I think a whole lot of Russian citizens have been "quiet quitting" since about ten years after the Soviet collapse. They have seen the massive corruption of the Soviet heirarchy, combined with the economic octopus of the black and grey markets merge into a system of looters and absconders and resource-partitioning oligarchs to a point where American corporatist capitalism looks like free market anarchy by comparision. They have checked out, ducked their heads, and "gone along to get along" so long that they have no tools to respond to pressure from above. This affects Putin, because by doing the bare minimum, or doing their jobs only on paper, they have allowed or even actively particiapated in a dissection, hollowing out and selling off of all the things that in Putin's view made the country great. He tried to attack a foreign state with a paper army, and now he knows he must win before it collapses of its oen weight and takes him--and a lot of the Russian system of governement--with it. Riding a tiger is only dangerous when you try to get off. Riding a Paper Tiger is dangerous when the rest of the tigers cease to be fooled.