“This is Putin’s war, not the Russians’,” it was often said at the beginning, and the German chancellor also shared this view. But after half a year, the majority of people in Russia seem to agree with the invasion of their neighbors. The idea of ??one’s own “cultural superiority” is spreading, says Russia expert Corinna Kuhr-Korolev in an interview with ntv.de.
ntv.de: When the war started, the West hoped that several factors would influence public opinion in Russia. “Once the sanctions really take effect…”, “When the first fallen soldiers are brought back…”, then people would rethink. Why isn’t this happening?
Corinna Kuhr-Korolev: The number of casualties on the Russian side, as reported by the British secret service, is enormous. If they are even approximately correct, then the number of soldiers killed is already close to that of the Afghan war in the 1980s, …
… which ended in a fatal defeat for Russia.
This defeat became tangible in the images of the many zinc coffins in which the fallen returned home. That was traumatic for the population. The lost war became a factor in collapsing the Soviet Union.
Today, in 2022, according to estimates, there are similar numbers of dead, but no pictures of zinc coffins.
Because the older generation of Russia who still remembers these images includes Vladimir Putin himself and his people. You know how fatal it was that pictures of the coffins became public. That is why they are now very careful that the high losses are not visible and that civilian forces that view the war critically cannot organize themselves in the way that was possible at the end of the 1980s. The Kremlin has learned from the mistakes of that time.
Now he is using the state television monopoly to hide the high losses. What other options does he have?
Right from the start, he specifically recruited soldiers who came from remote regions, far away from the big cities, where resistance would have to be feared. Putin is pursuing his information policy very consistently, which is why critical attitudes like those of the soldiers’ mothers have so far had no effect.
What do the relatives of soldiers even know?
It is said that the mobile phones of the young soldiers are taken away and that the relatives only find out by chance how they are doing. At the same time, there are reports of villages mourning many fallen young soldiers. So the information has to leak out. But there is no resistance there.
Do these people lack the contacts and experiences to turn their grief into protest against the war?
The organizations that would be needed for this, which have so far prosecuted human rights violations in the army and in the war, were largely restricted in their scope of action even before the war began. The NGO Memorial, for example, which addresses injustice in the army and during acts of war and takes action against it with lawyers, is massively hampered in its work. The Center for Human Rights was banned. So there is a lack of options. However, there is no discernible will among a large part of the population to oppose this war. In the West there was hope that many Russians would realize what this war means for them personally: for their freedom, their freedom of movement, their prosperity. But this reflection has failed to materialize.
What about the sanctions? Do they affect public opinion?
When a Western company shuts down production in Russia, the employees are sent on vacation, they continue to receive their salary, so at first they hardly felt it. It is now clear that the conflict with Russia will remain, that you really have to separate. Now Western companies are sending their workforce into unemployment, and people are realizing that the attack on Ukraine has consequences for them after all. But they don’t hold their own government responsible, but the Western managers, who don’t stand by them.
There is currently a discussion in Europe as to whether an agreement should be reached not to issue visas for Russian tourists either.
On the one hand, if the Russians agree with their government’s statement that the West is corrupt, decadent and without a future, then they don’t have to vacation here either. That would be consistent. On the other hand, we are also slamming the door in the face of those who are even more open to the West. Then they can’t say: “I was just in Germany, Estonia or Finland and saw what the news was there. It looks very different from the reports on our television.”
How would you decide?
We in science have been working very well with many Russian colleagues for a long time. They share our values, but conduct research at institutes that support the war. We are now maintaining contacts privately, but the cooperation has stopped. For example, one could introduce a criterion for issuing visas and require applicants to sign a statement against this war.
That sounds so wonderfully concrete and pragmatic that an agreement in the EU is hard to imagine.
A conflict of values ??is proclaimed by the Russian side. Alexander Dugin says: “Western culture is dying and the future belongs to us.” If that’s the case, maybe we should oppose our Western values, and we should do it really boldly and concretely. No general phrases about democracy, freedom and civil society, which the Russians are tired of hearing because they mean something else by them, but concrete demands on specific people.
