But inside the country, fatigue and resentment are festering beneath the suppression of dissent. “If Russia doesn’t change how it works with young people, it faces a dead end,” he said. A former senior Kremlin official told the Post that he was “very worried” about the “dark picture inside Russia”. Despite the suffering and mass destruction taking place just across the border, Belgorod regards itself as the main victim of this war. The city illustrates the widening gap in Russian society between the indifferent, metropolitan majority and the “warring” few.

Source: New Zealand Herald December 31, 2025 17:37 UTC