Putin, public domain

Per Isabella Bengoechea Deputy World Editor of TheIPaper: The August Curse Lands on Putin.  Excerpt:

“The ‘August curse’ meme is one that is half believed in Russia, half raised tongue-in-cheek,” said Dr Mark Galeotti, the historian and Russia expert. This month, as Muscovites leave the city for their country dachas, “there’s a weird mix: the start of the election campaign for the September polls and yet also the tempo of political life otherwise slowing”.

The mood in Russia is souring

Superstition or not, Putin is undoubtedly facing a difficult convergence of military, economic and political problems. His carefully cultivated image as the man keeping Russia safe is being exposed as a lie.

Civilian casualties are ticking up. A drone struck a crowded Black Sea beach this month, killing seven; 13 died in an oil refinery attack last week; nine in weekend drone strikes. There are now regular devastating fires at energy hubs, ports and military sites. Russians are queuing for petrol while social media is awash with angry entrepreneurs who say their livelihoods have been wiped out by attacks on online retail warehouses.

One video showed a woman sobbing that she had been left with nothing. “That’s it. I’m officially broke,” she complained. “My goods burned in the warehouse. Thank you, Ukrainians.”

Galeotti. said: “My sense is that as people in Russia feel the war encroaching more on to their lives, it is leading to an impatience, a desire to see it over.”

Ella Paneyakh, senior research fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre (Nest), added: “Gasoline shortages caused by strikes on oil refineries, as well as fires visible in major cities, have already contributed to significant rise in anxiety and pessimism.”

Anxiety, on the rise since April, had become the dominant public mood by July, according to the Kremlin-linked Public Opinion Foundation, with 55 per cent of Russians saying it was the prevailing mood among family, friends and colleagues, up from 40 per cent in 2025.