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Immediately after Ukrainian forces moved into Kursk Oblast, 39 percent of Russians said they were paying close attention to what was going on there, a reflection of their shock at such a development; but now, a month later, the share of Russians doing so has fallen to only 12 percent, according to surveys by the Public Opinion Foundation.
These figures, available at media.fom.ru/fom-bd/d372024.pdf, might strike some as evidence that Kremlin propaganda which has sought to down play the importance of Kursk and has not shifted troops from Ukraine to the defense of this Russian oblast; but Abbas Gallyamov says that is not the case (charter97.org/ru/news/2024/9/20/611456/).
The former Putin speechwriter who now is a Putin critic says that in fact what is going on is this: the Russian people have recognized that Moscow has suffered a defeat in Ukraine and are now looking beyond it. That is hardly good news from the Kremlin, however much Putin may want to see it that way.
For the population of a country to accept the loss of its territory by the military action of another is exactly the opposite of what its government should want. Ukrainians haven’t accepted the loss of their territories in Crimea and the Donbass, but the Russians seem quite prepared to accept the loss of Kursk Oblast as something entirely normal.
That points to a fundamental weakness not just in the Russian world Putin likes to talk about but in that of the Russian nation he and most others assume is united and ready to defend itself against all outsiders. And that weakness must haunt a regime that acts as if it can count on national unity no matter what.