The outage, which lasted until midday, added to the confusion of angry Muscovites over months of power outages that have disrupted their daily lives. There was no immediate official statement to justify the chaos.
Only the Russian Orthodox Church urged citizens on the same day not to worry about the prolonged internet outage, suggesting they use the outage to think about “soul salvation” and perform acts of charity. For the silent Russian authorities, it was just another ordinary Tuesday.
They insisted that any disruption in communications was guaranteed. This was due to increased security measures ahead of the annual Victory Day military parade on May 9, which marks the final defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 by the Red Army.
Already, a few days ago, checkpoints had been set up across the city, snipers had been stationed on the Kremlin towers, and air defense systems had been installed around Red Square. On the eve of the event, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sabianin said that 20 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted, heading towards the capital since midnight.
In addition, 264 Ukrainian drones were intercepted in the same hours in ten different Regions of Russia. In recent days, Ukraine launched a drone strike that hit a luxury skyscraper complex 7 km from Red Square.
Their downing did not calm the growing panic among the local population. In the previous days, Ukraine had launched a drone strike that hit a luxury residential complex with skyscrapers, just 7 km west of Red Square and only 3 km from the Ministry of Defense building.
Extreme measures in Moscow
Preparations for the public event, traditionally a central pillar of the Kremlin’s power projection mythology, were more like a military blockade than a celebration.
Under the threat of a sudden appearance of Ukrainian long-range drones in the skies over Moscow on the day of the grand memorial ceremony, the Russian government took extreme measures.
No member of the State Duma received an invitation to the parade. Also, for the first time in decades, heavy military equipment with armored tanks and giant nuclear ballistic missiles did not parade through Red Square this year.
Of course, something had changed since last year, when the 80th anniversary celebrations featured over 11,000 soldiers and more than 180 mechanized military systems used on the battlefields of Ukraine. All this under the watchful eyes of invited foreign leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping, his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
It was the glorious day when Russian President and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, tried to rally the entire Russian public under patriotic sentiment and revive, in the midst of a bloody offensive invasion of Ukraine, the image of his country as a worthy successor to the Soviet victory in World War II.
Twelve months later, the shift from his earlier displays of indomitable spirit and unwavering fist is striking. In a state of alarm, he unilaterally declared a two-day ceasefire with Ukraine during the two-day celebrations, while simultaneously warning the defending country of massive retaliation if it tried to disrupt them.
An attitude that is interpreted as increasingly driven by fear rather than motivated by the power of supposed military superiority, in a war that has lasted more than four years, but which seems to be gradually coming to an end.
Alarm in the Kremlin
Not coincidentally, according to sources close to the Russian president cited in their reports by the Financial Times, CNN and the Russian website IStories, he is worried about his personal fate. The same publications report that since March the Kremlin has been on high alert.
Those who work around and near the president, from chefs to bodyguards and cameramen, are not allowed to use internet devices. They are also banned from traveling by train and bus to work. In addition, staff have been ordered to install security measures in their homes, while visitors to the Kremlin are being double and triple checked upon entry.
The nervousness of the presidential personal guard has risen to the point of hysteria after Ukrainian military intelligence services have been linked to a series of attacks on Russian soil, including several assassinations of senior Russian military personnel.
The Federal Security Service’s first concern is to neutralize its detection by Western and Ukrainian intelligence services. They fear a similar domestic hacking, like Israel, of the codes of the entire traffic camera system.
As happened in Tehran and led to the remote-controlled assassination of senior officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran, including Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
The main thing, however, is that the tireless 74-year-old president has, until yesterday, disappeared from public appearances, distanced himself from current domestic issues. Without his ritual of power, his icy gaze, his crosses in churches and his pistol-like gait, he is gradually falling out of favor in the eyes of a section of domestic public opinion.
His steady and solid presence, his leading figure, disintegrates in his absence into the form of a weary bureaucrat under siege, who seems concerned only with his own end.
Missing
The truth is that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the suspicious one, is self-isolating, hiding and hiding. He is tightening and strengthening security measures amid suspicions of attempted coups or assassinations. Who would have imagined that a powerful man, in whose microcosm fear is not weakness, would be anxious and fearful.
It is a mechanism of power. And yet. The Kremlin boss is experiencing the irony of his power. The leader who has ruled a vast country for more than 25 years seems to have ended up living suffocatingly in ever-smaller rooms in remote hidden places.
