In May I wrote about reports that President Putin was spending a lot more time in bunkers directing the war in Ukraine and a lot less time being seen in public.
In recent months, Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO), which guards top officials, has sharply tightened security around the president. He spends more time in underground bunkers micromanaging the war and has grown more detached from civilian affairs, according to people who know Putin in Moscow and a person close to European intelligence services…
Putin has cut down his visits and security checks for people meeting him in person have been tightened further, said the person close to European intelligence.
The president and his family have stopped going to their residences in the Moscow region and in north-western Valdai. Putin is spending more time in bunkers, including in the Krasnodar area in southern Russia, working from there for several weeks, while state media use recorded footage to project normality.
Putin did put in an appearance at the annual Victory Day parade in Moscow, but as you might remember, he did so after Ukraine vowed not to strike anywhere in Red Square that day. And even putting that aside, the parade was pared down a little more than 30 minutes after which Putin left.
But this week Putin made a public appearance in the city of Kazan where he came out of a church to greet a crowd of well-wishers. But not everything went as planned. A camera crew filming Putin caught one of his bodyguards referring to the people he was about to encounter as “extras.”
One of Putin’s bodyguards was heard giving instructions into his radio to his colleagues, referring to the crowd as “extras”.
Although background noise and heavy wind rendered much of the sentence inaudible, the man could be heard saying the word “massovka”, which refers to background actors hired to fill out a crowd on a film set.
Here’s video of the incident:
Putin’s entourage was caught on camera calling for “staged crows” (“массовка” in Russian) as Putin was walking out to film his “tsar greets serfs” bit. pic.twitter.com/2lActUvNRO
— GMan | GMan’s Chronicle (@FAB87F) June 17, 2026
This is actually Putin’s first encounter with people on the street in nearly a year.
It marked the Russian president’s first “public” walkabout since July last year, according to Agenstvo, and his first visit to a Russian region outside Moscow or St Petersburg in seven months, according to Farida Rustamova, an independent journalist…
From January to March, he appeared in public 25 per cent less often than the same period the year before, and 50 per cent less than in 2024, Ms Rustamova found.
Anyway, it appears the tight control of his security may extend to rounding up a few people who effectively become extras in this little movie he’s making about how thrilled people are to see him. That doesn’t mean they are literally paid extras. It may just mean they are being treated that way.
Speaking of Putin’s response to regular Russians, there’s an article in the New Yorker today, it’s really an interview, in which Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, makes the case that Putin has no real accountability to anyone at home.
This is a very widespread assumption in the West: that Putin calibrates his decisions according to the views of dissatisfied constituencies. In my view, this is largely incorrect. In Putin’s political world view, society is expected to support his “historical” moves, which he sees as a historically necessary course of action, and essential for safeguarding Russia’s long-term survival. If that support is lacking, the problem is not the decisions themselves but the way they have been explained. Responsibility, therefore, falls on the government and senior officials, who must ensure that society understands and accepts the decision…
I do not see politics reasserting itself in Russia. There is a shift in public mood, and there are changes in perceptions and attitudes, but these are more psychological than practical. There are no players besides Putin who can be considered actors or subjects with their own agency in the decision-making process.
Everything that remains politically “alive” exists outside the decision-making process. Those who are inside it are implementers, interpreters, executives, and yes-men.
In other words, Putin is an absolute dictator and no one else can tell him what to do with regard to Ukraine (or anything else). So as much as it’s nice to think that he must eventually respond to the pressure he’s under, either from Ukrainian drone attacks or problems with his nation’s economy. The bottom-line is that he doesn’t actually have to respond to any of it. He can instead choose to just double-down endlessly knowing that he is personally safe and isolated from those problems.
Unfortunately, this probably means an end to the war is not coming soon. That would be rational given what Russia is facing, but Putin’s absolute power means he doesn’t have to act rationally.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy HotAir’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Read the full article here
