Rusia

A Conversation With Tatiana Stanovaya

In a Foreign Affairs article released earlier this month, Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, tallied the mounting stressors on Vladimir Putin’s regime—particularly the short-lived mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company. The rebellion was “the product of Putin’s inaction,” she wrote, and the leniency afforded to Prigozhin afterward made the Russian president look “less powerful.” On Wednesday, Putin may have gotten his payback after all: Prigozhin was listed among the fatalities of a private jet that crashed outside Moscow. Executive Editor Stuart Reid spoke with Stanovaya the same day. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

What It Will Take to Break Putinism’s Grip

On June 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a special ceremony on the St. Petersburg waterfront to mark the anniversary of three flags: the flag of the Russian Federation, otherwise known as Peter the Great’s tricolor, formally unfurled in 1693; the imperial Russian flag, introduced by Tsar Alexander II in 1858; and the Red Banner, the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle, adopted by the Soviet state 100 years ago and later used by Joseph Stalin. Putin watched the event from a boat as the National Philharmonic and the St. Petersburg State Choir performed the national anthem, which, thanks to a law Putin enacted in 2000, has the same melody as its Stalin-era counterpart. The portentous rite unfolded in front of the Lakhta Center tower, the country’s tallest building, as well as the $1.7 billion headquarters of Gazprom, the state-run gas company that has become another crucial symbol of Putin’s Russia.

Summer is coming to an end, and it’s time to sum up the results of the summer military campaign and make predictions about how events might unfold on the battlefields in the fall and winter. I deliberately use the word ‘battlefields’ because the fierce struggle will continue directly on the frontlines, in the information space, and on diplomatic platforms.

Even as Ukraine’s counteroffensive pushes slowly forward, some observers are calling for the warring sides to negotiate a ceasefire. This would create a de facto demarcation line separating areas held by Ukrainian forces from those under Russian control at the moment the fighting stops.

The Pentagon will provide Ukraine with $200 million in weapons and ammunition to help sustain Kyiv’s counteroffensive as troops on the front lines face significant hurdles against a well-entrenched Russian defense, according to two US officials.

1. Putin’s New Conscription Plan Further Militarizes Russia

The Russian State Duma voted to raise the maximum age for conscription from 27 to 30, providing more available manpower for Russia’s war effort. The move will enable the Kremlin to replenish its forces participating in the invasion of Ukraine without initiating another mobilization.

Davit Ratiani glanced up as the Russian military aircraft buzzed across the skies of Georgia, clenching his fist in such anger that his nails tore into his skin.

‘”I will never forget the feeling of powerless that came over me at that moment,’” Ya Shashviashvili remembers her husband later telling her in one of the few moments he divulged any details of his experience during Georgia’s short, devastating war with Russia in 2008.