tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/kremlin-15037/articlesKremlin – The Conversation2024-03-21T03:40:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2263062024-03-21T03:40:33Z2024-03-21T03:40:33ZNo, the West is not to blame for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Why this myth – and others – are so difficult to dispel<p>It is no surprise the second anniversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine generated so much commentary. What is surprising, though, is that Kremlin propaganda remains so prevalent in what purports to be analysis.</p>
<p>This week, the ABC was forced to defend a documentary it aired on the conflict, which quoted Russian soldiers justifying the country’s invasion. Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/19/abc-four-courners-russia-ukraine-war-documentary-bowl-of-vomit">said</a> it repeated “blatant lies” coming from the Kremlin. </p>
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<p>But this is not the only example. Among the other Russian assertions frequently <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483306">repeated</a> by commentators are that the West is at fault for the war and the root cause lies in “NATO expansion”. Proponents of this line recycle the tired narrative that the West does not understand Russia’s world view and has failed to accommodate its “legitimate security interests”.</p>
<p>Another persistent <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-wests-bid-to-expand-nato-eastwards-was-a-mistake/news-story/51c13a5dd27498209637724fa6cb5a4c">line</a> is that the West’s failure to understand Russia’s thinking is to blame for the tensions that have marked relations between the two sides for the past 20 years. </p>
<p>On the contrary, Putin has been clear he is intent on recovering Russia’s “historic lands” in his war with Ukraine, in the process wantonly breaching security guarantees Moscow had given Kyiv twice in the 1990s.</p>
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<p>There is no misunderstanding Putin’s threat-infused nostalgia for “<a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70565">the legacy of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences</a>” of 1945, either. This was when the US, UK and Soviet Union carved up the territories of the vanquished following the second world war and demarcated their respective spheres of influence, denying tens of millions of people any say in their own future.</p>
<p>Accusing the West of sowing democracy on Russia’s doorstep today ignores the reality that, freed from 50 years of Moscow’s repressive domination, the countries of eastern Europe unequivocally saw their future security and prosperity as part of the European Union and NATO.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putin-is-on-a-personal-mission-to-rewrite-cold-war-history-making-the-risks-in-ukraine-far-graver-177730">Putin is on a personal mission to rewrite Cold War history, making the risks in Ukraine far graver</a>
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<p>While they have been understandably silent on the matter since February 2022, some of Russia’s leading foreign and defence policy thinkers – none of them Kremlin opponents – previously dismissed the idea that “NATO expansion” represented a threat to Russian security. </p>
<p>Defence analyst Alexander Khramchikhin <a href="https://nvo.ng.ru/gpolit/2021-10-14/1_1162_alliances.html">argued</a> in the authoritative Military Industrial Courier in October 2021 that claims NATO was preparing to attack Russia were “shameful”. If NATO was preparing for war with Russia, he added, it was doing so defensively.</p>
<p>Similarly, Andrei Kortunov, formerly the influential head of the Russian International Affairs Council, <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/putins-nato-power-play-stirs-disquiet-among-russias-security-elite/">argued</a> on the now-shuttered Carnegie Moscow office website in January 2021,</p>
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<p>former Soviet republics have been desperately storming the gates of the Euro-Atlantic security structures, and the West, fully aware that accepting these new member states would weaken NATO, not strengthen it, had to respond to this pressure.</p>
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<p>Putin’s own policies have also substantially worsened Russia’s strategic circumstances, not least by driving <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61397478">Finland and Sweden</a> to pursue NATO membership. Moreover, NATO’s recent policies (including generally declining military expenditure from 1990–2014) in no way pointed to hostile intent towards Russia.</p>
<h2>Putin’s war aims were not limited</h2>
