Putin’s backers may get impatient with his tardy response to Kursk offensive

This week a year ago, President Vladimir Putin walked onto a stage in the Kursk region to mark the 80th anniversary of one of the most proud moments in the Soviet army’s wartime history.

Addressing a rapt audience that included soldiers fresh from fighting in Ukraine, Putin called the decisive victory in the Battle of Kursk “one of the great feats of our people.”

Now, as Russia prepares to celebrate the 81st anniversary of that 1943 battle on Friday, Kursk is again in the news — but for a very different reason.
On Aug. 6, Ukrainian forces made a lightning push into the region, seizing villages, taking hundreds of prisoners and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians. Russia was caught unprepared by the offensive and reportedly is drafting conscripts to repel some of Ukraine’s most battle-hardened units.

Putin has a history of responding slowly to various crises in his tenure, and he has so far played down the attack. But 2 1/2 years after launching a war in Ukraine to remove what he called a threat to Russia, it is his own country that seems more turbulent.

He appeared uneasy at an Aug. 12 televised meeting of security heads about Kursk, cutting off the acting regional governor who had started listing the settlements seized by Ukraine. The president and his officials referred to “the events in the Kursk region” as a “situation,” or “provocation.”
State media fell into line, showing evacuees queueing for aid or donating blood, as if the events in Kursk were a humanitarian disaster and not the largest attack on Russia since World War II.

In his 24 years in power, Putin has portrayed himself as the only person who can guarantee Russia’s security and stability, but that image has suffered since the war began.

Russian cities repeatedly have come under shelling and drone attacks — including dozens of drones reported downed Wednesday. Mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin launched a brief uprising last year to try to oust his military leaders. Gunmen stormed a Moscow concert hall and killed 145 people in March.
The Kremlin has given tacit approval to a wide-ranging purge of Defense Ministry officials, with many facing corruption charges. Lower-level officers also are being arrested on fraud charges, including Lt. Col. Konstantin Frolov, a decorated airborne brigade commander. “I would rather be in Kursk … than here,” he said while being marched in handcuffs into a Moscow police station.