Thread by @TheStudyofWar

#Putin’s partial mobilization is having more significant short-term impacts on the Russian domestic context than on the war in #Ukraine, interacting with Russian battlefield failures to exacerbate fractures in the information space that confuse and undermine Putin’s narratives.🧵

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1577494986781868033

2/ #Putin is visibly failing at balancing the competing demands of the Russian nationalists who have become increasingly combative since mobilization began despite sharing Putin’s general war aims and goals in #Ukraine. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

3/ @TheStudyofWar has identified 3 main factions in the current Russian nationalist information space: Russian milbloggers & war correspondents, former Russian or proxy officers & veterans, and some of the Russian siloviki - people with meaningful power bases & their own forces.

4/ Milbloggers present #Putin’s vision to a pro-war audience in both Russia and the proxy republics.

The veteran community is helping organize and support force generation campaigns.

The siloviki are providing combat power on the battlefield.

isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

5/ #Putin needs all three factions to sustain his war effort, but the failures in #Ukraine combined with the chaotic partial mobilization are seemingly disrupting the radical nationalist community in #Russia. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

6/ #Putin is currently trying to appease this community by featuring some milbloggers on state-owned television, allowing siloviki to generate their own forces and continue offensive operations around Bakhmut and Donetsk City... isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

...and he is placating veterans by ordering mobilization and engaging the general public in the war effort as they have long demanded.

isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

7/ Russian failures around #Lyman galvanized strong and direct criticism of the commander of the Central Military District (CMD), Alexander Lapin, who supposedly commanded the Lyman grouping, as @TheStudyofWar has previously reported. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

8/ This criticism originated from the siloviki group, spearheaded by Chechen strongman Ramzan #Kadyrov and Wagner Group financier Yevgeny #Prigozhin. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

9/ The chaotic execution of #Putin’s mobilization order followed by the collapse of the #Lyman pocket ignited tensions between the more vocal and radical Kadyrov-Prigozhin camp, who attacked the MoD and the uniformed military for their poor handling of the war.

10/ #Putin now finds himself in a dilemma. He cannot risk alienating the Kadyrov-Prigozhin camp, as he desperately needs #Kadyrov’s Chechen forces and #Prigozhin’s Wagner Group mercenaries to fight in #Ukraine. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

11/ Nor can #Putin disenfranchise the MoD establishment, which provides the overwhelming majority of Russian military power in #Ukraine and the institutional underpinnings needed to carry out the mobilization order and continue the war. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

12/ The Kadyrov-Prigozhin incident sparked a rift between the siloviki and the milbloggers, with the milbloggers defending Lapin.

Milbloggers are criticizing Kadyrov’s attack on Lapin, claiming that it stems from competition between Lapin and Kadyrov-Prigozhin.

13/ Milbloggers, who had frequently complimented #Kadyrov or #Prigozhin before this incident, are now more skeptical of the silovikiI community, attacking it for being too self-interested.

And the veterans’ community is dissatisfied with the execution of #Putin’s mobilization.

14/ Fractures are emerging within the Russian milblogger community itself, moreover. Milbloggers have begun increasingly questioning each other's military credentials and rights to offer recommendations for the Russian Armed Forces. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

15/ The fragmentation of the Russian nationalist information space could have significant domestic impacts and even affect the stability of #Putin’s regime.

Putin cannot afford to lose the support of any of these groups, nor can he satisfy them all as the war wears/losses mount.

16/ The shocks of the #Kharkiv and #Lyman defeats, energized by the partial mobilization and its poor management, have exposed these deepening fissures within #Putin’s core constituencies to the view of all Russians. isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4

17/ Such fissures could even begin to seed the notion that #Putin is not fully in control of his own base. The ramifications of such a development for his regime are hard to predict.

More in our latest w/ @criticalthreats: isw.pub/RusCampaignOct4