Vladimir Putin is facing the fury of the public who have accused him of “abandoning” them after Ukraine launched its operation into Kursk Oblast.
The first wave of the attack was recorded on video by a group of women who captured the arrival of Ukrainian soldiers in the region on August 6.
In the video, posted that evening on a Telegram blog called ‘Our native Sudzha,’ one woman can be heard saying: “We were left alone. With children, without shelter, without money. Our kids are afraid to sleep at night.”
By the time the video was shared on the platform, Ukrainian defence forces had been advancing through the region for more than 10 hours.
Another woman in the clip said: “There is no evacuation from the Sudzha area. People cross the river on boats, under shelling, and walk through the forest. These are ordinary people, help them evacuate!”
Since the start of the incursion, more than 133,000 people have been evacuated from Kursk – but locals have since lamented the absence of government support in the early days.
Evacuees said they were forced to leave leaving most of their belongings behind, often with no documents. Some even had to abandon bedridden relatives or beloved pets.
Evgeny Bakalo, a resident of neighbouring Belgorod Oblast, told The Financial Times: “It wasn’t pretty.”
He has since offered to help civilians in Kursk but spared no kind words for Putin’s ongoing war.
Bakalo said: “We should call it a war, a full military operation. Not some counterterrorism or a special military operation. That’s all wrong.”
Russian state media have called the Ukrainian incursions a “terrorist attack.” Some even dismissed it as simply the “situation in Kursk’s borderlands.”
The Kremlin remained silent about the attack for hours and the country’s security service, the FSB, tried to reassure the public that the army had adopted “measures” to address the “armed provocation.”
This response, however, only fuelled further backlash from evacuees in Kursk. In the video, a grey-haired man wearing a black T-shirt addressed the Russian president directly to demand his attention.
He said: “Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], tell your officials responsible for truthful information to show the real situation. These lies are causing civilians to die.”
Putin’s absence from the airwaves in the early stages of the incursion falls in line with his long-adopted “wait and see” tactic in the face of major situations, according to Ekaterina Schulmann.
The Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center scholar said: “Putin has always been known for his tendency to disappear from the public eye in critical situations. He opts for a wait-and-see approach.
“In an autocratic system, this can work, but the question is, for how long can you ignore the outside reality before it gets to you?”
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