Streetwise Professor

Today marks the beginning of the 5th year of Putin’s “Special Military Operation.” Special, indeed.

The special needs military operation is more like it. (NB: “special needs” is a euphemism that replaced the previous euphemism, “retarded.” The old once canceled but now reemerging euphemism fits in place of the new one with regards to Putin’s military misadventure).

Putin appears in no mood to call the whole thing off, despite the fact that at best the campaign is stuck and at worst is actually in retrograde, with casualties allegedly now exceeding recruitment rates. Indeed, he is doubling down on his rhetoric and making moves that suggest he fears that his public’s patience is finally wearing thin.

Putin continues to cast the war as an existential one for Russia: “Russia is fighting for its future, for independence, for truth, and justice.” His remarks on Defender of the Fatherland Day are delusional: “Your competent and courageous actions, your personal bravery and determination helped to carefully plan and brilliantly execute offensive operations by our troops in the most intense sectors and directions.”

Brilliant in what universe? Competence is nowhere to be found. Especially in the Kremlin.

And Putin makes it clear, as if there was ever any doubt, that he is the Tsar of Projection–not of power, but psychological:

“They did not manage to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield, so the enemy is relying on individual and mass terror: this includes shelling cities, sabotaging infrastructure, and assassination attempts on government and military officials,” he told an audience of FSB officials.

All of which Russia has done in Ukraine, and on a far greater scale.

And paranoia, too

“There is an absolute need to defeat Russia. They are looking for any way, anything at all. They will push themselves to some extreme point, and then they will regret it,” he said.

And more delusion. Putin order the FSB to “strengthen the anti-terrorist protection of energy and transport infrastructure and public gathering places, provide maximum coverage for critical facilities, and, if necessary, equip them with additional security measures.”

This allegedly in response to the continuing Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, and specifically oil assets. This includes a recent attack at an important facility on the Druzhba pipeline.

But note: Ukraine carries out these attacks with drones and missiles, which the FSB can do fuck all to stop. This rather pathetic gesture is effectively a confession that Russia’s vaunted air defenses can also do fuck all against them. If the VKS can’t defend Russian airspace, how are spooks going to?

Perhaps the most interesting and revealing development is Russia’s intensifying Internet crackdown, including most notably a throttling of Telegram, due to the app’s alleged use in terrorist attacks in Russia and by Ukraine and the West.

What’s particularly striking about this is that Russian troops rely heavily on Telegram for battlefield communications–due in large part to the shambolic nature of Russian communications gear and infrastructure (a glaring defect that was supposed to be fixed after 2008 but obviously was not). When added to the loss of the use of Starlink terminals–which the Russian military laughably denied using for their own comms, claiming instead that they just used them to spoof the Ukrainians–the already balky and disjointed efforts on the frontlines will be even less coordinated, responsive, and effective.

So what does this imply? It implies that Putin is more than willing to sacrifice military effectiveness (such as it is)–and soldiers’ lives–to strengthen his control over the domestic information space.

And why would he do that? Well, by far the most likely explanation is that he fears growing public discontent with the war, its cost, and the glaring disconnect between what Putin says about the war and the ugly reality on the ground. Not only is Telegram an important means by which Russian troops communicate with each other, it is the primary channel by which the troops share glimpses of how the war is going, how it is fought, and the gruesome toll it is taking.

If uncensored, it is also a means by which Russians can communicate with one another, not just about the war, but about economic and social conditions that are clearly deteriorating. This is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition to undercut preference falsification. Since this falsification is an autocrat’s best friend, the risk of its unraveling is an existential threat to Putin.

Hence, he wants to put communications through the government “MAX” app–which is mandatory on all smartphones sold in Russia, and which is surveilled by the state.

Maybe Russia can resurrect Max Headroom to do PSAs. Perhaps Putin has tasked the FSB to look into the “blipverts” that featured on Max’s show. Could be just what he needs.

These measures are not those of a confident man, any more than Europe’s current censorship mania signals its civilizational confidence. Instead, they are palpable signs of Putin’s fear that the unwavering domestic support for his not so excellent adventure in Ukraine is not so unwavering and might cascade into another Russian moment a la 1905 or 1917 or 1991.

I guess if you want to be optimistic, you could view this as Putin preparing Russia for a peace/ceasefire deal in Ukraine that falls far short of the objectives he laid out, and which would make the toll in blood and treasure of the last 4 years seem completely in vain. Limiting the backlash would require an even tighter grip on the populace.

But regardless, it is a clear sign that Putin has decided that his heretofore unchallenged hold over the Russian populace is slipping as the war grinds on without success, and he must take even greater control over the information space.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the most catastrophic self-inflicted debacle of the post-WWII world, and ranks highly among the great debacles of all history. He has succeeded in killing and mutilating over a million Russians. He has gutted the economy for years and probably decades to come. He has made Russia a pariah state increasingly dependent on a mercenary China, and his justification that the world is ganging up on Russia has become a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than a description of past reality.

And for what? To conquer a country even more dysfunctional than his own. And he can’t even accomplish that.