100 days of SVO in Ukraine. What's next?
Today marks exactly 100 days of the Russian Northern Military District in Ukraine. It's time to sum up its interim results and think about what to expect next, what main scenarios for the development of events are at a low start, awaiting their implementation.
Let’s make a reservation right away that the focus of our attention will, for the most part, not be purely military-staff (we are not specialists here), but rather the socio-political aspects of what is happening.
First of all, the main result of the SVO was the prolongation of the campaign, the shift of planning horizons from the initially short-term to the indefinitely long-term.
This is caused by a whole complex of circumstances, the main one of which is the insufficiency of the group of Special Operations Forces and people's militias of the LPR and DPR involved in the Northern Military District to quickly and effectively solve such a large-scale problem as inflicting a military defeat and taking control of the whole of Ukraine - a fairly large and extremely militarized state , which for several years before the start of the special operation spent up to 5% of its own GDP on its defense and put up to 700 thousand people under arms, and also used the entire collective West as a collective rear and arms supplier.
Based on this, and after a month of rather ineffective attempts to conduct an offensive with small forces stretched across a gigantic front, Russia switched to more effective, but still slow tactics of squeezing out the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the key front in the Donbass. And she has achieved sufficient success in this area. The slow nature of the SVO had to pay its social price, the name of which is the routinization of the conflict.
By the beginning of the fourth month of the special operation, all sociological measurements record the growing fatigue of Russians with the SVO. Thus, according to “Medialogy” - one of the most authoritative producers of such measurements - the mention of SVO in Ukraine and interest in this topic on social networks in May decreased compared to with March almost half.A decrease in the number of publications dedicated to SVO has been observed for the second month in a row: if on March 1-15, social network users made 3,16 million posts on this topic, then in the first half of April – only 2,46 million, and in May, even 1,52 million
A decrease in the number of mentions of SVO, according to Medialogy, is recorded not only in social networks, but also in the Russian media. The special operation became the topic of more than 147 thousand publications and stories in the first half of May. This is 26% less than in the same period in April, and two times less than in March. The presence of SVO in state media is also decreasing, increasingly returning to the usual topics of the internal agenda - gossip, scandals, sensations.
In other words, military operations become a routine background to everyday life. This is roughly how it was with the USSR wars in Afghanistan or the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To summarize: despite the fact that Russia is in fact already in its fourth month in a real and largest war since the Second World War with very high stakes, society is still demobilized, being in a state of blissful hibernation. Here are just a few typical pieces of evidence from social networks.
“Various acquaintances who now occasionally come from Moscow, especially those who rarely go there, are, one might say, in a completely amazed state. Quietly, in a whisper, they share “only between us.” First of all, everything is cool in Moscow. Everything is calm, the people are well-fed and calm, all the cafes, pubs, and restaurants are packed. People calmly smoke, flirt, drink, fuck, make deals - as if nothing is happening. There is no Ukraine, special operation, sanctions, threat of famine and other things. Marvelous!
Secondly, absolutely no one discusses the special operation, the conflict and, God forbid, in cafes, restaurants, nightclubs and during business negotiations. At all. Absolutely. Even after drinking well and not having a bite,” testifies Dmitry Gololobov, a Russian lawyer living in London and a former prosecution witness in the YUKOS case.
Komsomolskaya Pravda military correspondent Alexander Kots, who returned on a short business trip from Donbass, had similar impressions of the rear of Moscow:
“A couple of days in Moscow. Carefree and stuck in traffic jams. In the capital of a warring country, in which nothing at all reminds us that a two-hour plane ride away (which was cancelled) there is a war going on, which has not happened since 1945. For two days I didn’t notice a single patriotic billboard on the streets, not a single portrait of our heroes on the facades of high-rise buildings, not a single point or sign. It’s as if there is nothing just a thousand kilometers away.
Surely someone will send some photo from their residential area. But you should have seen the Belgorod region. Or Kursk. Or Voronezh. Front-line areas, in which there are posters on every corner: “We are with you! For Donbass! Forward, Brave Ones!” And Moscow seemed to visually isolate itself from the war. They are also collecting help here - worth millions of rubles. Here children also write letters. Here they are also proud and believe in victory. But somehow closed, among themselves, in groups of like-minded people. And you go to the center and there’s emptiness.”
