​Members of Russia’s cultural and political elite reportedly turned glum when Dmitry Peskov, a staunch spokesman for Vladimir Putin, hinted at a party in December that the Kremlin’s war with the West would last “a long, long time” and “things will get much more complicated,” given the fact that many guests in private conversations said that they are against the war in Ukraine, say sources who participated in the festive event, reports guardian.

Some of the guests present, including representatives of the Russian cultural and political elite, prayed for the new year and expressed hope for peace and a return to normal life. But the atmosphere of hope was interrupted by Peskov.

“You must have been waiting for me to say something,” said Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s staunch spokesman, at the start of the party. “Everything will become much more complicated. It will take a very, very long time,” Peskov continued, according to one of two people who spoke to The Guardian on condition of anonymity about what was said at the said meeting, the News reports. .ro.

Peksov’s toast darkened the atmosphere, as many guests privately declared their opposition to the war in Ukraine.

“It was unpleasant to listen to his speech. It was clear that he warned that the war will remain with us and that we should prepare for a long journey,” said one of the guests with whom The Guardian spoke.

The debate provided new evidence that Russian elites are unhappy with the war, with an audio recording of a phone conversation allegedly between Russian music producer Joseph Prigozhin and billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov criticizing, cursing and calling Putin “Satan.”

Putin prepares society for “eternal war”

More than a year after the invasion, which was originally planned to last several weeks, Vladimir Putin has changed his language and is preparing society for war with the West, a conflict that is likely to last for years. Speaking recently to workers at an aircraft factory in Buryatia, Putin again presented the war as an existential battle for Russia’s survival, The Guardian notes.

The speech at the Siberian factory echoed a pattern of recent narratives in which the Russian leader has increasingly turned to discussing what observers have called a “perpetual war” with the West, said political scientist Maxim Trudolyubov of the Wilson Center.

“Putin practically stopped talking about any specific goal of the war. He offers no vision of what future victory might look like. War does not have a clear beginning and predictable end,” Trudolyubov, quoted by The Guardian, believes.

During his state of the nation address on February 21, the Russian leader repeated some of his many grievances against the West, stressing that Moscow is fighting for national survival and that it will ultimately win. According to Trudolyubov, the subtle message to the people is that the war in Ukraine will not end anytime soon and that Russians must learn to live with it.

Putin does not “understand how to lose”

And a Western diplomat in Moscow believes that Putin’s message, delivered in a speech on February 21, is preparing the Russian public for a “war that never ends.” According to the diplomat, it is unclear whether Putin will be able to accept defeat in this conflict, as Putin does not seem to “understand how to lose”. Therefore, the head of the Kremlin does not seem to change his opinion about the conflict, despite the great losses and failures of the last year. The diplomat, writes The Guardian, recalls that the Russian president was an agent of the KGB, and they were taught to always pursue their goals, and not to overestimate them.

Others noted that the Russian leader, who, according to Western intelligence services, personally makes operational and tactical decisions in Ukraine, stopped discussing the situation on the Ukrainian front in his public comments, The Guardian notes. According to a study by Russian news agency Verstka, which analyzed Putin’s speeches, Putin last mentioned the fighting in Ukraine on Jan. 15, saying the dynamics of his army were “positive.”

These omissions show that the Kremlin is not easily accepting that it is unable to change the course of the war on the battlefield, says Volodymyr Gelman, a professor of Russian politics at the University of Helsinki.

“It’s easier not to talk about the war effort when your military isn’t making any progress,” Gelman notes. “But reducing efforts is not an option for Putin; it would mean admitting defeat,” says the professor.

Russian leaders initially expected the invasion to last only a few weeks before declaring victory, according to plans intercepted by Western intelligence services early in the war. Over the winter, Western military analysts and Ukrainian officials repeatedly warned that Russia, having recruited 300,000 troops last fall, would launch another major attack. But Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, which began in February, brought the country minimal gains for huge costs. According to Western officials, there are up to 200,000 dead and wounded on the Russian side.

What is Putin betting on?

