A key sign is that Vladimir Putin has been rocked by Ukraine’s surprise incursion across the Russian border into Kursk, says a longtime correspondent in Russia.
In an article for the Times, veteran journalist Nataliya Vasilyeva said the 71-year-old Kremlin leader tended to spontaneously meet and greet his supporters when he “desperately” needed political validation.
Putin, a former KGB officer, is portrayed as a lonely and reluctant politician, rarely coming into contact with the Russian public unless under heavy internal pressure.
Ms. Vasilyeva noted a typical habit in reaction to primary issues in the past, where Putin would come out of the marquee to meet with Russian citizens.
He pointed to Putin’s choreographed reaction after former Wagner military corporation chief Eugen Prigozhin staged a failed coup that shook Moscow on June 23, 2023.
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Despite the strict Covid protocols Putin reportedly enforced at the time, four days later he gave the impression of taking a public stroll in the remote Caucasus region of southern Russia, posing for selfies and kissing a young woman.
In one scene, Putin stopped his motorcade in the middle of the small town of Torzhok, northwest of Moscow, to meet a crowd of supporters at a strategic location. Four days later, armed terrorists launched a wave of massacres at a concert hall in the capital, killing another 145 people on March 22.
Vasilyeva said Putin’s departure from Moscow on Tuesday was a similar attempt to reassert his control, after Ukrainian troops launched a lightning raid into the Kursk region, taking control of about 500 square miles of territory, according to the commander. in head of Ukraine, Oleksandr. Syrsky. .
Vasilyeva recommended that their public outings should be worth trying to recommend that nothing ordinary happen and that they be located in carefully selected places.
He noted that Putin never filmed the attack on the concert hall or met with survivors and families of the victims, and made little reference to Kursk’s incursion into Ukraine, describing it as a “situation. “
It has not yet commented on the attack on the country, despite reports that some 200,000 more people have had to be evacuated from Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions.
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Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said the raid was carried out to create a permanent buffer zone and prevent further attacks by Vladimir Putin’s army across the border. It is believed that the attack was also aimed at diverting Russian troops from the front lines in Donetsk, where they continue to carry out operations. substantial profits.
Russian presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov said Moscow is not in a position to conduct peace negotiations with Ukraine at this time, given kyiv’s attack on Kursk, while Ukraine demanded the complete withdrawal of Putin’s army from its territory. before starting negotiations.
Moscow said this week that a third bridge was hit and broken by Ukrainian forces over the Seïm River that runs through the Kursk region, believed to be an attempt to save Russia from reaching and resupplying occupied troops in the territories.
Meanwhile, as Moscow recovers from the Kursk attack and a Ukrainian drone attack on the capital this week, the Russian military said it had captured the city of Niu-York in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
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