GLAVNOE: The Past Month in Russia, May 2026

A muted Victory Day 

 One of the central events of May was Russia’s regular Victory Day parade in Moscow, not only because of the unusually small size of the event, but mostly because of how the parade highlighted the context in which it was held: a growing worry about the security of key establishments and figures, the loss of confidence in an impending victorious end of the war in Ukraine, and the reality of Russia’s international isolation, far from complete, but far also from the chorus of full-throated supporters and allies that the Kremlin would like to project. 

 The Red Square parade, which for the first time featured no armored vehicles, tanks, or ballistic missiles, also featured very few foreign dignitaries, with only the presidents of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Laos and the figurehead sultan of Malaysia attending, while the prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico attended various commemorative events, but not the parade. The event was held under a three-day ceasefire, but the fact that it was US president Donald Trump who announced this, and that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a decree mockingly “allowing” the parade to go ahead, likely felt humiliating for the Russian government. Moreover, in spite of the ceasefire, the parade was held under extreme restrictions due to a steadily growing wave of successful Ukrainian drone attacks against Russian industrial facilities (see below), with drones hitting several targets more than once. Two days before May 9, the day of the commemorations, the Russian government claimed to have intercepted more than 340 Ukrainian drones. Several days of now almost routine mobile internet shutdowns preceded the event in Moscow and several other major cities, while more than a third of Russia’s regional capitals chose to call off their parades altogether.  

 While the parade in Moscow ended up taking place without any major disruptions, the Kremlin’s worries likely do not stop here. The combined aesthetics of successful drone attacks, a looming economic stagnation or recession and the reaction of the authorities to these security risks - severe limitations on access to the internet, a shifting of the costs of the war increasingly to the private sector, and a seemingly relentless focus on prosecuting government officials, rather than ending the war - have led to a palpable worsening of public mood in Russia. While opinion polls conducted under the conditions of hard autocracy cannot be taken for face value, just the fact that several state-linked pollsters, VTsIOM and FOM recorded and were allowed to publish reports of a sustained, several-week decline of Putin’s trust ratings and of the popularity of the governing United Russia party dipping below 30 percent four months ahead of the upcoming Duma election, suggest increasing concerns in both the elite and the general population about the prospects and the costs of the war. Below I am highlighting some of these concerns. 

 Drone strikes 

 As Ukraine increased the frequency and reach of its drone attacks deep into Russian territory, including towards Moscowover the past months, the strikes appear to have served both strategic and tactical goals. In the short term, strikes on key oil exporting, storing and refining infrastructure aimed to limit the ability of the Russian government to derive windfall revenue from the global oil market shock triggered by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The Ust-Luga and Primorsk terminals, which Ukraine attacked, together handle around two-fifths of Russia’s oil exports and, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the drone strikes led to a 24-percent drop in seaborne oil export volumes in April. 

 These disruptions are evident if one looks at the official figures. Oil and gas revenues realized in the federal budget in April reached 855.6 billion rubles, 40 percent higher in March (and significantly higher than in the first two months of the year), but only slightly above initial plans and still below the revenues a year prior. Apart from the disruptions triggered by the drone strikes directly, the federal government also had to pay out more than 370 billion rubles in subsidies to oil companies to suppress domestic fuel price hikes and fund refinery repairs, even as it still reportedly considered expanding a fuel export ban to avert domestic shortages at the end of May. The federal government expects more windfall revenues in May, however, the above figures showcase the limitations, in reality, of hopes placed on a continued upwards pressure on oil prices and the (still ongoing) loosening of US sanctions on Russian oil exports. In spite of this, the federal government seems to continue spending at high levels. In April the federal deficit kept growing and reached5.9 trillion rubles, more than 1.5 times the yearly plan, as budget sequestering plans were taken off the table and the government continued the advance financing of public contracts. 

 At the same time, repeat hits on certain industrial facilities - e.g. the Tuapse oil industrial complex, which was hit four times in a little over two weeks, a defense plant in Cheboksary, the capital of Chuvashia (more than 900 miles from Ukraine), hit twice, including with a cruise missile, or an oil refinery in the Perm Territory, also hit twice - undermine domestic morale by suggesting that the Russian state is unable or unwilling to defend industrial facilities and civilians from the rising cost of the war. Large state-owned companies as well as the private sector have been invited to fund the anti-drone defense efforts themselves, while civilians are suffering the consequences of toxic rain, fumes and black skies. 

