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The Russian president avoids commenting on Ukrainian strikes on the capital and focuses on the advance of Russian forces in Donbas, reiterating that Moscow's objectives will be achieved on the battlefield.
Vladimir Putin should never be associated with any kind of failure. He should not comment on them or talk about them. These are the rules laid down by Gleb Pavlovsky, the dissident turned “political technologist” who at the turn of the new century helped shape the image and mindset of the new Russian president, only to bitterly regret his role later.
It is for this reason that in 2000 Putin postponed a visit to the site of the Kursk submarine disaster, where 118 Russian sailors died in the Barents Sea, for as long as possible. Similarly, in 2024 he did not appear at the concert hall in Moscow where Islamic terrorists had killed about 150 people. It is a principle to which Putin continues to remain faithful. “He has few ideas, but he follows them to the end,” his former guru told us in one of our last conversations, before she passed away in January 2023.
For this reason, he also refused yesterday to comment on the Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian capital, widely reported by the international media and which have convinced part of the public opinion that the tide of the war may be turning in Kiev's favor. He made only a brief reference to it during a conversation with journalists after a meeting with military school graduates, held in the Kremlin. However, what he said was significant.
"Those at the front know it very well: our guys are putting pressure on the enemy along the entire line of contact.
There is no sector where the opposite happens. These drones, these attacks on civilian infrastructure, what do they serve? Only to destabilize our society, to exert psychological influence and to create a sense of uncertainty regarding the actions of our Armed Forces. That is why they are trying to divert attention from what is happening at the front. But there our soldiers are attacking every day, every day. And we will get where we need to get,” he declared.
Putin trusts only those he considers experts on the ground, people who, according to him, “know the situation.” In recent months, even the few Russian media outlets that retain some independence have acknowledged that the president spends most of his time in the company of senior General Staff officials, who constantly brief him on developments on the front lines and present him with reports that seem to reassure him.
For now, the trenches of Donbas are the only thing that matters to him. There doesn't seem to be anything else on the horizon.
The only city he mentioned during his speech to the young officers was not Moscow or St. Petersburg, but Kostiantynivka in Donbas, where Russian infantry is making progress, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and some more reliable sources, such as the BBC. However, in a conflict where propaganda is present on both sides, it remains difficult to accurately determine the real situation on the ground.
"We are taking the city under control. Although there are still people hiding in basements and continuing to shoot," Putin said. According to him, this is why Kiev continues to describe the situation as a "gray zone."
The war will continue. Anyone hoping that the Ukrainian drone strikes will have a deterrent effect or push Moscow towards a more moderate approach is likely to be disappointed. The Russian president is confident that he can deliver on the ground what Donald Trump promised him in Anchorage, without first hearing Kiev's position on the possibility of giving up the territories still controlled by Ukraine.
He made this clear yesterday, reiterating that a political-diplomatic solution to the conflict would be preferable, but that, in his opinion, the West, and especially Europe, is obstructing it by aiming to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Consequently, the Kremlin argues, the only way left is to achieve objectives on the battlefield.
"Russia is ready for peace negotiations on the basis of the agreements reached in Istanbul in 2022, the modalities discussed in Anchorage and, above all, the reality on the ground, as well as the principles that I presented several years ago during a speech at the Foreign Ministry," he said.
In short, Putin continues to pursue almost all of his original objectives, presenting them as part of the negotiations.
Us against everyone
It is not just the context of the war that prompts him to speak as commander-in-chief. This is a role he has long built for himself: Russia against everyone, not just Ukraine.
"In the West, there is open talk of preparing for war against us, through increasing military budgets," said the man who has increasingly oriented the Russian economy towards the needs of war.
"The strategy of the so-called pseudo-democratic West is simple: first they create threats to our country, force us to take the necessary measures for self-defense and protection of our interests, and then they accuse us of everything, to justify the continuation of their aggressive actions against Russia. But we are ready to respond."
It's the same ideas and the same Putin. The dissatisfaction reported in some elite circles about the length of the war and the damage caused by Ukrainian drone attacks, a topic often amplified in Western analysis, remains for him only a distant background noise.
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