Introduction to translation
With the successive failures of the Russian army in Ukraine and Kyiv's restoration of parts of its lands, critical voices of the Russian war strategy emerged from within the army itself, and these opposing voices grew through the "Telegram" application, until they included former commanders, analysts, veteran military journalists, and even allies of Putin personally such as the leader Chechen Ramzan Kadyrov.
How did the Kremlin face these electronic protests?
This is revealed by a report prepared by "Andrei Soldatov" and "Irina Borogan" for the American magazine "Foreign Affairs".
Translation text
At the end of September last year, in the wake of Russia's devastating failures in Ukraine, and the Russian President's controversial declaration of "partial mobilization" of the Russian people;
The Kremlin has faced an explosion of popular discontent on social media.
Ironically, the most critical voices came from the ranks of the government's supporters, especially the fanatical nationalists and hardliners of the military establishment, who felt that Russia was not fighting with the desired efficiency.
In early October, the recriminations reached Putin's inner circle. Ramzan Kadyrov, the notoriously brutal president of Chechnya, published a lengthy, scathing speech on the Telegram messaging app, saying that the "General Staff Command" was protecting a Russian general who caused the loss An important town in Donetsk Province.
Similar complaints were made by other leading figures close to Putin, including Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group.
But as soon as the situation seemed to spiral out of control, the wave of criticism subsided.
By November, most of the militants were subdued and never attacked Russia's war strategy again.
Meanwhile, the army has quietly assumed control of many aspects of the Russian economy, giving the government and the Ministry of Defense vast new powers, even with regard to the private sector.
These developments highlight the growing influence of the military and its cronies in a way that makes Putin grab more power at home.
Instead of the regime becoming more weak and fragile, as some Western observers have suggested, the series of failures in the Ukraine war over the past few months have given Putin an opportunity to tighten his grip on Russian society, and even his critics within the military.
Telegram uprising
Almost since the beginning of the invasion last February, Russian hardliners have been criticizing the Kremlin's war strategy, as many of them resented the chaotic invasion and the series of Russian failures in the first months of the war, and did not believe the Ministry of Defense's narrative that it was acceptable to lose many soldiers. Against a supposedly inferior enemy.
Nor were these hardliners happy when Ukraine began to regain some territory around Kyiv before expanding eastward.
More startling, however, was how the retraction was announced.
By the time of the invasion, any potential debate about the military in the Russian media or in the Duma was already suppressed, and after February 24, the Kremlin enacted broader censorship of any discussion of the war.
But the Internet remained available, and Telegram quickly became a haven for commentators on military affairs.
Telegram, owned by a Russian company and originally used as a messaging app, has always had an unusually important role in Russia, particularly through the network of channels through which high-profile users can broadcast content to a large number of subscribers.
Telegram is also one of the few media platforms that was not banned by the government immediately after the war.
Telegram is one of the few media platforms that was not banned by the Russian government immediately after the outbreak of the war.
(Shutterstock)
As a result, when it became clear that the invasion did not go as planned, interest in Telegram skyrocketed, and ultra-nationalists and ultra-nationalists, distrustful of the media, flocked all the way to Telegram commentators' channels to find out what was really going on.
Through these channels, they could engage in a relatively honest and open discussion about the problems the military faces in Ukraine, as well as a discussion about grassroots efforts to help Russian forces.
Some channels, for example, published reports about the lack of equipment on the front, and launched a fundraising campaign to purchase radios, medicines, drones, protective vests and night vision equipment for the Russian forces.
These campaigns drew more people to the app, and soon the most popular military channels had hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
These channels amassed a large Russian public supportive of the war, who resented the way it was being conducted.
One of the most prominent channels is run by Igor Girkin (aka Igor Strelkov), a militant nationalist and retired FSB officer who in 2014 assumed the Ministry of Defense of the Donetsk Autonomous People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine (a self-declared separatist republic that recognized Russia officially took it last February, days before launching its war against Ukraine) *.
Strelkov was convicted in absentia by a Dutch court for his role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 (which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the Donetsk region in July 2014, killing all 280 on board and 15 crew members). people)*.
