Vladimir Putin's troubles mount as Ukraine war invades Russia

It has not even been a week since Putin announced a 'partial mobilisation' of reservists to bolster his faltering war effort in eastern and southern Ukraine. This opened the eyes of Russians to a war that suddenly entered their living rooms. Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons too failed to have the desired effect, considering the West has refused to blink at the elephant that has long been in the room.
A quick and painless invasion that has turned into a quagmire in Ukraine seems to be the smaller of troubles right now for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He now faces the anger of the Russian people who no longer have the choice of ignoring Putin's war. While men in the Russian heartland head for whatever border is open to avoid being drafted, protests have already broken out in the hinterland over the alleged disproportionate drafting of minorities.
It has not even been a week since Putin announced a 'partial mobilisation' of reservists to bolster his faltering war effort in eastern and southern Ukraine. This opened the eyes of Russians to a war that suddenly entered their living rooms. In that same speech, Putin also threatened to use nuclear weapons. This too failed to have the desired effect, considering the West has refused to blink at the elephant that has long been in the room.
If Putin's presidency can be read in the analogy of the sea, it is a ship that is having trouble with its rudder and rushing headlong into rocky waters in the middle of a massive storm.
All this comes after the Ukrainian counteroffensive that has managed to recapture more land from Russia than Moscow gained since the start of the invasion. Ukrainian success has necessarily come either at the cost of more Russians in body bags or thanks to Russian troop pullbacks, which can only further sap already low morale.
The invasion began with a reliance on Russian regular troops, went into a phase of rising mercenary participation and now seems to have entered a phase of throwing reserves and past servicemen into the mix, presumably as cannon fodder.
The reaction to Putin's 'partial mobilisation' is clear: Russians want no part of the war. Thousands of arrests have already been made of protestors against the war. Able-bodied men are spending huge sums to fly to whatever destination outside Russia that they can manage to get a ticket to. And those who cannot afford this are running to whatever land borders are still open to Russia, alone or with loved ones. And this is just the western part of the country, where the majority of the population lives.
In other regions of the country - like Dagestan and Buryatia - protests have broken out over the perceived actions of officials to draft more minorities than ethnic Russians. In other parts, protestors have lashed out against sending drafted men in with little training or even equipment.
The immediate backlash suggests that Russians have known all along that the war is not going in their country's favour, but have chosen to ignore it to avoid trouble with the authorities. Now that Putin has come for them, they do not want to risk losing life or limb for the objective that they see as Putin's alone.
It now remains to be seen if political opposition to Putin rises out of the discontent voiced in the growing protests.
Putin's repeated misfires
Putin's threat (again) to use nuclear weapons sparked furious debate in the West (again) about whether he meant it. But the threat has not convinced any official movement of policy in Western capitals. Clearly, crying wolf becomes a stale act soon and stops working.
The lack of any significant official reaction to Putin's most recent nuclear threat is merely part of the steady line that the West has held since the Ukraine invasion began. In fact, every step Putin has taken has only helped unify the Western nations in their resolve.
For instance, Putin's tirade against a growing NATO has resulted in two more nations - Finland and Sweden - racing towards membership. His threats and subsequent action to turn off Europe's gas supply have also failed as leverage, instead resulting in governments warning their citizens of a tough winter ahead. His goal of taking advantage of an apparently weak, comedian-President to absorb large parts of Ukraine has turned out to be a colossal miscalculation and instead turned Volodymyr Zelenskyy into a national hero and a unifying figure. All this is but a partial list of things that have not gone to the script Putin had in mind.
Even conservative calculations of support from other countries have now started coming up short. India and China, which have officially refrained from rebuking Russia, seem to be running out of rope. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have reportedly conveyed to Putin that there is little appetite for continued war.
Lists of potential setbacks for Putin have failed many times in the past to materialise into his ouster as President of the Russian Federation. He has repeatedly shown to Russians and to the world that he could get away with it. But this time, with a far greater spread of worries, observers have to see if Russians agree with US President Joe Biden, and say, "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power."
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