The good poll numbers are stable – for Putin and for the war. But how big should the reservations about polls be in a dictatorship?
One has to have reservations, but the sociologists at the Lewada Institute,
… whose figures are considered to be comparatively reliable …
… these are excellent scientists who know their country very well and have been following the situation for a long time. They describe their procedure exactly and classify it. What is now being heard from Russian friends and acquaintances or read on social media is very much in line with the survey figures.
And what’s the attitude beyond the numbers?
People are not enthusiastic about this war, but they really don’t see it as such either. The strategy of selling him in the country as a “special operation” is working. In addition, there are hardly any moral scruples about Russian troops killing people in Ukraine. The Russians consider them hostile neo-Nazis. In addition, they apparently like to hear that Russia is being respected again, that it is big again, that it is on the right track and that it is making the right decisions. There is a great willingness to believe these positive narratives.
And the negative experiences are covered up by it?
Problems such as canceled holiday flights abroad because there are no planes or that the money cannot be transferred to foreign hotels are solved differently. Many try to get a second citizenship to have a back door. You come to terms with the hurdles, you are now in a global conflict with the West.
It is said that the summer in Moscow was nice and that the mood was very good.
What the West needs to be clearer about: We feel we are in a global crisis: a war that can escalate, concerns about the economy, about supplies, about the climate, about the course of the pandemic. In Russia, these issues are treated completely differently, which is why the feeling of crisis is much lower: Corona was never so important and is – it feels – over, the war is far away, the West came up with the climate crisis, they don’t have an energy crisis, the future, says the television, is in front of them. The atmosphere is much better than here.
That may sound unrealistic, but enviably self-confident.
The Levada Institute has taken stock of past years that Putin has ultimately always pursued policies that he knows the population supports. He has a feeling for that. The ideas of a superior culture, a great nation, self-sufficient, self-sufficient, dependent on no one, whose values ??are outside the “norms set by the West” – these ideas fall on very fertile ground. The Russian understanding of justice is constructed as an alternative to the Western primacy of human rights. Even well-known Western-oriented cultural figures such as Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the St. Petersburg Hermitage, say the West rejects Russia because it fears its cultural strength. Although war is bad, it can also help a nation to find itself. However, this caused an outcry in the cultural scene.
After all.
Nevertheless, one almost has the feeling that Piotrowski’s attitude is contagious. Many say: “In the hour of decision, I stand with my country. We have our own values, we have to recognize them, and therefore we have our own way into the future.” This attitude is spreading. Thinking shifts, values ??shift. The national patriotic that used to exist on the fringes has moved to the center.
So we have to take stock of the opinion in Russia: Does it work for Putin?
Anyone who looks at this war soberly can see that it could only end in failure. The area gains are small for the effort that has been made for half a year. At the same time, I am convinced that at almost any moment Putin could say: “We have achieved our goal, we are ending this war.” The Kremlin has repeatedly redefined its goals, and people have gone along with it. If the Kremlin were to declare peace tomorrow, the Russians would go along with it. The only real red line is if Russia has to cede Crimea.
Even an attack like the one on Darya Dugina in the center of power, which shows the weakness of the country’s own security forces, can’t shake confidence in Putin?
It brings back memories of the series of attacks that shook Moscow in the 1990s and 2000s in connection with the Chechen wars. That was a traumatic time and that’s why a murder like the one on Saturday of Dugina is already dangerous for the Kremlin. But it can also be used to strengthen the feeling of cohesion. It can, and probably will, lead to further radicalization.
The picture you have sketched here is quite depressing.
Well, but I mentioned an exit scenario: it depends on the Russian government’s sole will when they want to end this war, and then they can end it. I think it is wrong to think that the West would block this path with any kind of action, that we should leave an exit open to Putin. Unlike Zelenskyy, Putin could step out and make up for the loss of face with propaganda.
Frauke Niemeyer spoke to Corinna Kuhr-Korolev