Earlier this month, the acting governor of the Kursk region tried to explain to Russian President Vladimir Putin how much territory Ukrainian troops had seized.
A visibly irritated Putin cut him off.
“Listen, Alexei Borisovich, the military will report to us on the specifics of the front-line width and depth,” he said. “You tell us about the socio-economic situation and report on assistance provided to people.”
The first foreign invasion of Russian territory since World War II has embarrassed Putin and put his military—already stretched thin by a manpower shortage—in a bind. Putin, who has long ruled by projecting an image of strength, has turned to a well-worn playbook to calm an agitated population: acting as though nothing’s wrong.
It isn’t clear how long the subterfuge can hold.
More than 130,000 civilians have been evacuated from more than 400 square miles of Russian territory as the violence threatens to spill into neighboring regions. Ukraine has stepped up its drone attacks, targeting Russian oil facilities, air bases and weapons arsenals needed for its war effort.
“They’re working to normalize the idea that wars come and go—this is the phase we’re in right now,” said Keir Giles, author and veteran Russia analyst. “You can try to turn it into the new normal, but where do you draw the line under current circumstances?”
For many, the Kursk invasion has delivered another puncture to Putin’s aura of invincibility that he has curated as he seeks to define Russia as a global power pushing back against Western dominance. Last year, paramilitary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launched his own challenge to the Russian leader when he led an armed mutiny of Wagner troops toward Moscow to oust what he called a corrupt and out-of-touch military leadership. Both events have rattled the elite and average citizens.
This time, the threat is coming from a foreign military, and some analysts say it presents less of an acute threat to Putin, limited to a border region far away for many Russians.
“He demonstrated a weakness last year. This year it’s a weakness of a different order,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, veteran Moscow-based political analyst.
While Putin has mostly avoided acknowledging the Ukrainian occupation, he has let his lieutenants rattle their sabers, saying Moscow wouldn’t engage in peace negotiations with Ukrainian troops on its territory.
His main foreign-policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, has said it made no sense for Moscow to talk “given the current escapade.” The length of the pause, he said, would depend on the battlefield.
Control over Russia’s vast territories has been central to Putin’s rule. He came to power vowing to crush a military insurgency that had established Chechnya as a breakaway state in southern Russia. Across the country, he promised to restore order and justice in a nation plagued by a decade of criminality and violence following the breakup of the Soviet Union.
On Tuesday, he made his first visit to the North Caucasus region of Chechnya in 13 years. The visit served as a reminder of both the violence endured in the region, as well as its reconstruction under its strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.
“Much has been done, and this has been done primarily thanks to the hard work and talent of the Chechen people,” Putin said in a meeting with Kadyrov.
The times when the Kursk invasion does make it to Russian television screens, commentators parrot Defense Ministry statements about Russia’s military dominance over Ukraine. Broadcasts show Russian soldiers helping with evacuations and delivering humanitarian aid, coverage more in line with a regional disaster such as a forest fire or flood.
When Russian social media first started to detail the scale of the invasion and the military failures that allowed it, Kremlin pundits urged everyone to “calm down,” as Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent Putin mouthpiece, recently told the audience of his nightly talk show.
Meanwhile, Putin hasn’t addressed the nation over the Kursk invasion. He has kept to his work schedule. He visited a children’s hospital and offered birthday greetings to an injured Russian state-television war correspondent. He traveled to Azerbaijan, offering to mediate a long-sought peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
His business-as-usual approach also serves to project an air of normalcy to a population that is showing signs of growing weary of a conflict—meant to be over in days—that is now grinding through its third year. A poll from independent Moscow-based pollster Levada shows support inside Russia for some peace settlement has reached its highest level at 58%.
“His response coincides with people’s desire to distance themselves once more from the horrors and failures of the war. They would much rather believe everything is OK,” Kolesnikov said.
Meanwhile, the war continues to close in, as Ukraine steps up the pressure. Russian authorities said Kyiv’s forces had unsuccessfully tried earlier this week to launch an offensive inside a neighboring region to Kursk. Some of the drones in the barrage earlier this week were shot down just miles from Moscow.
While Russia has slowly been moving some troops to Kursk from the front line in Ukraine, analysts say Moscow’s response to the invasion won’t likely come quickly. Moscow appears to instead be pressing for gains along the front line in eastern Ukraine, including the crucial logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
That means Putin will likely continue to play down the incursion domestically.
“He will address the nation, but not at a time when it looks like Russia has been effectively attacked by a militarily weaker country,” said Nikolai Petrov, a consulting fellow on the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, a British think tank.
Putin is typically “eager to come out at the very end when he can report about positive results,” he said.
Matthew Luxmoore contributed to this article.
Write to Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com and Ann M. Simmons at ann.simmons@wsj.com
