A huge sign tops the Russian Railways building in Moscow with the slogan “For the President, for the Army, for Russia.” On the streets there are posters with the faces of the military fighting against Ukraine with a “Glory to the heroes of Russia!” and, next to the Semenovskaya shopping center, a giant screen intersperses the latest headlines from the Kremlin news agencies with the z that identifies the army. “We won’t let ours down”, is written on that giant rectangle with the national flag, and right in front of it a recruitment announcement calls to enlist. The change has been gradual in the last year: from trying to keep the population apart to war pervading everything. Depression, resignation and duty are the three most common ways to deal with it. Although a large part of the Russians would end their offensive tomorrow, many reaffirm that above all they must be faithful to their homeland. Anything else, they hear over and over again, would be treason or cowardice.
While the rest of the world celebrated the New Year with messages of hope, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his speech on a gloomy stage surrounded by soldiers to insist to his compatriots that they are at war against the West and to demand their loyalty. “It has been a year that has clearly separated courage and heroism from treason and cowardice. That he has shown that there is no higher power than love for family and friends, loyalty to colleagues and devotion to the homeland, ”he stressed at the beginning of his Christmas message.
Two weeks later, the Presidential Council for Human Rights proposed amending article 275 of the Penal Code, on high treason, to add the concept “treason in any form.” According to the agency, this would make it easier to punish the hundreds of thousands of Russians who have fled the country or who do not want a victory for their homeland. The Chairman of the State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, and the Vice President of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, have publicly called for their nationality to be withdrawn and their property confiscated for being “enemies of the State”.
Russia is Putin, but Putin is not Russia. The strong sense of community of its citizens and the repressive apparatus, which is becoming more and more uniform, provoke enormous contradictions among the Russians, and this has left the country in a nervous breakdown. The sale of antidepressants has skyrocketed (48% year-on-year between January and September, according to the sector, although after the mobilization it seems even worse), and many families have been broken up by politics.
“Even if the Bucha thing was true, I wouldn’t give a shit. The only people I care about are Russian soldiers. They are my brothers, they are dying there, talking about this is not constructive for me”, was the last thing a woman wrote in the fall before cutting all ties with a foreign friend. It is one of the thousands of examples of the current tension, although it is worse between parents and children.
“I’m not going back for Christmas. At home they blame me for criticizing the war and several relatives have withdrawn my word”, says Elena, a young woman who has lived in Spain for several years. This is also the case of Mikhail, from St. Petersburg: “I at least talk to my mother, although she sometimes gets tense. With my brother the contact is minimal, and because our mother forces us. We just greet each other.” “They believe everything. Before it was that Poland is going to keep a part of the Ukraine; now, that Ukraine is going to become Catholic, ”he adds angrily.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
It is very rare to see corpses in the media allowed by the Kremlin, even those of the most demonized Ukrainian units, such as the Azov Battalion. Despite the rants of the commentators, the war is sterile on television for the older voter, while very few young people dare to publish anything related to the massacres and only boast of their idleness on social networks. Only Telegram channels are an open window to the dirty reality of war.
Fear as a symptom
“Fear is one of the symptoms of our time”, said Ernst Jünger in the ambush (1951). That statement seems even more valid today, because the Russians, by being apolitical and not wanting to bother by raising their voices, have blindly delegated their future to Putin. Although 71% of the population supports the actions of their army, 50% would like to start peace negotiations immediately, 10 points more than those who want to continue the fighting, according to a December survey by the prestigious Levada sociological center. declared a foreign agent by the Kremlin.
“Most Russians show that they would like to end the conflict if this were the position of the president. They openly support any position that they consider beneficial for the State, any position because they have little understanding of exactly what is happening in Ukraine and believe that, in times of war, one should support their country,” Antón Barbashin, director of the portal, told EL PAÍS. riddle. “Any other position would be unpatriotic or treasonous. In addition, the data reveals that the group that wants to continue the war is a minority, ”he adds.