As a veteran of the KGB, he knows that betrayal is born within its walls. He fears that he will suffer a fate similar to that of the Roman emperors who were assassinated by select Praetorians sworn to protect them. Therefore, he remains invisible. Last year he made more than 17 trips and internal meetings – abroad he is on the run as a war criminal.
He has made only two public appearances this year. He has not visited any military installations because fear keeps him grounded. Official claims suggest he is dedicated to the task of defeating Russian military forces in Ukraine. They try to maintain the illusion that the Russian president’s daily activities are continuing normally.
1,200 km away
Where is Putin, after all? Whispers are growing that he is nesting in a mysterious shell. He may be hiding in an underground bunker in Krasnodar, 1,200 km from Moscow. Apparently, from there he is not afraid of the threatening attacks of Ukrainian drones that are aggressively penetrating Russian territory.
In essence, he is not even afraid of the enemy. Enemies are useful to stimulate his authoritarian ego. Effective as opponents to encourage his theatrically choreographed heroism in the eyes of the world. He slanders Volodymyr Zelensky as a clown, baptizes Ukrainians as “Nazis” who are committing genocide in the Donbas, stigmatizes them as instruments of Western imperialism and neocolonialism who possess biological weapons against Russia, etc.
In reality, however, he fears those who at first glance do not seem like enemies: friends, allies, rivals, comrades, fellow travelers, collaborators, all those favored in his monarchical court. All those in his inner circle who can become fluid, vulnerable, and unstable to challenges to power when their servile loyalty to the ruler begins to cost more than apostasy.
However, there is a crucial detail. Traditionally in Russia, the ruling elites are deeply insecure. They fear and suspect each other more than they oppose or hate Putin. After all, he himself built a state not of trust but of mutual surveillance.
However, for much of Russian society, which is experiencing an economic slowdown due to international sanctions and counting, as estimated, over 1 million casualties on the war front in Ukraine, the behavior of the country’s president resembles a paranoid manifestation of persecution syndrome. This is not the first time in Russian history that psychological instability oriented towards the fear of overthrow has prevailed in the country’s highest hierarchy.
Ivan IV the Terrible, the first Tsar of Russia, “put an end” to this psychosis. His Bolshevik father, Joseph Stalin, did not back down. On the other hand, Putin seems not to have escaped the same manic disorder. He firmly believes that he is being plotted against, spied on, and wants to harm not only foreigners but also his own people. Those closest to him. Those who know his habits, his agendas, his weaknesses, who sew his suits, treat his illnesses, cook and enjoy his food.
The “suspect” Shoigu
Speculation by Western intelligence agencies that he is being plotted against by the current 70-year-old head of the Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, seems very dangerous.
Although no one knows what might arise behind the red brick walls and long white corridors of the Kremlin, Shoigu is considered weak enough to play the role of a destabilizing factor in the architecture of Putin’s authoritarian system of power.
He remains one of his oldest political allies and is his constant companion when he goes fishing and hunting. Of course, he did it all wrong as Defense Minister during the invasion of Ukraine, so much so that the late Yevgeny Prigozhin demanded that Shoigu commit suicide, like a real officer who failed in his assigned mission.
Ultimately, fate led oligarch Prigozhin and the head of the Wagner paramilitary mercenary group to a “fatal” plane crash. In contrast, the multilingual Shoigu rose to power and is the Kremlin’s constant international lolo with successive visits to the allied capitals of Pyongyang, Tehran and Beijing.
He almost became a hero when he was assassinated last November while visiting the grave of his relative at the snowy Troyekurovskoye cemetery in Moscow.
Despite all this, Putin’s system of manipulation does not allow anyone else to sanctify him. He wants everyone to be in the shadow of the ruler, ruthlessly following the Machiavellian maxim “the end justifies the means.” Immediately after the uprising and Prigozhin’s death, the Kremlin sharpened its butcher knives.
In a sweeping purge, he forced a number of senior officials in the Defense Ministry to resign and dismissed at least 10 generals. All members and associates of Shoigu’s entourage.
These insidious methods of belittling, disfavoring, and marginalizing are seen by the “siloviks,” the devout followers of the neo-tsar’s inner court, and they dare not confront Putin’s 1.68 m height, who wears double-heeled shoes and high heels for a few extra points.