Today’s Russian papers: the student dorm attack & one article I didn’t expect

Hello from Moscow, everyone, on Monday, May the 25th.Coming up, an article I didn't expect to see right now in a Russian newspaper.Dominating this morning's Russian papers are images from Starobilsk of the college and dorm that came under attack at the end of last week, leaving, as Komsomolskaya Pravda reports, 21 dead, 42 wounded.The paper publishes photos of the students who were killed.Moskovsky -Komsomolets calls what happened a targeted terrorist attack by Ukrainian drones.Izvestia writes, according to statements by Ukraine, The target of the attack was allegedly military facilities in the Starobilsk area.

However, the college hardly fits the definition of a military facility.It would have been extremely difficult to mix up.Starobilsk is in Russian -occupied eastern Ukraine in the Luhansk region that Russia claims to have annexed.Moscow is not only accusing Ukraine over this, but Europe too, over its support for Kiev.One of the headlines in Moskovsky comes to mind today.Ukraine's European terrorist attack.

Images, too, of Russia's mass attack on Ukraine Saturday night into Sunday, using hundreds of drones, dozens of missiles, including the Oreshnik hypersonic missile.And all of this four years and three months since Russia's mass invasion of Ukraine and the start of what the Kremlin still calls the Special Military Operation.

The prospects for peace look remote.This is how Izvestia sums up current diplomatic efforts.It's a paradoxical situation.While the US says it's reached a dead end, Europe has entered a closing door and conceded the need to talk.Russia remains ready for talks, but on its terms.The time for imitating a flurry of diplomatic activity is over.

For now, no side is prepared to pay the political price.for compromise.In this situation, everything being up in the air risks becoming the new norm.

Now very often in the Russian newspapers you will find triumphalist articles predicting a Russian victory in the war.The concept of victory, of Russia as a nation of victors, has become, has been made very much a part of the national idea here.Which is why this article in today's Moskovsky Komsomolets is so surprising.

It's entitled, Extraordinary Defeats, Major Geopolitical Failures Can Be More Useful Than Brilliant Victories.It's more pleasant for society to be proud of victories and not remember defeats.And if they are recalled, then it's with natural bitterness.But in Russia, it was lost wars and humiliating truces that regularly led to new breakthroughs, reforms, and surprisingly, to new victories.Major geopolitical losses were sometimes more useful than brilliant victories.Every military defeat, every shameful peace, did not destroy Russia, but made it stronger and led to the expansion of borders and the strengthening of Russia's position.

And the author goes on to give examples of this from hundreds of years of Russian history, from the Mongol Yoke to the Crimean War and Treaty of Paris in 1856 that deprived Russia of the Black Sea Fleet.As I say, this kind of article is unexpected.I wouldn't have expected to see it in a Russian newspaper.And I wonder whether it's an attempt to suggest or to explore potential public reaction to the idea of Russia ending its current war in Ukraine, not on its maximalist terms.In today's Nizhnevezhsime Gazeta, there is an editorial entitled, Why the authorities are resorting to a ban on new bans.The recent drop in

ratings of the authorities and the upcoming electoral cycle are pushing the system to at least show restraint.So the author suggests here that new restrictions and prohibitions in Russia have been put on hold because the authorities realise their approval ratings have been falling ahead of parliamentary elections this autumn.So, for example, in Tomsk Several schools in the region, on the orders of the Department of Education, banned students from wearing clothes with foreign words on them.The stated reason was to counter the propaganda of illegal behavior, radicalization, anti -social ideas.However, after negative publicity, they immediately backtracked.Another example is the entertainment website Yaplakal, which a Moscow court recently ordered blocked.

However, the federal media regulator didn't block it, and relatively quickly the ban was cancelled.Another example, the introduction of fees for international internet traffic was postponed.Another potentially major irritant that would be perceived as another restriction of usual access to the global network.It seems that the authorities have finally heard the dull murmur from below caused by fatigue and accumulated irritation.The recent drop in the ratings of political forces and the upcoming electoral cycle are pushing the system towards at least restraint and caution.But it is important to understand it correctly.

This is not a question, at least at this stage, of easing or reversing course.Nothing changes systemically.For now, society is just being assured that that things won't be made worse.