According to the poll, 34% of Russians “feel morally responsible for the death of civilians and destruction in Ukraine.” “Considering the propaganda and repression, this is quite a high number,” Barbashin stresses. “Unfortunately, any meaningful catharsis will only be possible after the war,” the expert points out, adding: “Any debate that arises will depend on how the war ends and who Russia’s leaders are at that time.”
Putin, harassed by a war with no clear horizon, is building a State around war and the love of death. Patriotic youth organizations, class mottos about the honor of dying in combat and classes on weapons return; criticism of the army is punishable by jail; the new laws make companies subject to covering military needs. And the Ministry of Defense has raised its personnel ceiling from 1.1 million to 1.5 million soldiers. In addition, Kremlin sources assure the daily Kommersant that Putin plans to repeat in the Presidency in 2024.
“If they call me, I’ll go to the army, I’m not going to leave,” says a middle-aged man in a group of friends in the gym, while they discuss a new mobilization. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled the country to avoid going to the front, but many more are resigning themselves to an uncertain future with more or less optimism. “My brother has enlisted as a volunteer to defend the country from him, NATO attacks us and Putin defends us,” Yulia says excitedly in a chat among acquaintances.
“And you, what do you think of Russia?” is the usual question with which strangers start a conversation with foreigners. “NATO surrounds us, we have to defend ourselves,” a man told several journalists after hearing them speak in Spanish. “You are slaves of the United States” and “you colonized the world” are other common arguments to justify their war.
However, the Kremlin knows that there are many other critical voices as well. As Ernst Jünger said, “if the great masses were as transparent as the propaganda asserts, if their atoms were so oriented in the same direction, then a number of police would be needed no more than the dogs a shepherd needs for his flock”. However, in Russia there are more than two million police officers and there is no corner that is not watched by a camera or several agents.
“Only Iran has experienced more protests than Russia in the last five years within authoritarian countries. The idea that there are few protests is a bias created by the media,” says analyst Alexander Badin with data from the Carnegie Center in Moscow and The Economist. “But the Russian authorities have learned how to suppress the potential for demonstrations without making concessions, and one of the most successful propaganda narratives is that protests are futile and organized by losers,” he adds in his analysis. According to the OVD-Info outlet, 19,478 protesters have been arrested since the start of the war.
tied to the state
The OECD estimates that a third of the active population worked for the State before the pandemic. The political scientist Ekaterina Shulman points out that it is they, “the civil bureaucracy, the same people who have been stripped of their powers consistently during the last 15 years”, who “have kept the State afloat” at the same time that “the elements around which the political system built its identity”: the army, espionage and propaganda.
In Russia there are no strikes. “If I quit, I won’t find a job like that and they will easily replace me,” admits an employee of a public entity who requests anonymity. “All these years disgusted with what I do have been worth something,” admits a young colleague of his, excluded from military mobilization thanks to the fact that his state employment is part of the exceptions made by the Government. A bonus in pursuit of keeping the Kremlin machinery oiled.
“In November they asked us to transfer the salary of the first day of work to the mobilization assistance fund. They said it was ‘voluntary’, but they transferred everything to avoid problems with the authorities”, says a university professor. State intervention is even greater in schools. “There are many patriotic events in schools: raising the flag, patriotism classes, gatherings with veterans… it’s as if they take away half of the children’s study time. The parents are not happy, but no one argues, ”she says.
The future is decided now, with the 2024 US and Russian presidential elections in the background. Asked if a defeat could germinate in Russia a resentment similar to that of the empires that lost World War I, Barbashin is optimistic. “Unless Russia kills off a version of the Versailles Treaty, any future government will be focused on easing its sanctions and normalizing relations with the West. It is hard to imagine Russia being abandoned after this war as Germany was in the 1920s,” Barbashin notes. The key question is whether Putinism will endure its offensive.
Follow all the international information on Facebook Y Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
#Putin #culminates #militarization #society #president #army #Russia