Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have things under control again at first glance, but according to Mark Galeotti (58), renowned British historian and author, there is much more going on in the Kremlin than we can see. Putin has entered a dead end, says the expert.
In your opinion, Putin’s personal legitimacy, his ability to throw money at every social problem and the absolute control of the Russian security apparatus are being damaged.
“Its legitimacy is changing. Of course he will win the elections next spring with a good result. But the more he makes the outcome fluctuate, the more it will demotivate the Russians. They don’t believe it anymore. Russian television viewers no longer take all those propaganda broadcasts seriously. What says much more than the election results are polls in which Russians speak out about the future they want for their children. Then they say that they want their children to get a good education, that they should be able to travel around the world, that they can help decide what the world will look like. In other words, they describe democracy without calling it democracy.”
But the Russian economy is doing so well?
“Life is getting harder, the Russians notice that. Formally, medicines are not covered by the sanctions. I have a friend in Moscow who is very anti-Putin. But when he could no longer get the medicine for his daughter at the local drugstore, he didn’t think ‘Rot Putin’ but shouted at me: ‘What on earth is the West doing?’ There is still a lot of money in Russia, but more and more money flows are being diverted to the war industry. In many ways, the textile industry now makes uniforms instead of civilian clothes. And in the security services we have seen that various services initially watched the Wagner uprising for a day.”
Is Putin aware of all this?
“Not everything. In Moscow I once spoke to a recently retired Russian spy who told me: ‘We have learned not to put bad news on the Tsar’s table’. In other words, if you have to brief Putin, you tell him things that will please him, absolutely not things that will go wrong. While it should be about the critical issues. But no, it’s all kept secret from the boss. In general, you see that happening throughout the Russian system. And then you get such a mistake as the invasion of Ukraine.”
Books have been written about why Vladimir Putin seems so provoked by the West, some of them by Galeotti himself. A few moments in history have contributed to this, he says. For example, September 11, 2001, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Vladimir Putin was one of the first to offer America’s condolences and support in tackling the terrorists. That was appreciated. What Putin did not understand at all was that when he had the Chechens bombed in Grozny, the West appealed to him about human rights. What also hurt was a casual comment by the next American president, Barack Obama, that Russia was actually nothing more than a ‘regional power’.
“I was in Moscow in 2014. That was surreal, just after the Sochi Winter Games with all the talk about friendship between peoples came the annexation of Crimea, which deteriorated international relations. And then came the big Victory Day over Nazi Germany parade in May, which many Western guests canceled. Understandable, because you don’t want to see troops parading who participated in the annexation of Crimea.
“My Moscow neighbors were genuinely outraged at the time. They didn’t understand: ‘Why do you spit on all those Russian soldiers who died for freedom in the Second World War?’ They did not see this at all as a principled protest against the events in Crimea. That is what we find difficult to understand here. Just as we don’t understand what happens when we cancel Tchaikovsky concerts or remove Russian writers from the library. The problem is that we are feeding Putin’s propaganda when we do that. It is exactly what he can use for his story at home.”
But by now as many as 300,000 Russians are said to have been killed or wounded on the Ukrainian front. Why does the population accept this, why are there so few protests?
“Why did so few Chinese take to the streets after the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests? This is an incredibly brutal police state. Of course people are watching. But last week there were small protests in Moscow, from people who want to hear from relatives who have been mobilized for the war in Ukraine. There are also people who carry out sabotage attacks on railway connections. But honestly, who wants to die a hero or end up in prison?”