Vladimir Putin has spent four years trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep the consequences of his invasion of Ukraine away from normal Russians. But increasingly, his war is coming home.
Ukraine has ramped up its campaign of long-range strikes inside Russia, launching three times as many in July as it did in January. With Russians due to vote in parliamentary elections in just over a month, Kyiv is intensifying its attacks just as Putin most needs to demonstrate political grip.
While he can pretty much decide election results, he can’t control what happens between now and polling day. And even if Ukraine’s campaign of strikes won’t force a change in geopolitical course, they further erode the self-promoted but brittle veneer of domestic stability in the eyes of many Russians.
Deep strikes by Ukraine are growing in scale and complexity. In the last week alone, It hit two grain export facilities and a naval base on the Black Sea, oil refineries in western Russia, and petrochemical and other facilities in Siberia more than 1,500 miles east of Moscow. It has said that domestically produced weapons with greater payloads are on the way.
It also continues to pummel Wildberries warehouses, claiming they have been used for military purposes. Around 20 of the e-commerce giant’s sites have been hit over the last month.
Ukraine is systematically attacking Russia’s weapons production, oil and gas infrastructure, economic targets, military sites, supply routes, shipping, and air defences. These strikes seek to degrade its ability to supply and sustain its forces, while driving up costs in an already fragile economy.
The strikes are having a tangible impact on Russians, who are experiencing fuel shortages and higher prices. With much of Russian cargo transported by road, including from China, higher trucking costs are adding to wider pressures on inflation.
Putin’s personal approval rating is now at its lowest level since 2022, according to a Kremlin-affiliated pollster. Economic pessimism is at its highest in 20 years.
The Wildberries logistics hub in Russia’s Ryazan region after a Ukrainian drone attack in July (Photo: Ukraine Online Telegram/Getty)The significance of the strikes goes beyond the economic. The Wildberries attacks disrupted a company central to the convenience consumer culture that has become a staple of urban Russian life. Ukraine is thus attacking both the sinews of Putin’s war and also some of those social benefits that have underpinned his domestic bargain.
None of this is likely to affect the outcome of September’s election. Putin’s party is obviously going to win. Nor is the economic pain likely to translate into mass protests. But even tightly controlled, predetermined elections matter in a police state.
The upcoming elections are a way for the Kremlin to legitimise Putin as leader, to allow expressions of fealty to him from the elite, and to assess real public sentiment. Ukraine knows this, and is making Putin look weak just when he needs to appear strong.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian attacks are already forcing the Russian President’s hand. Stung by rising plumes of smoke, he has redeployed scarce air-defence systems to Moscow and St Petersburg. And while publicly he continues to display confidence in the progress of his war, it is notable that he has now visited six cities in less than three weeks.
This is perhaps an effort to boost his flagging poll ratings by showing a leader engaged in public issues. He has also posed in naval uniform in the Far East to bolster his credentials as commander-in-chief.
Putin on board missile cruiser Varyag as he observes a military drill of the Pacific fleet near Russia’s far eastern Sakhalin region this week (Photo: Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via Reuters)On Monday, the Kremlin moved swiftly to ban a small opposition party, Yabloko, to avoid it becoming a lightning rod for anti-war sentiment. Another opposition politician, Boris Nadezhdin, was threatened and fled into exile.
At the same time, Russia continues to crack down on domestic internet access and the country has escalated its own strikes against Ukrainian cities.
None of these measures address Russia’s underlying vulnerability to Ukrainian strikes and Ukraine continues to choose where and when to impose costs on Russia’s civilian population.
Prioritising expensive repairs to refineries or warehouses risks diverting scarce resources from elsewhere. But meekly accepting attacks risks Putin’s reputation in front of his elite and the wider Russian population. Both pose a significant political dilemma.
Ukrainian drones and missiles won’t force Putin to seek peace – nor change the results of the elections. But they do set the conditions within which they are held. Shortages, higher prices and evidence of physical destruction will continue to make life more difficult and expensive for Russians, and Putin ever more uncomfortable.
Russia’s President only needs to look at what is happening in the US, with Donald Trump struggling to appease voters angry about the impact of his war with Iran on their daily lives.
Putin may control September’s ballot, but he cannot control the daily reality Russians see around them. Beyond the physical damage of its attacks, it is political pain that Ukraine is seeking to inflict.
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