With Kursk, Putin’s Orwellian Newspeak has Become ‘Not Just Inadequate but Dangerous,’ Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 13 – When Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he insisted that it wasn’t a war but a special military operation, Vladislav Inozemtsev says; and his government has insisted on that by punishing those who use the word “war.” But now the Ukrainian actions in Kursk have made that approach “not just inadequate but dangerous.”

            But its seizure of portions of Kursk Oblast, Ukraine is the first country to occupy a portion of Russia since Germany did so more than a half a century ago and the first country ever to occupy a portion of the territory of a nuclear power, the Russian economist and commentator points out (moscowtimes.ru/2024/08/13/slovo-i-delo-ili-pora-nazvat-voinu-voinoi-a139356).

            Before Ukraine made this move, Moscow could get away with its newspeak, however much it hid the reality that it was engaged in a war with Ukraine, Inozemtsev argues; but now with the Ukrainian move in Kursk, Moscow can’t as is becoming obvious as the Kremlin struggles to come up with terminology to describe what is happening there.

            Putin and his team are struggling to avoid declaring that Russia is now at war because that would require mobilization, affect the entire population, and raise questions about the possible use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal against an aggressor, especially one capable of seizing Russian territory.

            “At some point,” Inozemtsev continues, Putin “will have to admit that all this is not ‘a special military operation’ … but a full-scale conflict with all the twists and turns and surprises that are to be expected … After al, it is even strange to demand the defense ministry and General Staff prepare an action plan if the Supreme commander continues to claim there is no war.”

            The commentator poses the fateful question: “How long can Ukraine keep Russian territories under its control and are new attacks possible in order to ease pressure in Donbass and ‘force Russia to peace?’” No one should underestimate Ukraine’s ability to do so given that it has “demonstrated much greater tactical flexibility and skills” than the Russian side.

“The most realistic scenario would seem to be the gradual spread of hostilities along the entire line of the Russian-Ukrainian border with the increasingly demonstrative neutrality of Belarus, which is unlikely to want to again act as a Russian bridgehead, which it once became in 2022,” Inozemtsev says.

Because that is the case, “the Kremlin will ultimately have to reconsider its strategy of refusing to accept reality: its war will turn out to be a war that will be felt not only by the several hundred thousand of those mobilized but by the overwhelming majority of the Russian Federation’s population.”

“Whether this will be a blow to the Putin regime or on the contrary strengthen it even more” remains to be seen. But the answer to that question and perhaps many others about his future and Russia’s is likely to come quite soon.