Putin Can No Longer Hide His Catastrophe

He is such a failure at failing to hide the catastrophe for four years.

Well, Putin promised his people a “three-day” war and assured the Moscow elites they wouldn’t feel a thing. Now, four years later, he is too terrified to drive a single tank through Red Square, and Moscow’s own airports are shutting down due to drone strikes.

He spent years using poor minorities from faraway provinces as cannon fodder to keep the capital oblivious, but you cannot hide a catastrophe forever. The illusion of safety is completely gone, and the war has finally come home to his own doorstep.

If the narrative of a ‘limited operation’ only works as long as your own capital stays untouched, then it was never a stable narrative to begin with

Power crazy mass murder

The Russian dictator has lost control of the narrative.

By [Phillips Payson O’Brien](https://www.theatlantic.com/author/phillips-payson-obrien/)

May 23, 2026, 8:45 AM ET

Regimes that go to war usually work hard to convince their population that the decision to fight was justified and that any sacrifices will be manageable. In this spirit, Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried for more than four years to protect the population of Moscow from the consequences of his invasion of Ukraine. Festivals and other events have gone on much as they did before, and the effects of supply shortages in the capital have been limited. Even though more than 1 million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, the government has apparently avoided enlisting too many from Moscow or St. Petersburg, [preferring](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/01/05/russia-needs-men-to-fight-in-ukraine-in-2026-where-will-they-come-from-a91588) to take its cannon fodder from faraway Russian imperial possessions.

But Putin can no longer lull Muscovites into thinking that his war does not involve them. Earlier this month, the annual parade commemorating the defeat of Germany in World War II was startlingly short and devoid of most of the usual military hardware, because the Russian dictator was terrified of Ukrainian drone attacks. A week later, Ukraine launched hundreds of drones and cruise missiles on the Russian capital. The action, an audacious counterstrike to a mass Russian attack on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities two days earlier, showed that multiple rings of air defense around Moscow have been thoroughly compromised. The narrative that Putin has constructed—about a mere “special military operation” that need not trouble Russia’s elites or middle class—is now unraveling completely. Any pretense that Moscow itself can stay out of the war has vanished.

In armed conflicts between nations, major momentum shifts occur when one of the combatants loses control of events—when its rulers can no longer convincingly tell themselves or their public that their side is on the cusp of victory. Although the 1968 Tet Offensive by North Vietnam and the Vietcong was a military failure, the attacks along the length and breadth of South Vietnam made many Americans conclude that the U.S. effort to prop up the Saigon government was doomed.

A more relevant historical parallel involves Japan during World War II. From the Pearl Harbor attack onward, Japan’s domestic propaganda described the country’s early victories as far more decisive than they were and constantly assured the public that the country was winning its war with the United States. That tone continued even after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, during which American forces halted and began reversing Japan’s territorial advances. In that engagement, Japan lost four large-fleet aircraft carriers; the U.S. lost one.

Despite this major setback, Japanese authorities continued to tell the country’s population that the war was going excellently. They spun outrageous lies, claiming that Japan had sunk two American aircraft carriers at Midway and lost only one of its own. Military leaders went to extreme lengths to conceal the truth, even keeping wounded sailors in isolation for long periods afterward.

In June 1944, however, this charade became impossible to keep up as the United States moved to seize the Mariana Islands—a campaign whose success would put the Japanese homeland within range of the B-29 Superfortress bomber, then the newest American technological bomber. Japan focused its remaining strength on the fight to hold the islands. But it was defeated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea—which came to be known also as the Marianas Turkey Shoot because of the lopsided American success. In the Battle of Saipan, the Battle of Tinian, and the Battle of Guam, the U.S. seized control of the strategically crucial islands. Those victories meant that Tokyo would soon come under direct air assault. The Japanese government had no choice but to speak the truth: The war was not going as well as portrayed and would soon get a lot worse.

All nations face economic and logistical constraints, and even authoritarian systems have their own internal politics. The loss of the Marianas brought down Japan’s militarist prime minister Hideki Tojo and emboldened relative moderates within the country’s elite.

How the news of Ukraine’s growing strength—and Moscow’s exposure to future attacks—will alter public opinion in Russia is difficult to judge, not least because of censorship. To keep the population ignorant, Putin’s government has tightened restrictions on the use of the internet. But in recent days, videos have circulated of Russians expressing shock at their capital’s vulnerability. Russian newspapers have been forced to write stories about Ukrainian capabilities. One even [referred](https://x.com/BBCSteveR/status/2056277131420663850?s=20) to the drone attack as “audacious.”

Ukraine previously struggled to deploy accurate long-range-weapons systems but now appears to have improved its targeting capabilities and production capacity. In the counterstrike on Moscow, Ukrainian systems undeniably hit a range of strategic targets: an electronics-component factory, oil infrastructure, and other facilities. Even Moscow’s main airport shut down for a while because of the attack. Having penetrated Moscow’s defenses once, Ukraine will almost certainly do so again. President Volodymyr Zelensky is [signaling as much](https://kyivindependent.com/following-attack-on-moscow-zelensky-touts-shift-in-the-balance-signals-more-deep-strikes/).

Putler has lost and among all, Ruzzia reputation: 4ever Nazis🤮

I find the conclusions of this article and many commenters here to be deeply mistaken.

As per one of the article’s own sources: https://x.com/BBCSteveR/status/2056277131420663850/mediaviewer

Russians see these attacks as a clear sign of escalation and that Russia itself should escalate. They see European weapons manufacturing and targeting aid to Ukraine against the Russian territory as unacceptable. Most Russian criticism of Putin’s handling of the war views him as not tough enough against Ukraine and Europe.

So no, Putin isn’t losing the narrative that “this special operation turned into a war we don’t want”, he lost the narrative that “this special operation should remain limited”. Russians want in-kind escalation.

It is also ridiculous to compare Japan and Russia. They have nothing to do with each other: Russia is resource rich Japan is not, Ukraine is a proxy war Japan was not, they’re wildly different kinds of wars.

It’s quite sad to see this is where European discourse has fallen. Just a bunch of chest banging on eu subs using bad opinion pieces. The joke at the end of that source linked above applies here.

You know, I’m starting to think this 3 days special military operation might not be the best idea….

I support Ukraine to the end but we’ve seen so many articles like this claiming that the tides are turning and they all turned out to be some level of wishful thinking.

There’s little in this article to back up the claims. It seems more like a sweet bedtime story to the Americans so they don’t have to feel guilty for stopping the support to Ukraine.