Ukrainian Drone Attacks Exacerbating Tensions Between Moscow and Rest of Russia

Paul Goble

Ukrainian drone attacks have brought Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine home to Russia. The conflict is affecting the population and elites in ever more regions and republics of the Russian Federation and eliminating the sense of security the Kremlin had sought to project and that most residents of that country had shared (Novaya Gazeta, March 17; see EDM, May 6; Novaya Gazeta Europe, May 12). Instead of allowing that to continue, the Ukrainian drone campaign has had just the opposite effect, driving down support for the Kremlin leader, destroying infrastructure throughout Russia, and exacerbating tensions between Moscow and the federal subjects as a whole (see EDM, March 19, 30, May 6; Window on Eurasia, May 11, 19). Putin’s falling poll numbers and the physical destruction wrought by the drone attacks have attracted widespread attention, but their broader impact is set to prove even more significant. In the short term, it means Moscow is now facing growing problems in controlling the federal subjects, given that the outsiders the Kremlin has used are not always working as the center wants (Gorizontal'naya Rossiya, May 27). In the longer term, it feeds potentially more dangerous fissiparous trends in Russia, increasing demands outside of Moscow for decentralization, re-federalization, or even independence, and threatening to generate an ever more repressive Kremlin response that could backfire (Echo FM, June 4). None of this means that Ukraine is about to win the war by drones alone, as some have suggested (Window on Eurasia, May 30). It does suggest, however, that Ukrainian drone attacks are creating far more serious problems for Moscow than their effect on the Russian economy and Putin’s poll numbers. 

The Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian Federation, which have now affected the Russian economy and more than half of that country’s federal subjects, are changing how Russians view Putin’s war and even Putin himself (see EDM, March 19, 30, May 6). Unsurprisingly, this has led some observers to suggest that these drone attacks represent a turning point in the war and open the way to a Ukrainian victory in a conflict few until now had thought Ukraine had any chance to emerge victorious. Such predictions are almost certainly overstated given the resources Russia still commands and Putin’s obvious fears of what such an outcome would mean for him personally (RusMonitor; see EDMJune 2; Echo FM, June 4). At the same time, the focus on the destruction of Russian economic infrastructure and of Putin’s standing in the polls detracts attention from what is likely to prove a more serious consequence of the Ukrainian drone campaign. The consistent attacks could cause a change in relations between Russia’s federal subjects and Moscow and a new growth in fissiparousness in them that Moscow is likely to respond to by increasing repression, a move that could now backfire on Putin and his country.

Two new surveys of the situation in Russia’s federal subjects are especially important. One is devoted to the attitudes of the people there (Gorizontal'naya Rossiya, May 27). A second is devoted to changes in how elites in these regions and republics are responding (The Moscow Times, June 1). The former is more dramatic, but the latter may be even more significant for the future. Taken together, they demonstrate that the Russian political system is changing under the effects of the Ukrainian drone attacks.

The first, a report by the editors of the Horizontal Russia portal, which tracks developments in Russia outside of Moscow, found that the spread of drone attacks from the regions of Russia to Moscow has deepened a divide between the two. Some residents in the regions were even found to be glad that the capital is now suffering as they are. Some in Moscow are upset that the regions are not showing more sympathy and support. According to one Russian political scientist with whom the portal spoke, the Ukrainian drone attacks are not “the fundamental cause” of this but rather “a trigger of a problem whose treatment has been long overdue.” Because of the problems the war and the drone attacks have intensified, the report continues, the two sides no longer understand one another. People in the regions and republics are increasingly angry that Moscow is taking their taxes but not supporting their populations or even protecting them from attacks. Muscovites are upset that people in the regions and republics are not rallying around the capital in its time of need. Now the anger of both sides is out in the open, Horizontal Russia says. Neither side is listening to the other, however, a sign of “mutual deafness” and an indication that “Moscow and the rest of Russia no longer understand each other” (Gorizontal'naya Rossiya, May 27). This is something many observers have suggested in the past, but now the evidence for it is overwhelming.

The second article is even more significant in its findings (The Moscow Times, June 1). Because Russia is a dictatorship rather than a democracy, Putin likely believes he can weather any such popular hostility in the regions and republics. His confidence in that respect is strengthened by the system he has put in place to control the federal subjects, increasingly appointing outsiders—known in Russia as “Varangians”—to the top jobs in the federal subjects. These people can be counted on to do his and Moscow’s will rather than reflect the views of the population as regional leaders far more often did in the 1990s. That system, which the Kremlin leader put in place over the first two decades of his rule, had proven remarkably effective until recently, as Aleksandr Kynyev, perhaps Moscow’s leading specialist on elites in the federal subjects outside of Moscow, wrote only two years ago (Gorizontal'naya Rossiya, August 7, 2024). Now, however, the Russian political scientist says that appears to be changing under the effects of the war and drone attacks (The Moscow Times, June 1).

According to Kynyev, it is no longer correct to divide senior officials into two categories—locals and outsiders. An increasing number of the nominal outsiders have gone native, finding that, to be effective, they must play to the population and defend it against Moscow. Those who do, the Russian political scientist says, are often more popular than locals who do not. This  pattern suggests Moscow is going to have to find other ways to keep the federal subjects in line lest more regional leaders, including those the Kremlin has installed, decide that their best course is to oppose the center, at least rhetorically and often in practical ways as well. 

If Kynyev is right and if the attitudes Horizontal Russia is reporting become even more widespread, Putin, in the wake of the Ukrainian drone attacks and the continuing war against Ukraine, is going to find it ever more difficult to control the situation in the regions and republics. In response, he is likely to try to employ even more repression. That strategy could easily backfire, however, and lead to problems far greater than any of the other consequences of the Ukrainian drone attacks so far.