Is Putin vulnerable? One autocracy in Russia may lead to another.

For the first seven months of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin tried to keep the conflict far from the everyday lives of average Russians. Recent polling, in fact, suggested that Russians’ interest in the war was waning. But all that seemed to change after Putin’s Sept. 21 announcement that Russia would be calling up as many as 300,000 reserve forces to supplement its beleaguered troops in Ukraine.