In general, Russian society is currently deeply divided. We are talking about a country with an incredibly low level of interpersonal trust, extremely low levels of interest in politics and especially of political engagement, of belief in the ability to influence politics, says in an interview with the publication ips-journal.eu the Russian political scientist Grigory Yudin.
According to him, war is generally perceived as something that comes from outside.
There is nothing to be done about this. It doesn’t really create much unity. It creates a lot of fear, uncertainty and despair.
In general, Russian society can be divided into three categories, according to Yudin.
The first group supports the war. These are people who are emotionally involved and often militarized. They support the army with funds. Many of them call for more brutality, more aggression. This is a minority – between 15 and 20 percent, says the political scientist.
But he says they are very vocal because of the distorted public sphere in Russia, and their voices are incredibly amplified.
“More or less, it’s practically the only voice that can be heard,” Yudin says.
In addition, there is another minority. That which does not perceive this war as just and is disgusted by it, and also sees in it a fatal error that will bring much suffering to Russia, he says.
“This minority is slightly larger than previously mentioned, but this is only an estimate,” he believes.
The third group, according to him, is in the middle – they try not to follow what is happening and push it away. The latter category is the one that represents the overwhelming majority. And this environment, in principle, is ready to agree to everything that happens. This is the dominant attitude because the possibility to influence the situation is almost zero.
If you look more closely, you can see the divisions that exist in Russian society, says Yudin.
Perhaps most stark is the generational divide. The war is supported by the old, by the elderly who want the world that the Russian elite offers. The perception of the war and the situation is very different from generation to generation.
The second division is the income division. This is not only the war of the old, but also the war of the rich. Basically, it’s a war of people who won’t die in it. The old people are for full mobilization, but they will not go to this war, they will send their children. The same goes for income. The rich will not perish. They will just send the poor away. These divisions create a lot of tension. At this stage, these tensions are suppressed because of the war, but they definitely exist, the political scientist believes.
According to Yudin, Russia is a dying empire. “You can see that because she basically offers nothing to the areas she wants to control. The only thing she offers is the idea of bringing back the Soviet Union, which is basically a fantasy,” he says. There are no civilization projects. This is what makes it completely unattractive to Ukrainians and other countries as well. And that’s what makes her believe only in power – “if they don’t want to be there with us, we’ll just force them instead of offering them something”. And in that sense it is a very fragile empire. It is more or less clear that the way the empire should end is not necessarily to collapse, but to kill the imperial idea and make Russia a republic. It happened in Germany, it happened in France. This is the usual way to overcome the imperial idea.
When asked why the average Russian is so indifferent to politics, Yudin answers as follows: “Well, because politicization happens when there is an opportunity for political action, and in Russia it is zero. No one in Russia believes that they can influence any events. Politicization means collective action, because politics is about collectives, with solidarity. The possibility of that is zero. And the regime that built it has always destroyed any form of solidarity in Russia. Any kind of collective action is suppressed and discredited. As a result of it’s common sense that one should only take care of oneself,” he says.
Military mobilization reflects but also reinforces the aforementioned differences in society. It is selective and purposeful. It is aimed at the people who have the least capital, not only economic, but also social. To escape or hide, you need enough social support. Most people do not understand that the vast majority of Russians have never been abroad. 70 percent have never had a passport to travel.
But there is also a financial incentive to join the army. Most of these people would never earn that kind of money. A significant number of them understand that they will probably die. But are their lives worth living? For many of them, the answer is no. Many of the places they are recruited from are very dark. It was as if they had lived forever at war. So this combination of fear, of lack of orientation, of the only lucrative channel for upward mobility is what drives people to the military. It is, of course, not limitless, but it still works.
The war is about Ukraine being a sovereign state, Yudin also says. The idea of forcing Ukrainians to sit at the negotiating table is patronizing. It means an implicit acceptance of Putin’s idea that Ukraine is not a sovereign state, that someone else will dictate the terms. Putin is firmly convinced that Ukraine does not exist. That’s the thing that people don’t understand. However, negotiations and restoration of relations between the parties are necessary and in fact inevitable. But to do that, we have to remove the barrier: The people in the Kremlin who destroy relations between culturally close groups. After that, there is definitely a need for negotiation.
“I think Volodymyr Zelensky says it very clearly: There will be no negotiations with this leadership, but there will be negotiations with the next Russian government. It will be necessary to restore relations. And of course, it will take a lot of effort on our part to do that “.
As long as Putin is in power, the war will continue and grow. For Putin, this war is not about Ukraine. This is a war to restore the empire. And the empire definitely includes the countries of the Warsaw bloc. And since he does not believe in neutrality, of course the goal is not for these countries to become neutral, but to return to the Russian sphere of influence. This includes East Germany. If he succeeds, this will not end in Ukraine. Moldova already clearly figures in the military plans of this operation. But this operation fails miserably. If the Russian military had captured Odessa, Moldova would have been invaded. This is only the beginning stage of this huge war that he is unleashing. Their view is of an inevitable war with the West, with NATO. They don’t see it as a war of choice, which of course it is. If the war succeeds, it will definitely go further than the West.
The calculations are very clear – no one will risk starting a nuclear war over Poland, Lithuania or Estonia. I’m not saying this is a plan that will work. I do nt believe this. But it is clearly a plan that should be taken into account, says Yudin.
2023-08-02 10:40:32
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