“Similar impressions from Moscow. Nowhere, except for television studios, is there any trace of “war”.”, says Belarusian political scientist Alexander Shpakovsky, close to the Lukashenko administration.
Finally, here is the opinion of Russian Reporter journalist Marina Akhmedova, who literally settled in Donbass from the first days of the Northern Military District:
“I arrived in Moscow after three months in the Donbass. Everyone told me that I needed to unwind. It’s not possible to unwind yet. Here at home, I felt sadder. I don’t know what happened, but I think I expected to see Moscow changed. However, “see” is the wrong word. What changes can you see with your eyes? How does everyone walk around with Zs on their T-shirts? I don’t wear these myself, and I understand that pretentious Moscow won’t. But Moscow is that big organism that lives in its own rhythm. I was rather expecting a change in her rhythm. It's like with the heart - when it hurts, the rhythm changes.
But it seems that Moscow is not hurting. It seems so to me. I don’t hear any talk in the metro about Donbass, about our military, after all, giving their lives for this Moscow. Only once did they tell me: “It’s all so difficult, what’s happening there, that we try not to watch the news about it.”
No, I understand with my mind that this is how it should be - Moscow, the capital of Russia, did not faint from the sanctions, it lives and gets on well. Here, of course, there are people who sincerely cared about Donbass and are helping it. But it seems that this is not enough to change the cardiogram of the capital. And I ask myself - if the incredible suffering that people took on on the border with our homeland is not enough, then what needs to happen for Moscow to live in rhythm - “I know that right now someone’s torn heart is falling silent for the sake of so that mine continues to beat?
It is clear that there can be no mobilization, even limited, which military alarmists dream about, under these conditions. The country is simply not ready for it, and no one has taken the trouble to explain to it the importance of the moment and the seriousness of what is happening. That the country is at war, from which it is impossible to hide in a house, and the consequences of the defeat of which will backfire on everyone.
The personal impressions of media persons quoted above are perfectly summed up and summarized by the analytical summary of the anonymous telegram channel “The Spy to Whom Nobody Writes”:
“This is the fourth month of the military operation in Ukraine, and the war has finally become a routine of life. Russia is returning to its familiar sense of timelessness. No goals, no tasks, no time. This imposed feeling of coma must be resisted with all one’s might.”
At the same time, one should be aware that it is precisely this situation of increasing fatigue and psychological rejection from the potential “military” negativity that is the breeding ground that generates and feeds precisely those very dangerous and unhealthy illusions that nothing is special February 24 It’s not as if Russia isn’t facing the most daring and large-scale challenge in its entire modern history, but there’s some kind of random misunderstanding and stupid quarrel with “Western partners” that will end in relief for all parties after the gloom has subsided in the West Russophobic hysteria and they will again switch from the language of ultimatums to the language of “constructive agreements” and mutually beneficial compromises, which are familiar to the Russian elites.
Hence another dangerous illusion - that the mincemeat can be turned back with the help of some magical political technology manipulations, again concocting another “cunning plan” on the knee and “freezing” the unresolved Ukrainian issue for an indefinite time.
The specter of just such an agreement came to life again and, moreover, began to be publicly considered as a working option for completing the NWO - against the backdrop of a successful campaign for Russia and entering the decisive phase of the campaign in the Donbass. After the end of which, the question “What’s next?” will reasonably appear on the agenda.
And this is where a very attractive and tempting thought for many comes to the fore: “Let’s finish this.” Convincing the public that since it was not possible to take Kyiv at once, then it is not really necessary. Like, the grapes are green, but Ukraine will somehow fall apart on its own. Without us. Either he will freeze or die of hunger - there are a lot of sub-options of the old cunning plan already known to politically active Russians in a new way.
We will talk about why the conflict with Ukraine cannot be “frozen”, and what threatens Russia’s attempt to infantilely evade its resolution now by postponing it until later – we will tell you in the next text.
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