Where is Vladimir Putin? The president does no longer seem when the warfare reaches the gates of Russia

Russians wonder in which their president is after they want him maximum. While drones assault Moscow and enemy raids continue at the border with Ukraine, the top of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, appears absent and targeted completely on the maximum ordinary troubles.

“Why the hell are these drones allowed to reach in Moscow?” Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, asked, echoing the feelings of many Russians.

Putin has not addressed the nation or convened the Security Council in any of the state-of-the-art attacks on Russian territory and has now not even gone to the Belgorod location, with the aid of far the most stricken by the current escalation.

With the 2024 presidential election just across the corner, the president appears extra doubtful and indecisive than ever, in keeping with analysts, looking forward to China to pull it out of the Ukrainian quagmire.

A house on hearth, after an attack within the Russian vicinity of Belgorod, at the border with Ukraine, days in the past. Photo: REUTERS

The superb absentee

The closest the Kremlin leader has come is to phone the mayor of the border town of Shebekino, in which  other civilians were killed on Saturday in shelling by Ukrainian artillery.

The political agenda is apparently set no longer by way of the Kremlin, but with the aid of Prigozhin, military bloggers and figures like Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who seems to stay on his Telegram channel.

Putin admitted this week that anti-aircraft protection needed to be progressed from the capital, but it has never recounted that Russia isn't able to preventing in Ukraine and, on the identical time, protecting its border.

Added to the president’s inaction are the critiques from the residents of Belgorod to public television for not telling the reality about the border raid. Propaganda also fails to calm defeatist spirits.

Many accuse him of faking activity by way of going on tv each day in infinite meetings approximately the state of the financial system, enterprise, transportation, or massive families.

The Russian chief has constantly preferred to reign within the midst of chaos and infighting between the specific clans, but this tactic now not works whilst his usa is embroiled in a warfare in which the attack devices are mercenaries, convicts and the uncontrollable units Chechen specials.

The head of the Russian Wagner mercenary organization, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in the Bakhmut area in May. Photo: AFP

The head of the Russian Wagner mercenary institution, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in the Bakhmut location in May. Photo: AFP

hawks on the prowl

The state of no activity has now not long gone left out through the hawks both. Indeed, the Chechen chief, Ramzán Kadírov, did now not hesitate to demand this week the imposition of martial regulation to prevent border incursions, a regime that already exists inside the four Ukrainian areas occupied via Moscow.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, spoke back that this choice is the prerogative of the pinnacle of nation and that the option is not on the desk.

The trouble is that Prigozhin also supported Kadyrov and referred to as for a second wave of mobilization, which would consist of some 2 million men, of whom 2 hundred,000 ought to be deployed at the border.

“You have to turn the us of a into a navy monster in order that there are extra weapons than in North Korea,” he stated.

Both also support the reinstatement of the demise penaltywhich the Kremlin resists as a very unpopular measure, despite the fact that that punishment is implemented in peacetime in neighboring Belarus.

In turn, experts believe that the open war of words among Prigozhin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu does now not support the president’s power, however rather weakens him in the eyes of the Russians.

Noise of sabers

In one among his already famous sermons on YouTube, Igor Guirkin, alias “Strelkov”, the leader of the armed uprising in the Donbas (2014), predicted that Wagner might big name in the coming months a rebellion that might lead to the overthrow of Putin.

In his opinion, Prigozhin has assist some of the security forces, otherwise he could have already been removed for his rudeness to the Defense Minister.

“A coup try has been declared. If Prigozhin remains Wagner’s boss, the rebellion might be fast and radical,” he stated, recalling that hundreds of Wagnerites are scattered for the duration of the territory of the European a part of Russia.

Prigozhin, who has diagnosed that the Russian navy marketing campaign failed to demilitarize the enemy, started out a countrywide excursion this week known as “Wagner. Second Front” that has already taken him to 4 cities.

Although he denied political aims, ventured that the war could be lengthy and that defeat could mean going returned to the years when, after the autumn of the united states, the West dictated to the Kremlin what it should do.

According to the independent press, the conflict between the exceptional clans for Putin’s throne has already all started. In that no much less bloody contest, whoever is defeated will lose the whole thing.