Russians struggle to understand the Ukraine war after the Kherson withdrawal

On a snowy afternoon in Moscow this week, a handful of people entered a vast hall under the Kremlin walls, in front of armed riot police, to watch an exhibition of what Russia is still describing as a “special military operation” in Ukraine after nine months of war.

Between images of bombed Ukrainian cities and bloodied corpses of civilians presented as heroic victims conflictvisitors are shown a triumphant video about Russia’s recent annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

Except, since the show opened earlier this month, Russia He withdrew from the capital of one of them, Kherson, leaving behind billboards saying “Russia is here forever.” The city had fallen to Russian occupation in March, in the early days of Vladimir Putin’s all-out invasion.

The teaser trailer left Katya, a middle-aged Moscow teacher who brings in a group of 11-year-old pupils, with more questions than answers. She said she wondered why all the casualties occurred.

“Nobody understands anything,” she said as she left the exhibition hall, in front of riot guards. “First we arrived in Kyiv, then left – and how many were killed? Then we took Kherson, then left again. And how many were killed?

Referring to the veterans of previous Russian wars in her family, she said, “Even the military men, they know how war is done. But even they don’t understand this strategy.”

For many in Moscow, the withdrawal from Kherson created confusion and raised questions about the costs of the war for Russia. Most of all, the news added to the general’s deep anxiety that people have felt since late September, when Putin announced the military draft and brought war directly into Russian homes for the first time.

“Everyone is unsettled, nervous, anxious,” Katya said of her friends, colleagues, and family. “Everyone is depressed.”

Although life continues in Moscow as never before, bustling with cafes and restaurants, the latest survey by the independent Levada Center poll, published last month, found that 88 percent of people were “worried” or “very worried” about developments in Ukraine. Only 36 percent of Russians said they believed the country should continue to fight, while the majority thought it was time for peace talks.

However, if the Russians were increasingly worried about the war, they seemed to feel little attachment to the newly conquered territories that Moscow annexed to great fanfare after bogus referendums were held there. As a result, many were indifferent to the loss of a place like Kherson.

“Of course, it’s really amazing how easily the Russian authorities said goodbye to Kherson,” Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the political consulting firm R Politik, wrote in a post on social media. And people also don’t seem to cling to the new ‘territories’.

She pointed to a recent Levada survey that asked Russians to name the main events they remembered from the news. Only 9 percent referred to referenda and annexation – as their country claimed to have expanded by more than 135,000 square kilometres – despite the event occurring during the course of the survey.

Lev Gudkov of Levada’s polling team told Russia’s RTVi radio that Kherson’s decline would not affect Putin’s ratings. Over time, he said, this could erode confidence in the president as a leader, but for now, “censorship and propaganda will soften the meaning of this event and the seriousness of this domestic defeat.”

State media said the withdrawal was a difficult but necessary decision to save the lives of thousands of Russian soldiers. Commentators in the pro-war ultra-nationalist camp objected to the decision and this interpretation, but this minority’s criticisms have been silenced recently, after stern warnings from the Kremlin.

However, discontent still simmered in secret. A former senior official said the loss of Kherson just six weeks after Putin declared it part of Russia indicates the Kremlin’s lack of strategic planning. “They completely mishandle this. They can’t think two steps forward. It’s a complete backlash,” said the former official, speaking anonymously given the dangers of voicing public criticism. within a month and a half.”

The vast majority of Russians will only really care if Ukraine tries to regain control of Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Kyiv in 2014, said Alexei Venediktov, longtime editor of radio station Echo of Moscow. The peninsula has developed almost mythical status among Russians, Especially as a great vacation spot. For the majority, “Crimea is sacred,” said Venediktov.

But other regions and cities claimed by Russia do not have much emotional resonance. “Donetsk, Luhansk, some kind of Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia – where are they even?” Venediktov said.

The journalist, who remains in touch with many people in positions of power despite the forced closure of his radio station in March, said there was malaise among Moscow’s elites.

He said the top political and business circles do not like turmoil, and they are disturbed by the way military setbacks bring hardline and fringe figures, such as Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov and paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, to the political fore. “If everything froze in place now . . . they would be happy.”

But few around Putin would dare speak out against the invasion, said Russian oligarchs under Western sanctions. “The technocrats have no tools. It’s a very stable situation. Security is under Putin’s control. He makes his bodyguards ministers and governors. And the shift in public opinion does not happen. Millions of opponents of the war have left.”

Upon entering the exhibition hall next to Red Square, visitors are greeted by an immersive 360-degree video projection of the skyline of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Smoke billowed from destroyed apartment buildings in the city, which witnessed the heaviest Russian bombing of the war, killing thousands of people.

Subsequent rooms rewrite the history of Ukraine and its relations with Russia, as well as the story of the war itself, in an attempt to introduce Muscovites into the alternate reality that permeates news of the country. The brutal bombing of Mariupol this spring, for example, is depicted on a plaque hanging on the wall: the city’s 600,000 residents were “taken hostage by the Ukrainian army,” which “destroyed its citizens” while “children were shot by snipers.”

In a final all-white room, filled with portraits of Russian soldiers killed in the war, visitors are welcome to leave messages in the guestbook. It’s a mixed bag: children’s scribbles, expressions of gratitude to Putin, calls for a much larger all-out conflict. And only once: “No to war!”

Additional reporting by Max Seddon in Riga