Anton Ponomarenko
Russia is preparing for another phase of war in Ukraine, but the battlefield that matters most may no longer be in Donbas. It is inside the country’s own information space.
As economic pressure mounts, battlefield gains remain limited and casualties continue to rise, the Kremlin faces a familiar but increasingly dangerous problem: how to mobilize a society that has been carefully insulated from the costs of war without triggering a political backlash.
To manage this risk, Moscow is tightening its grip on the digital environment, with Telegram and other social media platforms coming under renewed pressure. Officially framed as information security, these measures point to a deeper objective: controlling the narratives that would accompany any future wave of mass mobilization for the war.
Yet this strategy carries an inherent contradiction. The more the state restricts information flows, the more it risks eroding the informal social contract that has kept urban Russia politically passive since 2022.
Russian social contract
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s urban population has experienced a dramatic rise in living standards, driven by growing oil and gas revenues, international investment, and state-sponsored capitalism.
Paradoxically — and directly mirroring this income growth — Russia’s democracy index has declined steadily. This balance became the embodiment of the so-called social contract, which offered citizens access to goods and economic prosperity in return for loyalty and political apathy.
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