Kremlin Ignores Third Anniversary of Putin’s Expanded War in Ukraine and For Good Reasons, Russian Analysts Say

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 24 – Anyone reading the Western press or what is left of its Russian counterpart this week will have been struck by the attention given to the third anniversary of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, but the silence of the Kremlin on this occasion is perhaps more significant, three Russian analysts say.
    Unlike in 2023 and 2024, the Kremlin propagandists have not sought to use the anniversary of the expanded war or “special military operation” as Putin and his minions call it as the occasion for talking about the war and even organizing events concerning it (cherta.media/story/godovshhina-vojny/).
    As three Russian analysts point out, the Kremlin has from its own point of view compelling reasons not to play up this anniversary – and is unlikely to change that even after the war ends unless Moscow gains an overwhelming victory or anti-Putin democrats come to power and mark this date as a day of national shame.
    Mikhail Komin, a Russian political scientist now at the Center for the Analysis of European Policy, says there is “nothing surprising” in Moscow’s silence. “The beginning of any war is not often marked at the state level” unless it involves sorry and regret. The Kremlin doesn’t feel that way about February 2022 and so isn’t going to mark it.
    Margarita Zavadskaya, a Russian scholar at the Finnish Institute of International Relations, says that Russians view this date “more with the start of uncertainty than with the beginning of geopolitical success.” And even Kremlin loyalists don’t agree that “the war has gone according to plan.” Consequently, its better not to talk about its beginning.
    And Andrey Pertsev, a Russian commentator, argues that the Kremlin, which has sought to downplay the impact of the war on Russians at home has no reason to highlight the conflict by playing up the anniversary. From the center’s perspective, it is better if no one talks about it at all.
    That could change after the end of the war but just how depends on the outcome, the three agree. If Moscow wins a great triumph, the Kremlin will probably recall the start of the war but far less than its end; if the Putin regime loses and is succeeded by democrats, February 22 may be remembered more prominently but as a day of national shame rather than anything else.
    This year, those in Russia who did mark the anniversary consisted almost exclusively of those who are against the war and against the Putin regime, hardly those the Kremlin would like to see grow as might happe if it made more of this date (nemoskva.net/2025/02/24/v-rossii-prohodyat-pikety-i-poyavlyayutsya-stihijnye-memorialy-v-godovshhinu-vojny/).