, Putin disappeared for at least a week.
This tactic was intended: the words “disaster” and “president” couldn’t go together in the same newscast.
Scroll back to, say, 2021, to detect this trend. When a levee breaks, a mall burns down, or a village is razed by a wildfire,
Putin is nowhere to be found in the news feeds around those dates. No one was surprised.
Same goes for the COVID-19 pandemic, when the governors were tasked with calling the shots.
We’ve always known Putin and his government. It’s the government that strives to dodge any responsibility.
The difference today is that the disaster is never-ending. Everyday something burns and blows up.
Every day the army screws up. Every other day Prigozhin roasts the MoD, and when he doesn’t,
he’s ready to disclose the location of the Russian troops to remain the undisputed champion.
When Prigozhin’s Wagner Group only started to gain prominence in this war, we warned about the repercussions.
We said that losing monopoly on violence will naturally lead to internal and eventually political conflicts.
Many considered it a stretch. Like, it’s all under control. Putin’s infamous top-down power vertical will sort it out.
It’s been almost a year since the first videos of convict recruitment hit the web.
It seems obvious to everyone now: everything’s not under control. The unavoidable internal conflict kicked off, after all.
The mercenaries don’t get along with the regular army.
When you fail to control the majority via propaganda because no one believes it anymore and opts
for unregulated sources of information; when you simultaneously fail to control a bulk of your army;
when you allow for such a combo, you lose power.
Not formally, though. We aren’t predicting Putin’s downfall tomorrow. But you lose the clout that fuels your power.
Sundry armed regiments and sympathizers have dismissed you as a power center and an arbiter.
They resolve conflicts on their own now, with publicity stunts and complex alliances, including ones with the enemy.
Everyone gets their own propaganda machine. Everyone deals with their problems independently, and most importantly,
everyone ignores your government and you, the supreme leader.
Who needs Putin these days? It’s a tough question we usually consider in terms of risks and benefits.
But armed people don’t need Putin to solve their problems anymore.
And they aren’t shy away from displaying it. We can only watch the consequences unfold.
If you’re here for a prediction, we can’t offer one. The current situation is unprecedented.
Every day brings news that doesn't fit any mold.
We can only state that the government as a single mechanism has decided to vanish from all dimensions.
Good or bad, it depends on who’ll get the upper hand in this mess. The powers-that-be see the same picture as we do.
They see chaos with no stabilizing force. Every man for himself.
See you tomorrow!