Zelensky’s new offensive could push Putin to the brink

A Russian friend speaking from Kursk tells me the latest war joke. Vladimir Putin summons Stalin’s ghost. ‘Comrade Stalin!’ asks Putin. ‘German tanks are in Kursk again. I need your advice.’ Stalin’s ghost ponders before answering. ‘Do what I did. Get hold of as much American military aid as you can, and make sure to send in the Ukrainians at the vanguard of your army.’

In 1943, the battle-scarred fields of Kursk were filled with troops of the Red Army’s First Ukrainian Front, riding American-supplied aircraft and tanks as they advanced westwards towards Berlin. Today, Ukrainian troops – some in German-supplied vehicles – are fighting Russians less than 50 miles from where my friend is. He chuckles at the bitter irony of his own wisecrack.

‘There are thousands of refugees, they all come to the City Administration for accommodation, for food tickets,’ he tells me. ‘It’s pretty well organised and orderly. There are lots of local volunteers handing out aid. The evacuees are mostly afraid of looters. There are rumours of local gypsy gangs ransacking abandoned houses. Everyone’s waiting for our wonderful heroic army to come in and sort things out. Everything’s a fucking mess, of course. But otherwise pretty normal.’

My friend’s obscene Russian phrase that conveys disaster and normality proceeding simultaneously and in parallel – polny pizdets, no normalno – is as good a summary as any of the fallout of Ukraine’s incursion.

Kremlin-controlled media have made no effort to cover up the fact that Russia has been invaded for the first time since 1941, that 28 settlements are occupied by Ukrainian forces and 180,000 people have been evacuated. Kommersant, Russia’s equivalent of the Financial Times, has carried extensive front-page reporting of the incursion, complete with strong and uncensored criticism of the local authorities and the army.