Putin Is Waging War Against Russia Too

As a direct consequence of their country's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, over 300,000 Russians have been killed or wounded, and tens of millions more are economically worse off than they were on February 23, 2022. Although over 70% of Russian respondents continue to tell pollsters that they "personally support the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine," Kremlin-controlled propaganda has largely succeeded in preventing its audience from learning the truth about Russian forces butchering Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, or about the Russian military's use of Russian convicts as cannon fodder, or the ongoing Russian shelling of civilian neighborhoods in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson.

There is every reason to believe that, if Russians were aware of why their armed forces were sent into Ukraine and what it has done in the nearly two years since openly attacking, they would be opposed. As late as December 2021, polling showed that only 8% of Russians supported "send[ing] Russian armed forces to participate in battles in Ukraine."

As a likely result of this fact, the Kremlin's domestic propaganda campaign in the weeks leading up to the invasion did not focus on concepts of patriotism, imperialism, or history, nor did it claim that Kyiv would fall "in three days." Instead, Russia's rulers prepared their population for war by claiming right up until the very end that there was no Russian invasion force positioned on Ukraine's borders and that war was anything but "imminent."

The lie worked. In September 2021, only 47% of Russians said that they "would like to see Vladimir Putin in the post of president after the end of his current term in 2024." Yet despite the sanctions, isolation, death, and destruction that Vladimir Putin has brought on his own country in the years since, in December 2023 an all-time high 78% of Russians answered that they hoped to see their president-for-life continue in office following the elections that are slated to be held this coming March.

Contrary to Kremlin officials' increasingly outlandish words, Putin and those around him do not act as if they are involved in an existential struggle against the "Collective West." Their invasion of Ukraine has left Russia's western border—the one with NATO–significantly less physically protected than it was. Instead, the Kremlin acts as if it understands that the real threat to the current regime's continuing rule is domestic. While its forward progress on the battlefield in Ukraine has stalled, its war against Russia itself has—thus far—proven to be a paradoxical success.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's political party has begun recruiting for its own "private military" to fight in the war against Ukraine, according to Ukraine's military intelligence agency (GUR). Kyiv officials said in a release Wednesday that United Russia, a conservative political party that holds the most seats in Russia's parliament and backs Putin, has started to put together a private military company (PMC) known as Hispaniola. The group was previously a part of the Russian-aligned Vostok battalion, a militant group fighting alongside Moscow's troops in Ukraine's Donetsk region, the GUR said. Meanwhile, Russian authorities rounded up thousands of suspected illegal migrants on New Year's Eve, and some outlets have reported many of the detained migrants were forced to enlist in the war against Ukraine.

By David Brennan

Ukraine's "Sea Baby" naval drones appear to have a new weapon in their ongoing effort to cow the Russian Black Sea Fleet, per a new video purportedly showing unmanned vessels firing a salvo of unknown munitions towards one of Moscow's warships.

Ukrainska Pravda first posted the video, which it said showed one of the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) drones firing what appeared to be unguided munitions at Russian ships that emerged from a Crimean port during an operation.

Previous images and videos of Sea Baby drones suggested the craft were armed with weapons beyond their main explosive payload. However, this week's video was the first evidence of such capability.

Newsweek could not independently verify the footage and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

Andriy Ryzhenko, a retired Ukrainian naval captain and now a strategic expert at the defense and logistics consultant company Sonata, told Newsweek that a version of the RPV-16 thermobaric rocket launcher is "most probably" the new weapon system.

The weapon can fire thermobaric munitions with a "much greater impact" than conventional high explosives, Ryzhenko said. The range of the system is around 1,000 yards.

Though low-tech, such armaments could complicate Russian efforts to intercept and neutralize Ukrainian drones in the Black Sea, Ryzhenko believes.

"Certainly, this drone can do at least some kind of self-defense, or damage a vessel on its way to an attack," he said. "For example, if this drone attacks a Russian ship and the Russian ship conducted anti-drone defense, they can activate the launchers—there can be six on one drone—and damage the ship or neutralize its defense capabilities."

"It's very limited, it's only one grenade launcher. But anyway, it's good that they have this system...They can bring a certain value when breaking through an enemy defense when the drone is approaching the target."

Ukrainian drones have posed serious problems for Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which, despite Kyiv's lack of a conventional navy, has not been able to establish total control of the key strategic sea. Naval drones have repeatedly attacked Russian warships, port infrastructure, and the Kerch Strait Bridge.

Ukraine's "drone tsar," Vice President Mykhailo Fedorov, told Newsweek in August that Kyiv's growing unmanned littoral fleet "serves for conducting special operations, and for sure it has its role in the liberation of the temporarily occupied Black Sea coastal area."

Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the SBU, told Ukrainska Pravda this week that the service is "striving to knock out all missile carriers" in the Black Sea. The next targets will be Russian submarines, Maliuk said. "There should be no Russian fleet in Crimea at all."

Maliuk added that the presence of naval drones has forced Russian vessels into port, allowing Kyiv's grain corridors—a response to Russia's intermittent naval blockade of southern Ukrainian export ports—to function.

Ryzhenko said future Ukrainian drones may be even deadlier. "In future, they can design a drone—maybe like a catamaran—armed with anti-ship missiles like the NSM [Naval Strike Missile]," he said. "An NSM weighs only 410kg [903lbs], and even the Sea Baby can carry 850kg."

A catamaran-style drone may increase stability in the choppy seas, Ryzhenko added, enabling greater accuracy and lethality. "If we can put one or two missiles on a catamaran or any other kind of drone, and ensure deployment of this system closer to Russian ports, it will be really great."

"To provide targeting it's quite easy, actually, we don't need to have satellite communication for the missiles, we just need to see the target and push the button," he said. "It's possible to do it, it's not complicated. This is what I see as the potential for the development of the unmanned vessels."