In an op-ed for British newspaper The Times, Roger Boyes said Russians could no longer view Putin as being able to protect them.
The terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall exposed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s image as the « great protector » of his country and showed how he is « losing control, » according to a British journalist and author who has written about the dictatorship of Nazi Germany.
His piece referred to the Cold War, suggesting that Putin’s political survival was built on being « more protective of the motherland » than the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as a « steadier hand » than his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.
Despite the war he started in Ukraine with the February 24, 2022, invasion, « Russian towns have by and large been sheltered from the nastiness. He was the Great Protector. » However, in Boyes’ view, he was « no longer. »
This is because the attack on Crocus City Hall on Friday « exposed at once the shakiness of his claim to be Russia’s sword and shield, the unpreparedness of the security apparat for a new threat and the low credibility of the regime’s war rhetoric. »
« The sequencing of events charts how Putin is losing control of the narrative, » said Boyes, who noted the death of Putin’s most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny, on February 16 and then his rejection of U.
