Russian propagandists are having a hard time putting any sort of positive spin on the latest news. And now, support for Putin seems to be on the decline. it will be interesting to see what happens when the magnitude of these losses become known to ordinary Russians.
Long, and the whole article is worth a read. here's a part of it:
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... Whether more “psychological blows” in Ukraine will significantly damage Putin’s standing is, of course, the big question of this conflict. Even before the Ukrainian offensive scored its stunning victories, two small-scale and doomed but nonetheless remarkable challenges to Putin were reported from within Russian political structures.
On September 7, a group of municipal representatives in the Smolny district of St. Petersburg sent an official letter to the Duma asking it to initiate treason charges against Putin and remove him from office. The letter noted that, as a result of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, “combat-ready divisions of the Russian army are being destroyed . . . and young, working-age citizens are being killed or left disabled”; “the Russian economy is suffering” because of sanctions and the brain drain; “the NATO bloc is expanding eastward”; and instead of demilitarizing, Ukraine was receiving new armaments.
So far, the only response has been to charge the five deputies who voted to approve the letter with discrediting the Russian armed forces—for now, as a civil violation with a maximum fine of 50,000 rubles ($823) for first-time offenders; subsequent offenses could lead to criminal prosecution and prison terms.
Nonetheless, members of another urban municipal council—this one in the Lomonosovsky district in Moscow—followed suit the next day: they approved an appeal to Putin demanding his resignation. While the Moscow deputies’ appeal was less confrontational than that of their St. Petersburg colleagues—they did not mention treason and praised Putin’s early policies—their conclusions were still uncompromising:
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Studies show that in countries with regular transfers of power people generally live better and longer than in countries in which the leader only leaves office feet first. … The rhetoric you and your subordinates use has long been saturated with intolerance and aggression, which had ultimately thrown our country back into the Cold War era. Russia is once again feared and hated, and we are once again threatening the whole world with nuclear weapons.
In consideration of the above, we ask you to vacate your post due to the fact that your views and your model of governance are hopelessly outdated and hinder the development of Russia and its human potential.
Both municipal councils apparently have a reputation for rebelliousness, which has been somewhat tolerated in Putin’s Russia on the local level; thus it is hard to tell whether their defiance will nudge other political bodies to speak out. That may depend on how many more “sensitive psychological blows” Russia will be dealt, both on the battlefields of Ukraine and in the domestic sphere where Russia’s industries are starting to feel the bite of sanctions. If the scope of the military losses becomes clear within Russia, the monstrosity of Putin’s declaration that “we haven’t lost anything”—and his claim that the war has only strengthened Russia’s sovereignty—will be much harder to deny....
