Putin's Domestic Woes Continue as Russian Military Struggles in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing a deluge of domestic difficulties as Moscow's military struggles nearly two years after invading Ukraine.

Putin, who is up for reelection in March, has been the focus of an increasing amount of criticism at home over issues that include inflation, winter blackouts and the treatment of soldiers in Ukraine.

Despite a recent series of relentless Russian air and ground attacks against Ukraine, Moscow has seen diminishing returns following a notable period of success that began in late December.

The British Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Russia and Ukraine were essentially deadlocked after Moscow failed to capitalize on its advances, with neither side having "taken any significant ground" over the past week.

U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War suggested on Monday that Russia's performance had put Putin at the center of a Kremlin "clan war" that threatens to "impede Russia's decision-making" and further impact the "coherence and efficiency" of the military.

Over the weekend in Moscow, the wives, daughters and mothers of mobilized Russian troops reportedly protested the war and conditions for soldiers by laying flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the Kremlin wall.

"The protest, which is not yet very dangerous for the authorities, is being perceived with double attention, especially ahead of the March presidential elections," Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told The Moscow Times.

"Neither [Putin] nor his team has experience in a long and tedious war," he added. "Against this background, the consequences of the protest by the relatives could be unpredictable."

Newsweek reached out for comment to Putin's office via email on Tuesday.

As the protest occurred, thousands of Russians were still battling brutally cold weather following mass power outages that hit multiple parts of the country, eventually affecting more than 25 percent of residents in the Moscow region.

While dealing with temperatures plunging to -25 degrees Celsius, or -13 degrees Fahrenheit, some residents reportedly made direct appeals to Putin and demanded punishment for local officials.

Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko shared a video to X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday that purports to show residents of the Moscow suburb Khimki "begging Putin for help" as they struggled to survive without heat.

"'Help! SOS!' — Residents of the Russian city of Khimki complain about the lack of hot water and heating, begging Putin for help," Gerashchenko wrote while sharing the video. "Residents of Pervomayskaya, in particular, claim that hot water disappeared in June, and since January 2, they have no heating."

"On January 11, due to a large-scale communal accident in Khimki, a local state of emergency was introduced," he added. "Sixty apartment buildings were left without heating. Earlier, similar measures were taken after an accident at a boiler house in Podolsk, Moscow Region."

Needed utility repairs may have been sidestepped due to a lack of available funding as Russia focuses all of its resources on the war effort, according to a Moscow Times opinion article by Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow András Tóth-Czifra.

Although Putin is expected remain in office after an election that few observers expect to be a real contest, his margin of victory in March could also turn out to be smaller than expected due to domestic discontent over the rising price of groceries.

Russia's sky-high inflation rate and Western sanctions have resulted in a recent dramatic surge in the price of eggs, while the purchase of items like chicken, bananas and vegetables have also stressed the pocketbooks of ordinary Russians.

An X post from Gerashchenko on Tuesday said that, while egg prices are surging, "five of the twelve largest egg producers in Russia are managed by state structures" and "current or former officials."

Regardless, a poll released by Russia's Levada Center on December 21 measured Putin's approval rating at a massive 81 percent, although the figure was down 2 percent from a survey taken one month earlier, and some researchers have questioned the accuracy of polling in Russia.