It is striking how little enthusiasm there is in Russia for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine – but for some, it has become an opportunity to steal a march and curry favour with the boss.

Thousands of Russians have been out on the streets protesting against the conflict, despite the heavy-handed and unstinting response of the security forces. Journalists and experts, sports stars and cultural icons have been making their opposition clear as well. Even those within the system, including senior diplomats and businesspeople, aren’t trying to hide how far they were blindsided by Putin’s decision to invade, and how little they appreciated it.

After all, even at Monday’s fateful televised meeting of the Security Council, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin tried – in vain – to draw an obviously bored and impatient Putin’s attention to the country’s economic situation, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried – also in vain – to wriggle out of giving a straight answer on whether he approved of the president’s approach. Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov’s speech was cut from the broadcast altogether, leaving us to guess whether it was because he was too horrifyingly hawkish (unlikely) or too lukewarm on the president’s plan (not that much more likely).

However, even at that meeting it became clear that there were others like Dmitri Medvedev, the largely powerless deputy chair of the Security Council, and Valentina Matvienko, speaker of the Senate, who were desperate to signal their loyalty with passionate endorsements of Putin’s plan. Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and National Guard commander Viktor Zolotov competed to call for more action, competitors in the cannibalistic world of Russian security politics.

That was when the official line was that Russia was just recognising the rebel ‘people’s republics’. Now it’s war the stakes are higher – and the spectacle of commentators body-swerving to adapt to the new line is an unedifying one.

The usual array of toxic evening TV news discussion show hosts are in predictable overdrive. Dmitri Kiselev, one of the most venomous, took issue with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for daring to criticise the invasion, accusing him of ‘solidarity with the genocide of today.’

However, while the bulk of the press (most of it state-controlled or state-adjacent) has been loyally following the official line, even here there is some hesitation. In part, this is because it is hard to push a narrative of glorious victories won to save the Ukrainian people from their neo-Nazi American puppet government – which they assure their viewers and readers the current conflict is – without tales of victory, heart-warming human stories and much real reporting from the front.

That no doubt will come, as the propaganda machine starts to manufacture the right stories and footage, but on the media front, just as on the battlefield, the Kremlin is looking less sure-footed and effective than many anticipated.

It is also quite noteworthy that the commentators and pundits roped in to write the appropriately vainglorious op eds definitely seem to be drawn from the second division.

Heavyweights like Fyodor Lukyanov of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and Sergei Karaganov, dean of the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs at the Higher School of Economics have been strikingly quiet.

Yet for others this is their chance to shine. None more so that Ramzan Kadyrov, warlord of Chechnya. Having called himself ‘Putin’s infantryman,’ he has leapt at the opportunity to snatch some martial glory and undermine his many enemies in Moscow, by sending in thousands of his ‘Kadyrovtsy’, as the ferocious Chechen security forces are known. Never one to miss a social media opportunity, Kadyrov even posted a small video of his soldiers hoisting the Chechen flag in Ukraine.

Putin’s Russia is something of an ‘adhocracy’ in which ambitious opportunists seek to win power and fortune by pleasing Putin, so where Kadyrov leads, others will in due course follow. Not necessary into the fight – although there are claims that businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group mercenaries have joined the fray – but as cheerleaders and apologists.

It will be an interesting test of the mood and confidence of the Russian elite, of whether they think Putin’s war is going to be a success, and if they think it is wisest to make a fuss in support, or just wait and see.