Igor Strelkov is a militant nationalist and retired FSB officer.
(Shutterstock)
Strelkov has always pushed for an all-out war with Ukraine, and when the invasion faltered, he launched a fierce attack on the Russian generals. Although he was ostracized by the military establishment, Strelkov was able to maintain close knowledge of the nature of the field situation, as the military of all ranks respected and trusted him.
Relying on his sources, Strelkov regularly published news of the field battles, and published public reports about the Russian army's failures, mistakes, and retreat, which completely contradicted the Kremlin's narrative about the heroics of the "special operation" in Ukraine, as Putin called it.
Even more militant than Strelkov is his colleague, Vladimir Kivachkov, a 74-year-old former colonel in the Soviet special forces with a long record of perpetrating far-right violence.
Kivachkov joined Strelkov in bashing Russia's military leadership, and soon afterward, both were on YouTube and Telegram offering their analyzes of Russia's disastrous war and challenging official accounts of Russian retreat on the battlefield.
Throughout most of the spring and summer months of last year, Moscow did not take them seriously, but that changed in September, after Ukraine launched its massive counterattacks in the Kharkiv region, as the number of Strelkov channel subscribers on Telegram rose to 600,000 subscribers, and more Critical voices had already joined him by that time.
Vladimir Kivachkov (in the middle) (Al Jazeera)
In the beginning, there were the so-called "army choir" (or voenkours), that is, Russian journalists integrated into the army structure.
These journalists are usually loyal to the Kremlin, but in this war they forged stronger ties with the soldiers on the front lines.
Many of these people have their own Telegram channels, where their unbiased reports have a huge following.
For example, the channel "Alexander Kots", correspondent for the popular newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda", has 680,000 subscribers, while another channel called "Worgonzo", run by veteran war journalist Semen Pegov, has 1.3 million subscribers.
For many Russians, such channels are the real voice of the army, and hence their discussions about the setbacks of the Russian army are more effective and effective.
By the fall, these army choir journalists were joined by a number of the most influential pundits with close ties to the Kremlin itself.
Take Kadyrov, who has long enjoyed close ties with Putin. The Chechen leader has published scathing assessments of the war in a series of posts on his private Telegram channel, yet he has shied away from criticizing Putin himself.
From this standpoint, Kadyrov published his aforementioned speech on the first of October, and when the Ukrainians recaptured the city of "Lyman", an important railway center in the Donetsk region, Kadyrov singled out the Russian commander who was responsible for defending the city, and wrote: : "I cannot remain silent about what happened in Liman", blaming the army's high command entirely.
Chechen leader Kadyrov (right) has published scathing assessments of the war in a series of posts on his private Telegram channel, but has shied away from criticizing Putin himself.
(Reuters)
Since Kadyrov is an ally of Putin, these comments presented an unusual challenge to the official military narrative.
Other military insiders supported Kadyrov, most notably Prigozhin, Putin's cook as he is known, and a former prisoner in the Soviet era, who for the past decade has led the notorious Wagner militant group, whose fighters have also played an important role in Ukraine.
At this point in the war, Kadyrov's comments were amplified by army choir journalists and other ultra-nationalists, who published scathing new reports from the front.
Meanwhile, as Putin's campaign of popular mobilization took off, social media was awash with videos from across the country of angry, weeping citizens who were unwilling to join a deadly war.
The Kremlin strikes with an iron fist
In October, Putin finally acted on the Telegram uprising.
In a major shift, Putin rearranged the Russian leadership hierarchy and appointed Sergei Surovikin as commander-in-chief of Russian forces in Ukraine.
Theoretically, Surovikin was not a viable option, as his record includes a seven-month prison sentence for his participation in the failed coup in 1991, in addition to criminal charges of arms smuggling and an accusation of severe beating of one of his colleagues.
But Surovikin had one important point in his favour: the acceptance he enjoyed among the "Telegram warriors".
As soon as the decision to appoint him was made, veterans and military correspondents applauded the decision, as did Kadyrov and Prigozhin, while Strelkov held back and remained critical of official policy, reminding his followers of Surovikin's checkered career.