“Russia simply does not have the offensive capabilities for a major offensive,” American military expert Rob Lee believes. According to him, less than 10% of the Russian army in Ukraine is capable of conducting offensive operations, and most of its troops are currently conscripts with limited military training. “Their forces can slowly achieve exhausting victories, but they do not have the ability to break through Ukrainian defenses in such a way as to change the course of the war,” says the expert.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu proposed increasing the size of the armed forces from 1.15 million to 1.5 million to improve the army’s long-term prospects.

“We see that the Russian military is preparing for a long war. Putin is counting on the fact that his country’s resources will exceed those of Ukraine, as the West grows tired of helping Kyiv,” Rob Lee notes.

How Russian society reacts

Despite the setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Kremlin has suppressed any potential backlash at home, crushing what remains of Russian civil society. “Many people in the country have now fully accepted the fact that this war is not going to end, and I think they have to learn to live with that reality,” said Andriy Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation who has studied public attitudes toward the war since its inception. her.

Kolesnikov believes that the ability and desire of the population to adapt to the new reality turned out to be much stronger than many observers expected. When Putin ordered the partial mobilization of 300,000 conscripts in September, sociologists noted a record rise in fear and anxiety, with men worried about war and mothers and wives worried about their husbands, fathers and sons. However, according to Kolesnikov, the fear disappeared in a few months.

“The propaganda campaign was successful despite the initial wavering of the people,” said a source close to Kremlin media executives, referring to the initial anti-war protests that led to more than 15,000 arrests across the country in the first weeks after the invasion. “The government managed to unite people around the flag. The way the conflict was framed helped people accept it,” added this source in a discussion with The Guardian.

The Russian propaganda machine suffered a “wave of denunciations”

The full power of the state was deployed to spread and impose the message that war was necessary for Russia’s identity and survival. National television has gone from broadcasting light entertainment programs to broadcasting aggressive political talk shows.

Meanwhile, schools were ordered to add basic military training and “patriotic” lessons aimed at justifying the war in Ukraine. State rhetoric, including Putin’s calls to get rid of “trash and traitors,” has led to a wave of exposure from ordinary Russians to their colleagues and even friends.

“The country has gone mad,” said Oleksiy, a former history teacher at an elite school outside Moscow who recently resigned over disagreements with the school’s leadership over a new “patriotic” curriculum. “I had to stop communicating with colleagues and friends. We live in different realities,” the teacher admitted.

International movement of Russophiles

But while hundreds of thousands of Russians were silenced or left the country, a group of war supporters embraced a new direction for the country. They also note the rising cost of the conflict, but call for greater public participation, while increasingly presenting the war as a global battle with Europe and the United States.

In mid-March, at a launch event in Moscow for the International Russophile Movement, a group backed by Russia’s Foreign Ministry that includes many European activists and conspiracy theorists, the message was extremely harsh. “We are witnessing not only neo-Nazism, but direct Nazism, which covers more and more European countries,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Konstantin Malofeev, a conservative oligarch who was sanctioned by the US in 2014 for “threatening Ukraine and providing financial support to the separatist Donetsk region”, said at the same event: “I have not seen such hatred since the Russian soldiers ended the war with victory in Berlin We stopped that war and now we, the victors, are once again faced with the fact that hell has risen against us.”

However, there were few direct hints about the situation at the front in Ukraine, and on the sidelines of the conference, some spoke about the difficult progress of Russia and the costs of the war, notes The Guardian.

What Dugin doesn’t like

“Not everyone in this country yet understands how much we will have to pay to win this war,” said prominent Russian ultranationalist Oleksandr Dugin. “The people of our country must pay with their lives for their love for Russia. This is something serious, and we were not ready for it,” says the philosopher, whose daughter Daria Dugina died last year in a car attack. who could target him.

Putin has spoken several times about attacking Dugina, and her name was written in a briefing before Putin during a recent meeting of the Russian Security Council, according to a video released by the Kremlin itself.

“I don’t think that people in this country fully understand what is happening in a year,” Oleksandr Dugin added. “Of course, there is full support for the president, but it has not fully entered the hearts and souls of all our people, some have woken up, others have not. Despite the war year, everything is going very slowly,” says Dugin. .