Putin Faces Growing Dissent From Allies Over Lack of Kursk Response

A Russian MP has questioned official accounts of Ukraine's incursion into Kursk, echoing concerns by Kremlin propagandists about Moscow's response to Kyiv's push into Russian territory that started a month ago.

Nationalist politician Yevgeny Fedorov, who is coordinator of Russia's National Liberation Movement, which champions the territorial integrity of the state, criticized the official narrative from Moscow, which has downplayed Ukraine's incursion.

Fedorov added how there was no mention of NATO troops being thrown out of Kursk, repeating Moscow's rhetoric claiming the bloc's involvement in the push. However, NATO said it had no warning and played no role in the first breach and capture of Russian territory since World War II.

Putin has so far played down the incursion, initially calling the operation a "large-scale provocation" and not considering the capture of 500 square miles, according to Kyiv's claims. It was, however, enough of a threat to pull troops from Ukraine's Donetsk region, where Russia's forces are making gains toward the hub of Pokrovsk.

"The (Kursk) governor announced that 10 more villages have been evacuated. If there is no offensive, why evacuate the villages?" Fedorov said in the clip posted by Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko.

Fedorov said that the Kursk city of Kurchatov, around 70 miles from the Ukraine border, was closed. "It means that fighting is moving toward Kurchatov," he added. "Enemy troops are already moving seriously and effectively enough."

Fedorov took aim at "official propaganda" in the days after the Kursk incursion, which tried to portray that it was the "last dash from the grave" from Ukraine's forces.

"That's ridiculous," said Fedorov, who is also chairman of the Russian parliament's economic policy committee. "Tens of millions of people were somehow convinced of this." Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment.

The incursion has seemingly left Kremlin advocates struggling to respond to the biggest challenge faced by Putin since the June 2023 march on Moscow by the Wagner Group of mercenaries, led by its late leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Vitaly Tretyakov, a frequent pundit on the program 60 Minutes, said last week that the question Russian citizens were asking the most was, "What is happening in Kursk oblast?" "People just can't understand why we still don't know who will be held accountable for this," he said in a clip shared by Russia watcher Julia Davis.

"Along with what's happening in Kursk, we observe the greatness of American weapons," filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov said on Evening With Vladimir Solovyov.

"As the Wagner rebellion case highlighted, the real source of danger for the Kremlin lies not in popular discontent—but in discontent among fringes of the elite itself," Nicolò Fasola, author of Reinterpreting Russia's Strategic Culture: The Russian Way of War, told Newsweek.

"In particular, the right-wing fringes, which complain Putin is being too 'soft' in the war against Ukraine," Fasola said, adding that, unless Ukraine manages to penetrate further into Russia's territory, "I would not expect any major upheaval striking the Russian elite."

"It is frequently noted in the West that Moscow has framed the Ukraine incursion as a 'terrorist operation,'" said Fasola, research fellow at the University of Bologna, Italy. "This framing allows to downplay the severity of the event, while helping the Kremlin to avoid calling for a general mobilization in defense of the motherland.

"It is worth remembering that the phrase 'terrorist operation' is not new—the Kremlin has not invented it now, just to hide the truth of the Ukrainian incursion," Fasola added, noting that most Russian military exercises are called "counterterrorist operations."

Meanwhile, the U.S. independent think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Tuesday that the incursion has likely not yet shifted Putin's strategic-level thinking that Moscow can "slowly and indefinitely subsume" Ukraine through grinding advances.

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