Is Vladimir Putin under threat from inside Russia?

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches its second week, it seems that the conflict is not quite the swift and straightforward victory Vladimir Putin may have expected.

There are a number of factors at play. Putin may have underestimated the capability of Ukrainian forces. A generous supply of international arms and aid have been making their way to the resistance. And powerful sanctions imposed by the Western allies are beginning to impact the Russian economy.

As Putin finds himself in the middle of a war that is proving increasingly difficult to navigate, dissent is growing within the country. Ordinary Russians are taking to the streets, anti-corruption activists are lobbying Western leaders and oligarchs and politicians are risking all to speak out against the invasion.

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Daily protests

Anti-war protests have occurred daily in Russia since Putin gave the green light for an invasion of Ukraine last Thursday. Despite Russian police attempted to crack down on such gatherings, rallies have occurred “from Moscow to Siberia”, reported the Associated Press (AP).

Thousands of demonstrators have marched in city centres across Russia over the past few days, an act of defiance in a nation where “spontaneous mass demonstrations are illegal and protesters can face fines and jail”, said The Washington Post.

According to the independent Russian human rights group OVD-Info, more than 6,440 people have been arrested at anti-war protests since 24 February in a total of 103 cities.

Similar movements are occurring online, with tens of thousands of Russians signing open letters and petitions condemning their country’s attack on its neighbour. A “No to war” petition on the Change.org website has received more than a million signatures, said The New Yorker.

Digital resistance

Various Russian actors, influencers, athletes and other well-known figures have used their public platforms to condemn the war.

In an Instagram post about the crisis that received a million “likes”, Yuri Dud, a popular Russian journalist and YouTuber, said he was expressing his views “with exactly one motive”.

“When my children grow up [and] ask: ‘Dad, what are you doing then?’, I will have written proof: I did not choose this government, I did not support its imperial frenzy.”

These brave acts of dissent can be extremely powerful. “Russians, doped up as they are on RT and TASS and Rossiya 24, are also suddenly seeing their favourite singers, tennis players and actors speak up about what is now a hot war,” said Zoya Sheftalovich on Politico.

“They’re seeing photos of bombed apartment blocks, kindergartens, dead children. They’re seeing this isn’t going to be a walkover.”

Dissent from within parliament

Resistance is also coming from within Russia’s political system, with three members of parliament breaking rank to criticise the war in Ukraine in the past few days. The three dissenters belong to Russia’s Communist Party, which “typically remains loyal” to Putin on “key issues”, said The New York Times (NYT).

One of the politicians, Mikhail Matveyev, reportedly tweeted “The war should be stopped immediately” on Saturday night. Another, Vyacheslav Markhaev, said that under the pretext of recognising the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as republics, “we hid plans to unleash a full-scale war with our closest neighbour”.

In the past, such critical statements have been “increasingly rare” among members of the Russian parliament’s lower house. “But after Russia invaded Ukraine, dozens of public figures… some of whom were even considered to be pro-Kremlin, have made their anti-war sentiments clear.”

Appeals from the elite

Analysis by Forbes suggests that around 116 Russian billionaires have lost $126bn in wealth since 16 February. Three billionaires – Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Fridman, and Oleg Tinkov – have called for an end to the conflict.

Fridman, a founder of Russia’s largest private bank, told staff that “war can never be the answer”, reported The Times. And Tinkov, a well-known Russian businessman and the founder of the Moscow-based Tinkoff bank, said on social media: “Innocent people are dying in Ukraine, every day. This is unthinkable and unacceptable!”

The war has sent shockwaves through Russia’s elite. “It wasn’t in any of their plans for their businesses to go down the drain and for them to end up as potential defendants at The Hague,” said Abbas Gallyamov, a speechwriter turned political analyst, in The Times.

But, he added, “it would be wrong to expect any moves from them. The elite have always been afraid of Putin but now they are even more afraid of him. If he was ready to bomb Kyiv, he could imprison them – and not only that. They all know about the torture cells.”

Threat from rivals

One of the most significant threats to Putin from within Russia is coming from the movement of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Long before the current crisis began, the anti-corruption campaigner had been the “most prominent face of Russian opposition” to Putin, said the BBC. In 2020, he nearly died after being attacked with a Novichok nerve agent in Siberia. After recovering, he returned to Russia from Germany and was detained.

But despite being behind bars, Navalny is still managing to galvanise his supporters and millions of Russian social media followers. On Monday, the team managing his Twitter account called for what Reuters described as “a campaign of civil disobedience to protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”.

“We must show that we do not support the war. We call on Russians to show civil disobedience. Do not be silent,” it said.

Navalny’s allies have also drawn up a list of 35 oligarchs and “enablers” of the Putin regime who they want to see targeted by the West, putting pressure on foreign leaders to take action. The list was read out in the UK parliament by Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran last week.

Attempts to stifle criticism

The Kremlin has attempted to downplay the protests and stifle criticism, exerting tighter control over the press and social media platforms in order to do so. A Reuters reporter in Moscow said that Twitter was particularly slow on Saturday and that they experienced difficulties sending tweets.

Propaganda has played a key part in keeping ordinary Russians from questioning the war. The media has been told to use only official government sources for their reports and Kremlin-run TV stations are not showing footage of missiles falling in Ukraine. “If we hadn’t attacked, Ukraine would have dropped nuclear bombs on us,” a Russian pensioner told The Times.

But although there are still many ordinary Russians who have not condemned the war, support for the invasion is not as unanimous as the Kremlin would like it to be.

“The people do not really support war, especially the war with Ukraine,” said Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, in an interview with The New Yorker. “More than a third are categorically against the military action. There are no rallies in support of the war.”

And experts have suggested that more ordinary Russians could turn against Putin once the chilling effect of Western sanctions truly kicks in.