The Vibe Shift in the Russo-Ukrainian War
The Vibe Shift in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Wars are very much real, but vibes matter too.
On August 7, I went to a Berlin park to hear a speech by Ilya Yashin, the Russian opposition politician who was freed as part of a prisoner swap. The outlook for the Russian opposition remains grim: nearly all of its members are imprisoned, exiled, or have been killed. Yashin, who was convicted for violating wartime censorship, implored the crowd to fight for the release of Russian and Belarusian political prisoners. Nevertheless, he was filled with optimism and gratitude to his supporters -- he told them that when he read their letters in his nearly 20 months of incarceration that he felt like he wasn't behind bars but sitting with them in a cafe. He began chants of "Russia will be free" and "love is stronger than fear." He got several standing ovations from the crowd of about 1,500.
At the time of the speech, Kyiv's forces were advancing in the Kursk Oblast of Russia bordering Ukraine. According to the Institute for the Study of War, on August 8, Ukrainian forces had advanced up to 35 kilometers inside Russia. Ukrainians do not control all of the territory they have traversed; nor is it clear that they intend to hold any of it. While the fog of war is thick, these incursions are further inside Russia and appear more organized than ragtag groups of pro-Kyiv forces making incursions inside Russia in May 2023. The incursion comes after months of a stalemate in eastern Ukraine and Ukraine slowly losing villages to Russia.
In early 2022, a viral New York Magazine essay popularized the phrase "vibe shift," meaning a rapid change in the cultural zeitgeist. In the past week, there has been a vibe shift in the Russo-Ukrainian war. For the first time in months, social media has been abound with optimism -- there has been a relief from the staticity of war and a sense that fortunes can change for the better. (By social media, I mean global platforms like X and Instagram as well as channels used in Ukraine and Russia, like Telegram.)
In Ukraine, the incursion was met with Schadenfreude. While Ukrainian Telegram channels often feature angry face emojis in response to news of air raids or missile strikes, suddenly there were smiley faces, thumbs up, and flames. In keeping with strategic silence, Kyiv has not commented directly on the incursion. However, on August 8, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done.”
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has sought to reassure the public in media appearances where he has appeared annoyed. On August 7, Russian state media broadcast footage of Putin meeting with his army and security chiefs where he called the incursion a "large-scale provocation." On August 8, he spoke via videoconference with the governor of the Kursk Oblast and announced a one-time payout of 10,000 rubles ($115) to those "who need it."
Despite his attempts to reassure the public, residents of Kursk Oblast recorded a video asking Putin for help against "foreign forces with NATO technology." One resident said, “Our relatives, husbands and neighbors are defending Donbas. We have lost our land, we have lost our homes, we fled under shelling, many without documents. We want to ask for help, we are left alone." The fear felt by residents is real; however, Putin is responsible for their misfortune. Yashin said on X later, "From the first day of the war I said that Putin would definitely bring death and destruction to Russian territory and our country would have to pay a high price for his bloody adventure. And that is what happened, unfortunately."
The incursion hasn't changed the fact that the war drags on at immense costs for Ukrainian civilians and military. Russia continues to launch deadly attacks on Ukrainian civilians, killing 15 in a missile attack on a supermarket in eastern Ukraine on August 9. Ukraine's hold on Donbas remains shaky and it faces demographic and economic problems in recruiting troops.
The strategic aims of this advance are unclear. Kyiv's goal could be to divert Russian forces from eastern Ukraine or to trade for this territory. Another possibility is that the operation is designed to build morale among Ukrainians and allies. Unexpected Ukrainian advances may help with troop recruitment efforts and rallying public support for military aid in the West. One thing is clear: Putin seems rattled by it because he felt the need to publicly comment on it -- twice. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often quipped that Putin doesn't grant visas to his head; however, the Ukrainians are doing everything they can to get inside it.