July 23, 2026: As a result of personnel, fiscal, and emotional losses during the war in Ukraine, the Russian government has been struggling to deal with angry civilians. The government is blacklisting writers, movie producers, and entertainers who fled the country because of the failed invasion of Ukraine. Putin is particularly angry because of a new film, Minotaur. This film depicts the deceptive methods local officials used to get young men into the army and then Ukraine, where half of them have been killed, wounded, deserted, or simply went missing. The film won awards in the West, including the Grand Prix and the Cannes Soundtrack Award, and was popular among Russians who could see it. The same thing happened with the 2025 film Mr. Nobody Against Putin. The film showed how a rural school was transformed into an army recruitment center by training children and having some of them build drones. The film sent a message to Russian parents that Vladimir Putin did not appreciate.

Putin has been supporting filmmakers who will create works that justify the war. There have been few takers. He can order such videos to be produced, but he can’t always get the desired results. Rather than risk more anti-war protests by jailing filmmakers, he uses his uneasy control over social media and the internet to generate support using bots and foreign operatives to create favorable messages. This is quickly seen as astroturfing and ignored. Putin has also shut down internet access in parts of the country where opposition is most active. These shutdowns cannot last too long because the Russian economy cannot operate without internet access.

Before 2022, Russia had a small but vibrant independent media. Once Ukraine was invaded, that media fled rather than face shutdowns or assassination. Many of these Russian journalists established a presence on the internet from the country of exile. From there they provided honest news in Russian and Ukrainian. The Ukrainian media did the same thing, and Russian families often found out what had happened to their missing sons by consulting Ukrainian internet sites that maintained photos of dead Russian troops and whatever information they had about them. There were also lots of videos posted. The age of cellphones makes it impossible to hide what is going on anywhere.

With the war now in its fifth year, most Russians are trying to ignore it. The war has crippled the Russian economy, and there is growing unemployment. The forcible kidnapping of young men for the army still produces the occasional fistfight between the kidnappers and angry Russian civilians. But the kidnappers are armed, and a few shots into the air halt the fight and scatter the protesters.

The growing war fatigue has left exiled Russian journalists with an audience that wants news about anything but the war. When their town or neighborhood is hit by a Ukrainian drone, the locals turn to social media for news and explanations.