Although official Russian channels still insist on referring to a “special military operation” in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is preparing his country for a protracted war. In a long speech earlier this week, the Russian president portrayed the conflict as an existential geopolitical struggle in which the main adversary and initial aggressor was Nato.
This reheated cold war rhetoric predates the invasion of Ukraine. It is the central plank of Mr Putin’s self-image as national saviour, restoring glory to a people whose homeland – defined by the borders of the old Soviet Union – has been dismembered by the west.
That rhetoric has become increasingly important as a distraction from failures of domestic governance. As the Russian economy has stagnated and living standards fallen, the imperative has been to whip up nationalist fervour via aggression against neighbours, and cast dissenting opinion as treason. Last February’s invasion was both a continuation of that pattern and a vast escalation. Failure to achieve a swift military victory turned an already authoritarian system more paranoid and vindictive, for fear that the supposed Kremlin mastermind would be exposed as a fraud.
A report published on Wednesday by OVD-Info, a leading Russian human rights organisation, documents the scale of repression since the war began. Nearly 20,000 people have been detained for attending demonstrations, defacing pro-war posters and breaches of a law against “fake news” and “defaming the army”, by telling the truth about Russian war crimes, or the mere fact of a war, in Ukraine. OVD-Info records cases of people detained on the basis of things said in private conversations, and for the views of their relatives. This is Soviet-style totalitarian repression, enforced with routine police brutality and unofficial coercion – anonymous threats, assaults, vandalism and summary dismissal from work.
Under these conditions, it is hard to know how much to believe opinion polls showing 80% approval for Mr Putin’s leadership. There is little doubt that he has a solid base of devotees, and that state propaganda channels sustain a personality cult. Too many Russians prefer a diet of hate-filled lies, when the alternative is bitter truth about what is being done in their name. But polling is unreliable when voicing dissent is a criminal act. Independent analysts say there is an important swing constituency – people whose patriotic instinct is to see Russia prevail, but who wish the war had never started and doubt the president’s judgment.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands have fled abroad. A first wave, driven by horror at the invasion, was followed by a larger group dodging conscription. That depletes the numbers available for internal protest. But dissenters in exile also present an opportunity for Ukraine’s allies.
Western support for Kyiv has been focused on military hardware and financial aid. Pressure on the Kremlin is exerted via sanctions of limited efficacy. Little thought is given to what better government in Moscow is possible. Many fear that the answer is none – that the options are chaos or someone worse than Mr Putin. That is a counsel of despair and a self-fulfilling prophecy. To give up hope of democracy ever returning is to condemn an already beleaguered civil society to death by slow suffocation. Human rights activists inside the country and in exile are doing heroic work nurturing the idea that Russia could be better than the place it has become under Mr Putin.
Ukraine will never know lasting security until the truth of Mr Putin’s murderous criminality is widely understood inside Russia itself. Supporting the minority of Russians who dare to speak that truth aloud to their countrymen is both a moral and a strategic imperative for the west.
