In Russia, everyone is against everyone, but in the Kremlin, no one is against Putin.

Nothing new at home. FOR fly it was a normal weekend in early autumn. Nice weather. If you haven’t been to the dacha, the little house outside the city where Russians love to grow cucumbers, fruits and potatoes, you might have taken a stroll through the city centre.

Which was not blocked by the police nor invaded by the Dzerzhynsky division, Rosvgvardiya’s rapid intervention unit (Odon), Vladimir Putin’s Praetorians. The news about this, spread on social media by Ukrainian newspapers and profiles that cited Kyiv’s secret services, were false.

If there were ever arrests at the highest levels of the army, they were carried out in secret. Certainly not during the flashy operations typical of hits or counters.

Nobody touches the tsar

“There is no ongoing action against Putin,” he says Fanpage.it Russian political analyst Anton Barbashinthink tank editorial director Puzzle. “Nothing has changed. The president is not criticized at the moment. Not even from the propaganda hawks. Who stigmatize the disastrous course of the war in Ukraine, but blame the defense minister and the generals.”

No indication, at the moment, that a change at the top is being prepared. “Didn’t move ‘successor operation’”, explains the sociologist and political philosopher Greg Yudin, professor at the Moscow School of Economic and Social Sciences (Msses, better known as Shaninka). “It is true that there are infighting among the elites, but I don’t see a radical change that could put the president at risk. In fact, we are fighting to get more favors.”

The lords of war

“It’s about acquiring more shares in the existing market,” explains Barbashin. It is mainly Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhyn who are busy and up the ante. They can pay because they both have a private army: Prigozhyn the Wagner mercenaries and Kadyrov his personal guard, the Kadyrovtsy of the 141st Special Motorized Regiment.

Yes, Putin’s Russia is also that: the tsar’s friends can keep their armies. Those who still delude themselves that the Moscow regime is acceptable would do well to keep that in mind. Both warlords in the tsar’s court hope to put their men at the top of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces to better manage their affairs in the empire, including Ukraine.

Because they remain certain of victory over Kyiv and the perpetuation of the Putin system.

Putin forever

“I understand it’s hard to believe, but in Russia – in the elites and beyond – many regard Putin and his regime as eternal,” Yudin told Fanpage.it. “They cannot imagine a world without Putin. This is why the nuclear threat must be taken very seriously,” is his chilling comment. “A world without Putin would make no sense, many think of the Kremlin and the country.”

Contact with reality is now missing. Those closest to the boss live in a bubble and do not speculate that it will soon burst. They believe the propaganda they have invented: Russia must save the world from the “Satanism” (Vladimir Putin’s definition) of the West, at any cost. Revelation included.

realism and fidelity

Alongside the fanatics, both in the more conservative area and among the technocrats and in the business world, there are also those who keep their feet on the ground and work on their own exit strategies in case the situation deteriorates. They are the only ones who are unclear about how Putin will win this war.

Or, in other words, how he won’t lose it. “Most of the time, however, they don’t want Putin to be replaced by another leader, but rather for him to become more extremist, more decisive and explicit about his plans and intentions,” he explains to Fanpage.it. Tatiana Stanovaya, political scientist and director of the R. Politik think tank, which has sources close to the Russian presidential administration.

“They want to see Putin as the strong man they used to see. But I really don’t think it’s going to lead to a revolt, certainly not against him.” We are preparing for a future, but we expect Putin to last as long as possible and nothing is planned to bring him down. And if he got to Armageddon, it wouldn’t be the end of the road, these realists say unrealistically.

Kerch’s Insult

Meanwhile, Putin’s reaction to the Kerch Bridge mockery is being evaluated. It took him 38 hours to call it a “terrorist attack” and blame Ukraine.

Shortly after, the missiles in Kyiv. What he does again will be a benchmark for those in Moscow who want an even more aggressive commander-in-chief. But it is above all the international community that holds its breath.

In Russia, now, the nuclear dimension is the new reality: it is talked about as if nothing had happened. With us, a little less. According to Anton Barbashin, the retaliation will be harsh but conventional: “Bombing of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, perhaps an acceleration to prepare for a counter-offensive. But the threat of using nuclear weapons is just a bluff, and in this case it will be proven. I believe there will never be a test or even a demo detonation in an uninhabited area.”

Let’s hope the analyst is right. Professor Yudin is more pessimistic: “The danger is real,” he says. And the West warns: “The last thing to do is give in to nuclear blackmail. Otherwise, others could only follow, total war would become inevitable and the world would be doomed.”

An almost normal weekend

In Moscow, on this normal weekend, there were fewer people than usual in the center. Russians try to live as usual, but their mood deteriorates. In restaurants, after partial mobilization proclaimed by Putin, sales fell by 30%. You go out less. Above all, men go out less.

“Today I stopped with a friend at a Shokoladnitsa (chain of cafes active since Soviet times, ed.) on Via Arbat: there was not a single male man, nothing funny”, jokes Marina, 22. Then it gets serious: her brother Ivan received the postcard to go to war , he tells Fanpage.it. But Ivan doesn’t want to fight.

“He didn’t show up. Now he doesn’t know what to do.” Hide? Trying to escape abroad? Leave a wife, a small child, a house and a good job, and so focus on life? “He hopes they’re wrong and that they won’t look for him more”, says Marina. Ivan was never interested in politics. But now “He hates Putin and this war”.

The mobilization causes “anxiety, fear and horror” in almost 50% of Russians, found the independent institute of statistics Levada. Perhaps, if we are to find signs of an imminent end of the regime, we should start looking for them not only in the unrest of elites, but also among ordinary people. Who could get tired of continuing to wait for a normality that the president, with his actions in recent months, has definitively denied. Russian passivity and patience have a limit. When overtaken, uprisings in the world’s greatest country run as fast as Gogol’s troika in February’s snow.