Even as the "army choir" backed down from their critical rhetoric, the Kremlin took additional steps to end the wave of protest against his conduct of the war.
On October 14, it became known on Telegram that the Russian General Staff had asked prosecutors to investigate nine army critics, including Pegov and Strelkov, for violating a new law that criminalizes publishing “intentionally false information” about the army.
This investigation was supposed to send a warning to others on Telegram, and this is what actually happened.
Military correspondents dropped their criticism of the military leadership immediately, and instead reported on positive news about mobilization and "improvements" in logistics, training, and other matters.
After Coats dropped his criticism of the war, he was appointed to the Russian Council for Human Rights, a body that has some ties to the Kremlin.
(Social Media)
The Kremlin also began rewarding votes that were willing to submit to the regime.
On 17 November, after Coats abandoned his criticism of the war, he was appointed to the Russian Human Rights Council, an organ that has some ties to the Kremlin.
A week later, the Kremlin rewarded Pegov, who also toned down his reporting, with an award for bravery.
The regime even succeeded in putting down Strelkov himself. After reports emerged about ongoing investigations into Strelkov and others, the man seemed to have reached some sort of compromise with the Kremlin. The Kremlin allowed him to leave Moscow to help form his own "volunteer battalion" to join the fight. In return, he stopped Strelkov commenting on the war.
By the end of November, his Telegram channel was completely silent.
war economy
Meanwhile, in its efforts to give the military greater influence in Russian society, the Kremlin has taken major steps to mobilize the economy to serve the military campaign.
On October 19, Putin established the Coordinating Council for Meeting the Needs of the Russian Armed Forces, a body tasked with regulating the activities of federal and local authorities, as well as "health care, industry, construction, transport, and other sectors" in support of the war in Ukraine.
Behind the agency's bureaucratic name lies a clear objective: to oblige all federal ministries and provincial governments to make the provision of supplies to the army, including military equipment and other resources, a priority.
And in June 2022, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, a hardliner who was trained to be an economist, explained what this “economic mobilization” would look like, as Russian society would focus on “certain goals.”
The private sector will be required to achieve these goals.
Most importantly, he says, a body of political elite will be formed to restructure the economy for this purpose.
Andrei Belousov, First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia (Reuters)
The Kremlin did not start implementing these proposals until July.
Under a law adopted by the Russian parliament, the government was given broad powers over the war economy, including the power to apply "special economic measures" to adjust the production of private firms to the needs of the war.
As a result, private companies can now be required to fulfill military contracts on demand, and their employees must work overtime to meet target production.
It appears that the impact of these measures will increase in the coming months. At the end of November, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the government plans to increase military purchases by 50 percent in the new year.
No wonder the business sector has not fully welcomed the law.
In theory, this could help companies by awarding them lucrative military contracts.
In practice, the law increased the growing influence of the Ministry of Defense over civilian life.
Even without the full militarization of the economy, the mobilization of 300,000 Russian men had far-reaching repercussions for the private sector.
Consider, for example, the acute shortage in Russia of information technology specialists, many of whom have gone into exile since the beginning of the war.
Fearing a brain drain, the Ministry of Digital Development and the Russian Central Bank announced in September that employees of accredited information technology companies, telecommunications companies and banks may be eligible to defer recruitment as part of the mobilization.
However, those promises of deferment seem very flimsy, despite the qualification of an IT specialist at Raiffeisen Bank.
The Kremlin may have put the broader civilian mobilization plan on hold for a while, but there are already widespread ramifications from the call-up of hundreds of thousands of men, along with new laws that give the military power over local industries. The generals now have the final say on the economy and can mobilize Any number of employees in any company, what makes them stronger than ever.
In addition to silencing critics of the military establishment and regaining power over war narratives, these steps have given the Kremlin effective ways to unify its ranks. Putin's loss on the battlefield does not necessarily mean that he is losing his power at home.
If anything important is happening now, it is that the final stages of the conflict have allowed the Kremlin to deepen its influence over public opinion and the civilian economy.
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* Translator notes
Translation: Hadeer Abdel Azim
This report is translated from Foreign Affairs and does not necessarily reflect Meydan's website.