(CNN) --
It has been six months since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, a war that by any conventional measure has been a calamity.
Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced.
The city of Mariupol has almost been wiped off the map.
And the offensive launched on February 24 has shown the moral rot within the Russian military and its utter disregard for civilian lives.
OPINION |
Six lessons the West has learned from the first 6 months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine
According to the latest Pentagon calculations, the invasion has cost Russia between 70,000 and 80,000 dead and wounded soldiers.
Even if that estimate is high, it is fair to extrapolate that Russia has probably seen more troops die in half a year of fighting in Ukraine than the Soviets lost during a decade of war in Afghanistan.
But any comparison of Putin's Russia with the last days of the USSR is premature.
Indeed, Russia has changed since February 24, but the cracks in the edifice of Putinism are hard to discern.
Most Russians have supported the war, if not openly, or have quietly acquiesced to its campaign of imperial restoration.
The Kremlin leader's qualifications have not been affected by the war.
Both the state pollster WCIOM and the independent polling agency Levada-Center have routinely placed Putin's approval ratings above 80% since February 24.
A WCIOM poll in June found that 72% of Russians were likely to support Putin's "special military operation," the official euphemism for the war in Ukraine.
How is Putin maintaining his approval ratings?
People photographed outside the Izmailovsky Kremlin in Moscow on August 21.
It is tempting to conclude that these numbers simply reflect the power of Russia's state propaganda and its dizzying ability to construct an alternate reality, in which Russian warships are not sunk by Ukrainian missiles and Russian bases are blown up by accident.
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After all, the Russian government moved quickly after the invasion to shut down the remnants of Russia's free press, introducing a draconian new law that imposed severe criminal penalties for "false" information that discredited its military.
But that does not mean that there is no information about Russia's disastrous losses in Ukraine.
Russian independent news site Mediazona, which was labeled a "foreign agent" by Russian authorities last year, has documented 5,185 military deaths, according to local news reports and social media posts.
Russia's war in Ukraine: this is what you should know after 6 months of the start of the conflict
The country's relatively well-off middle classes have likely been insulated from the cost of the war.
Many of those killed in combat come from the poorest regions of Russia;
the regions with the highest number of documented victims are the so-called "ethnic republics" of Dagestan and Buryatia, Mediazona found.
By contrast, casualties in Russia's two richest and most populous cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, have been relatively minimal, she reported.
They warn of possible Russian attacks on Ukraine's Independence Day 2:10
Putin's popularity is sometimes attributed to a climate of fear and conformity.
According to OVD-Info, an independent group that tracks arrests in Russia, 16,380 people have been arrested or detained for anti-war activism in Russia, and 75 criminal cases have been opened under Russia's "fake news" law.
Unsurprisingly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has reignited the discussion among scholars about whether or not the Putin regime should be labeled fascist.
That may seem largely a matter of taxonomy, but it points to a clear reality: Post-February 24, terms like "autocratic" or "authoritarian" are insufficient to describe a state that does not tolerate internal dissent.
Will public opinion change?
That said, some observers wonder how long Putin will be able to command the support of broad segments of the Russian public amid harsh international sanctions that have isolated Russia from the world economy and sharply reduced import supplies.
Western investment has largely fled the country.
Sectors of the economy such as aviation, which have long relied on aircraft made in the US or Europe, have been hit hard.
As CNN's Clare Sebastian recently pointed out, Putin and his technocrats have worked for years to protect the Russian economy from sanctions, through import substitution (developing local replacements for imported goods) and developing a payment system to avoid isolation. financial.
And Russia has turned the bizarre rebranding of McDonalds and Starbucks into stories of economic resilience.
But a recent study by the Yale School of Management's Institute for Executive Leadership paints a more dire picture.
Six months have passed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine: what is the balance?
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The study's authors argue that Russia doesn't have the infrastructure to simply boost energy exports like natural gas to Asia, that Russian manufacturers lack parts from international suppliers, and that official Russian statistics are hiding the depth of the economic pullback. from the country.
"Despite Putin's delusions of self-sufficiency and import substitution, Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill with no ability to replace lost businesses, products and talent," the report says.
"The hollowing out of Russia's domestic production and innovation base has led to sky-high prices and consumer angst."
Still, Russia's financial system has not collapsed and consumer anxiety has not translated into political unrest.
For Ukraine and its supporters, the conversation has now shifted to finding ways to inflict pain on the Russians for their passive support of Putin.
ANALYSIS |
A gloomy winter will test Europe's support for Ukraine like never before
"We are working on new sanctions against Russia and on encouraging the citizens of the terrorist state to feel their share of responsibility for what is happening," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a recent speech.
"The discussion about visa restrictions in Europe for Russian passport holders expands every day, new states and new politicians join."
It is unclear whether a visa ban would ultimately change Russian behavior.
Some European leaders, notably German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have been reluctant to endorse a ban.
Speaking at a recent news conference in Oslo, Scholz told reporters that leaders had to be "very clear" on the visa ban issue, as the actions in Ukraine are "Putin's war" and "not the war of the Russian people".
The father of the woman accused of killing Darya Dugina speaks 0:45
And although Putin may be the one who decides, borrowing a Bushism (from George W. Bush), there is also a collective Putin who supports him and helps carry out his policies.
Whatever the economic fallout they face from the sanctions, oligarchs loyal to Putin have not broken ranks.
"Putin's war with Ukraine has been going on for 6 months," imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny wrote in what he called an "anger thread" behind bars.
“From day 1, Western leaders firmly stated that the oligarchs and those bribed by Putin would face imminent sanctions and would not escape this time.
But they did."
It's a grim picture, and it suggests that Putin, who has survived snubs from world leaders before, is ready to play a long game here.
Perhaps he is counting on the fact that, over the next six months, Europeans will pay higher prices for energy, which could increase pressure on governments to pressure Ukraine into submitting to a peace deal. .
Winter may be coming, but Ukrainians are also fighting for their national survival.