The Kursk debacle highlights growing Kremlin instability

Ukraine’s dramatic invasion of Russia has changed the dynamic of the war and further exposed the Kremlin’s weakness, hammering another crack into the increasingly brittle monolith.

Since the offensive began on Aug. 6, Ukrainian troops have fanned out across the Kursk region, occupying almost 500 square miles of Russian territory, taking hundreds of prisoners and forcing at least 133,000 civilians to evacuate.

Given the short-term nature of previous incursions this year and last, many were quick to dismiss the maneuver as a foolhardy late summer adventure likely to provoke the Russian bear into further attacks against Ukraine’s battered civilian infrastructure and population. But as the campaign unfolds, it has become increasingly clear that Ukrainian Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi has opened a new front, catching Russia’s reeling forces off-guard.

The impact of Syrskyi’s August surprise reverberates far beyond the battlefield, breaking taboos and uncovering signs of disarray inside the Kremlin. The focus has now shifted away from Kyiv to Russia’s ruling elite, and their increasingly tenuous hold on power. 

While the timing of a collapse is always unclear, the question is whispered once again: Will the regime fall?

President Vladimir Putin, once so firmly in control, appears shaken, sleepwalking through bland meetings he once commanded with menace and authority. Gone are the threats of nuclear escalation, the shirtless Siberian summer holidays and the strange harangues against the West.

The character transformation may reflect the accumulated psychological effects of losing a long and pointless war. But it also revives the persistent rumor that the man who on camera is not the president at all. The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed speculation about Putin having a body double, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisting, “We have only one Putin” when pressed on the issue. 

Regardless, the man who rallied the Russian nation at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow at the start of the large-scale invasion in 2022, and who broadcast an angry rant against Yevgeny Prigozhin following his mutiny last year is gone.

The Russian government is under pressure. The central bank’s key interest rate is 18 percent and rising, yet inflation is also rising, approaching 10 percent. Generous government payments to military families and pensioners, along with suspiciously expensive infrastructure projects and war-driven GDP growth of 3.2 percent, may help ease the pain, but they cannot hide the effect of tightening sanctions and the reality of dwindling central bank reserves. 

The war-related labor shortage in the civilian economy will surely worsen as the conflict and its demand for soldiers expand, pushing wages and prices ever higher.

The Russian people, who protested with such determination in the 1980s and ‘90s, have thus far shown no inclination to demonstrate publicly against the war, nor have they rallied in response to the largest invasion of their own country since 1941. Economic hardship, a deeper Ukrainian incursion, or another attempt at a large-scale mobilization could bring them back out onto the streets. 

And even if the urban middle class remains quiescent, there are already signs of unrest in Russia’s ethnic minority regions. Widespread anti-government demonstrations rocked Muslim-majority Bashkortostan in January. Dagestan, in the restive North Caucasus, has witnessed several recent protests, including coordinated attacks in June against synagogues, Orthodox churches and the police. 

Violent dissent is certain to grow, considering the disproportionate number of non-Slavic minorities dying in the suicide attacks charging toward Ukrainian trenches and artillery fire at the front.

The Kremlin has been wary of the military ever since the Wagner mutiny revealed mixed loyalties among members of its senior leadership, including Air Force head Sergei Surovikin, who was detained after the uprising and relieved of his duties two months later. 

It was the first strike in a purge that continues to this day, with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov among this year’s high-profile victims. The incompetent defense of the Kursk border could cost Russian Armed Forces head Valery Gerasimov his job.

Ukraine’s shocking success has dented morale within the military, where questions are surely being raised about the purpose of a war that has left Russia’s borders exposed. According to some estimates, more than 600,000 Russians have been killed or wounded in the conflict, with little to show for their efforts beyond the destruction of much of the Donbas and the crippling of civilian infrastructure across the country.

Russia needs more troops if it is to retake its marchlands, but it cannot do so unless it abandons its positions in Ukraine or deploys young conscripts. Sending last year’s schoolboys to war is politically complicated in light of an earlier vow by Putin not to deploy them to Ukraine. Now, however, the war has come to them.

With Ukraine’s goals still unclear, the operation’s success remains unknown. For the Kremlin leadership, however, one outcome is certain: A time of trouble has begun.

Alfred Kueppers is a former Moscow correspondent with Reuters News (2008-2012). From 2016-2022 he took part in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission responsible for monitoring compliance with the Minsk Agreements in eastern Ukraine.