WHISPER IT, BUT THE TIDE JUST MIGHT BE TURNING AGAINST PUTIN

The Kremlin is nervous.

On Saturday night, a limousine caught fire north of the headquarters of the Russian security services.

Last week, footage showed servicemen being frisked by special protection officers.

Those same officers were later seen opening up sewer hatches in a hunt for bombs near where the Russian leader was speaking.

To Western intelligence agencies, the situation is becoming clear:  within Russia’s top brass, the knives are out for their leader.

Western analysts are often accused of wishful thinking. Rightly so.

In March 2022, an op-ed in the New York Times described Russia as a “Potemkin superpower,” naively suggesting that just the faintest push would cause the whole regime to suddenly collapse.

Such a projection has not come to pass.

But there is one thing the rising paranoia does certainly reveal:  Putin does think he’s vulnerable.

You can understand why. Let’s first consider the feeling within Russian society at large.

Since the war started three years ago, 250,000 soldiers have died – the pain does now appear to be cutting through.

Grieving mothers are now starting to write to president Putin demanding explanations, with one telling Sky News, “It’s impossible to live like this.”

The heavy losses have led to a wider conscription crisis which has caused Putin to offer salaries – far above the average – for young men to go to the front line.

Do not underestimate the anger of these families. When Moscow was at war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it was the mothers of soldiers that formed the frontline of the anti-war movement.

Then there’s the key demand made by Putin in negotiations with the US:  that Volodymyr Zelensky be removed before a ceasefire be agreed.

The madness of that condition exposes the Russian premier’s desperation. Mr Zelensky’s possible successor, current ambassador to the UK Valerii Zaluzhny, is more hardline than he.

But what will worry Putin the most is the impatience of the man he once considered his most loyal friend in the West:  Donald Trump.

On Sunday, the American president deviated from his traditional praise for the Russian leader by saying he was “pissed off” with him after weeks of attempting to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.

That marks a sharp change of tone from 2015, when Trump described him as a “strong leader.”

We are now entering the time of year known as “fighting season” – the months where the weather warms up and the ground hardens to allow tank warfare.

The improved weather could favor Ukraine.

Clearer skies will make drones more useful in targeting Russian forces.

And Russia’s untrained troops – with no experience of combined arms, tanks, artillery and airpower – will also struggle against Ukraine’s better trained defense.

There could be no time when the Russian premier’s vulnerability could be as pivotal in altering the course of this war as now.

The question is whether the West will seize the moment.

Colonel Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon is a soldier. He was a British Army officer for 23 years and commanding officer of the UK’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment and NATO’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion. He is a visiting lecturer in disaster management at Bournemouth University. He has commented on chemical and biological weapons for the BBC, ABC and The Guardian and on tank warfare for the Daily Telegraph.