Pro-Ukrainian fighters stormed across the border into southwestern Russia this past week, prompting two days of the heaviest fighting on Russian territory in 15 months of war. Yet President Vladimir V. Putin, in public, ignored the matter entirely. ADVERTISEMENTIn managing Russia’s biggest war in generations, Putin increasingly looks like a commander-in-chief in absentia: In public, he says next to nothing about the course of the war and betrays little concern about Russia’s setbacks. “There’s no need for any illusions,” said Natalia Zubarevich, an expert on Russian social and economic development at Moscow State University. Putin, she said, has laid the domestic groundwork to sustain the war for a “long, long, long, long, long” time.

Source: The Telegraph May 28, 2023 00:17 UTC