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.
Despite the geopolitical turbulence of the 2010s, the social contract remained largely intact until the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent war mobilization of 2022. The mobilization was an unpopular and risky move for the regime, as the majority of Russians were not in favor of being personally conscripted to fight in Ukraine.
Mass exodus, protests and open dissent followed. Nonetheless, the Kremlin’s handling of mobilization served as a testing ground for shaping domestic narratives and managing future social unrest.
First, by conducting a partial mobilization and allowing anti-war segments of society to leave the country with few restrictions, the state was able to target more marginalized groups for recruitment: those with prior military experience, the homeless, ethnic minorities and convicts, among others.
At the same time, the Kremlin relied on recruitment through paid Ministry of Defense contracts, targeting those willing to fight for financial reward or those ideologically motivated.
The broader urban population, meanwhile, remained insulated from the threat of mobilization and the direct risks of the conflict itself, allowing it to support the war as spectators rather than participants.
Over four years, the Kremlin managed to carefully balance pro-war narratives and troop supply while mitigating any visible public backlash. Support for both the war and Vladimir Putin remained near record highs, with respondents increasingly favoring escalation over concessions.
Kremlin narrative shaping
The Kremlin was able to achieve and sustain this consensus through steadily tightening domestic controls. Following the initial clampdown on Western social media platforms, most of the infosphere migrated to Telegram – a messaging platform developed by Russian-born dissident Pavel Durov and widely used for its anonymity, simplicity and security.
However, with mounting tensions and the absence of concrete progress in the war effort, recent changes to Russia’s legislative approach to social media signal a shift toward tighter control over domestic narratives.
The suppression of prominent military-affiliated voices, such as Igor Girkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the rollout of the state-run Max messenger, pursued concurrently with the Telegram clampdown, together signal the de-anonymization of RuNet and a targeted push to bring domestic narratives into full unanimity with the state’s.
While the Kremlin’s bet on controlling its information space is rooted in suppressing anti-war messaging and signs of domestic unrest, public responses have shown a growing degree of previously latent dissatisfaction with the country’s direction, even among parts of the core electorate.
Several pro-government Telegram channels with millions of followers have equated the clampdown to a self-inflicted disaster that widens an already vast gap between Russia’s information technology sector and the West.
Furthermore, military-affiliated and volunteer channels have voiced concerns over dwindling donations and outreach. Attempts at protest activity have been largely unsuccessful, as some Russian Telegram channels note, they have“practically failed to materialize.”
Telegram Achilles heel
While the app is now officially restricted, it can still be widely accessed via virtual private networks (VPNs). Even so, the Russian government, according to Mediazona, is actively blocking VPNs, a move that is only deepening dissatisfaction among the urban population and parts of the Russian military, which continue to rely on Telegram for communication.
As a result, the Kremlin finds itself in a position of heightened domestic tension. Measures intended to stabilize the information space and pre-empt dissent may instead be producing the opposite effect.
Restrictions, rather than serving as a release valve for political risk, are becoming a catalyst for change by deepening latent grievances within society and expanding the very pressures they were designed to contain.
Over time, combined with a new wave of mass mobilization, this dynamic could evolve into a structural vulnerability for the Kremlin — and potentially a trigger for radical political change inside Russia.
Russia has already faced one Telegram-originated coup attempt in 2023. Ironically, another may yet emerge from the same source.
Anton Ponomarenko is a 2024 Sylff Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research and a 2026 Kim Koo Fellow at The Korea Society. His research focuses on China-Russia-DPRK relations, international security, and arms transfer dynamics. Anton’s analysis has appeared in War on the Rocks, 38 North, The Diplomat, the Lowy Institute, and Foreign Analysis Magazine. He has held research and policy roles at the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and The Korea Society, and holds an MA in Regional Studies: East Asia from Columbia University and a BA in economics from Fudan University.