 Elite split?

 In May two governors of regions bordering Ukraine - Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod Region and Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of the Bryansk Region - left their offices. On the one hand, the resignations (de facto dismissals) fit the usual spring “gubernatoropad” season: the “season of falling governors” when the Presidential Administration appoints new regional leaders, typically to provinces considered problematic; and took place shortly after the dismissal of Sergey Melikov, the head of the Republic of Dagestan. Notably, officials serving under both Gladkov and Bogomaz, including their deputies, have been subject to corruption probes similar to the ones conducted in the Kursk Region, related to corruption surrounding defensive fortifications. On the other hand, Gladkov’s fate suggests an increasing tension between the mandates of public officials and the Kremlin’s political priorities. 

 In spite of several weeks of rumors preceding it, the Belgorod governor’s dismissal is notable because Gladkov has performed well under the Kremlin’s own previous set of expectations of what a governor should act like. Not only did he do away systematically with the local power structures entrenched under the region’s previous governor, as the leader of a frontline region during the war in Ukraine, he became one of Russia’s most media-savvy and locally popular governors. However, his increasingly independent way of conducting himself and especially his vocal opposition to the constant internet blockages and the attempt by the federal government to ban the Telegram messaging app - which he explained by the everyday necessity of communicating with citizens during shelling, drone attacks and air raids - put him on collision course with Russia’s security elites, the driving force behind the restrictions and the increasing securitization of domestic policy. The internet restrictions have led to internal disagreements, which have been about as public as debates can get in Russia’s hard autocracy. These open disagreements about key federal-level policies and Gladkov’s dismissal seem to be the clearest sign of this clash yet.

 To underline the change, Gladkov’s Putin-appointed successor is a career military official with roots in the region and a participant of various Russian wars (including the current war in Ukraine). The new Bryansk governor also has links to the war as a former occupation official, but is otherwise a career public servant similarly to the dismissed governors. 

 Gladkov’s dismissal may have a long shadow also because it once again underlines the transformation of the Kremlin’s regional personnel policy. The core promise of the system built on institutions such as the “School of Governors” and the Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration has been that officials, having received a standardized training and networking opportunities, would first prove themselves in the regions and then receive much more cushioned jobs in the federal government. Even before Starovoit’s case, which highlighted that this promotion did not come with a protected status, upward mobility had been increasingly difficult in practice. Gladkov’s dismissal, especially if it comes with a demotion, makes it difficult for regional governors to know how exactly they are supposed to excel in their jobs to increase their chances of getting ahead, incentivizing them to look for other sources of financial and career security. 

 Other developments in May have also pointed at growing elite tensions. The nationalization of private assets using corruption or privatization irregularities as a pretext continued with the seizure of the majority stake in Rusagro, one of Russia’s largest agricultural companies, from his owner, Vadim Moshkovich who was arrested last year, even as the government prepared amendments putting some limitations on the Prosecution’s ability to pursue similar cases. Vladimir Boglaev, the head of the Cherepovets Foundry and Mechanical Plant, publicly criticized the economic policy of the government, predicting a major collapse. Last but not least, in what seems to be the first instance of a Russian official accused of corruption fleeing to the United States during the war, Denis Butsaev, the former head of the Russian Ecological Operator, the organization tasked to lead Russia’s botched waste management reform, managed to leave the country before his arrest. 

 None of these changes are earth-shattering in themselves and, judging by the execution of the federal budget over the past weeks, they are unlikely to influence the continued focus on the war in Ukraine. However, what runs through them, from the muted Victory Day parade and the black rain in Tuapse to elite squabbles and frustrations is the realization that yet another timeline shift may be occurring in the war. The implicit promise that the election of Donald Trump would hand Russia a quick victory is fading as the Kremlin seems to be pushing for more than what seems to be on offer, downplaying the rising domestic costs. Hints in the Kremlin’s official rhetoric that the “Donbas will be taken by the end of the fall” are aimed at getting the citizens and the elite to wait for just a couple more months, but there is no guarantee that this will not morph into yet more magical thinking and chasing novel opportunities for Russian victory in Ukraine. 

Featured Image: OpenAI ChatGPT image generation (2026). Produced for Delphi Global Research Center.