<p>In a similar vein, some <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-wests-bid-to-expand-nato-eastwards-was-a-mistake/news-story/51c13a5dd27498209637724fa6cb5a4c">believe</a> Putin’s aims in Ukraine are limited to securing disarmament and neutrality, as well as a special status for Crimea and the eastern region of Donbas. Advocates of this line implicitly condone Putin’s use of military force to unilaterally recast post-second world war borders.</p>
<p>It is clear serious planning and intelligence failures misled Putin and his narrow cohort of advisers into thinking Ukraine would fold in days. A history autodidact, Putin presumably had no interest in occupying western Ukraine, knowing this <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-moscow-has-long-used-the-historic-kyivan-rus-state-to-justify-expansionism-178092">traditionally</a> had been Catholic Polish and Lithuanian territory and never part of the Orthodox Slavic lands of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/02/long-history-russian-imperialism-shaping-putins-war/">Great Russia</a>.</p>
<p>We can reasonably surmise Putin’s goal was the swift capture of Kyiv, the political or physical elimination of President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the occupation of Ukraine east of the Dnipro River (and potentially the Black Sea coastline, including Odesa, founded by Putin’s heroine, Catherine the Great). </p>
<p>Thus, Putin would replicate the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-russian-history-and-the-concept-of-smuta-turmoil-sheds-light-on-putin-and-prigozhin-and-the-dangers-of-dissent-210289">gathering of the lands</a>” of one of his distant predecessors, Tsar Ivan III, and consign what was left of western Ukraine to the eternal financial responsibility of Europe. </p>
<p>The revised map of Ukraine that former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev introduced on state television earlier this month makes clear this intent.</p>
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<p>Confident assertions, whether by the Kremlin or outside <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-sanctions/">analysts</a>, that Russia’s economy has withstood Western sanctions are also premature. </p>
<p>Sanctions work over the long term, and Russia’s much-touted growth rates mainly reflect its increased investment in the military and defence sectors. Credible <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/putins-unsustainable-spending-spree">commentators</a> believe Russia’s economy shows clear signs of overheating. Only time will tell.</p>
<p>What is true, though, is some countries are <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-find-way-around-sanctions-battlefield-tech-report/">conniving</a> with Russia to exploit loopholes and circumvent sanctions. Furthermore, many analysts are silent on the fact that Russia – a permanent member of the UN Security Council – is flouting the very sanctions it helped impose on North Korea by sourcing weapons and military material from Pyongyang.</p>
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<h2>Aiding Ukraine is not a distraction</h2>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/22/4-myths-about-ukraine-war-00142513">myth</a> being propagated in the West is the contention that aiding Ukraine diminishes US capacity to deter China in the Indo-Pacific. </p>
<p>It is <a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/war-ukraine-distracting-us-much-larger-challenge-china-poses-asia-specifically-and-us#:%7E:text=Assisting%20Ukraine%20is%20not%20a,Ukraine%E2%80%94sets%20back%20authoritarianism%20everywhere.">not a zero-sum game</a>. It is hard to see how unsettling allies and partners by dumping democracies – including one fighting for the very principles upon which the US was founded – would be a deterrent to China.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-china-gains-from-acting-as-peacemaker-204629">Ukraine war: what China gains from acting as peacemaker</a>
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<p>Neither Russia nor China has allies as we understand the term. Both see alliances as directed against someone or something, rather than being mutually reinforcing arrangements underpinned by common beliefs and values.</p>
<p>Both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping seek to undermine confidence in US leadership and commitment through falsehoods and propaganda. We must be vigilant and forthrightly contest these efforts, regardless of the competing demands on governments and the distractions of our often fractious democracies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Tesch was Australian ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2016 to 2019.</span></em></p>Russian propaganda and talking points on Ukraine continue to be repeated, without being challenged, two years after the war began.Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2232532024-02-14T14:26:07Z2024-02-14T14:26:07ZWagner Group is now Africa Corps. What this means for Russia’s operations on the continent<p><em>In August 2023, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/hand-grenade-explosion-caused-plane-crash-that-killed-wagner-boss-says-putin">his private jet crashed</a> about an hour after taking off in Moscow. He had been Russia’s pointman in Africa since the Wagner Group <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russias-wagner-group-doing-africa">began operating on the continent in 2017</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>The group is known for <a href="https://theconversation.com/wagner-group-in-africa-russias-presence-on-the-continent-increasingly-relies-on-mercenaries-198600">deploying paramilitary forces, running disinformation campaigns and propping up influential political leaders</a>. It has had a destabilising effect. Prigozhin’s death – and his <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/24/timeline-how-wagner-groups-revolt-against-russia-unfolded">aborted mutiny</a> against Russian military commanders two months earlier – has led to a shift in Wagner Group’s activities.</em></p>
<p><em>What does this mean for Africa? <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=fvXhZxQAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Alessandro Arduino’s research</a> includes mapping the evolution of <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538170311/Money-for-Mayhem-Mercenaries-Private-Military-Companies-Drones-and-the-Future-of-War">mercenaries</a> and private military companies across Africa. He provides some answers.</em></p>
<h2>What is the current status of the Wagner Group?</h2>
<p>Following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death, the Russian ministries of foreign affairs and defence quickly reassured Middle Eastern and African states that it would be <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/the-wagner-group-evolves-after-the-death-of-prigozhin/">business as usual</a> – meaning unofficial Russian boots on the ground would keep operating in these regions.</p>
<p><a href="https://adf-magazine.com/2024/01/with-new-name-same-russian-mercenaries-plague-africa/">Recent reports</a> on the Wagner Group suggest a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/12/russias-wagner-group-expands-into-africas-sahel-with-a-new-brand.html#:%7E:text=Wagner%20Group%20has%20been%20replaced,its%20new%20leader%20has%20confirmed.">transformation</a> is underway. </p>
<p>The group’s activities in Africa are now under the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-the-fallout-of-russias-wagner-rebellion/">direct supervision</a> of the Russian ministry of defence. </p>
<p>Wagner commands an estimated force of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russias-wagner-group-doing-africa#:%7E:text=Rather%20than%20a%20single%20entity%2C%20Wagner%20is%20a,of%20former%20Russian%20soldiers%2C%20convicts%2C%20and%20foreign%20nationals.">5,000 operatives</a> deployed throughout Africa, from Libya to Sudan. As part of the transformation, the defence ministry has renamed it the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-01-30/russia-raises-the-stakes-in-tussle-over-africa">Africa Corps</a>. </p>
<p>The choice of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-russian-military-unit-recruiting-former-wagner-fighters-ukraine-veterans-2023-12?r=US&IR=T">name</a> could be an attempt to add a layer of obfuscation to cover what has been in plain sight for a long time. That Russian mercenaries in Africa <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadian-owned-mine-seized-by-russian-mercenaries-in-africa-is-helping/">serve one master</a> – the Kremlin. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the direct link to Russia’s ministry of defence will make it difficult for Russia to argue that a foreign government has requested the services of a Russian private military company without the Kremlin’s involvement. The head of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/mali-asked-private-russian-military-firm-help-against-insurgents-ifx-2021-09-25/">attempted to use this defence in Mali</a>.</p>
<p>The notion of transforming the group into the Africa Corps may have been inspired by World War II German field marshal <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/afrika-korps">Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps</a>. Nazi Germany wove myths around his <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/115/4/1243/35179?redirectedFrom=fulltext">strategic and tactical successes in north Africa</a>.</p>
<p>But will the Wagner Group under new leadership uphold the <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/wagner-group-africa-where-rubber-meets-road-206202">distinctive modus operandi</a> that propelled it to infamy during Prigozhin’s reign? This included the intertwining of boots on the ground with propaganda and disinformation. It also leveraged technologies and a sophisticated network of financing to enhance combat capabilities.</p>
<h2>What will happen to Wagner’s modus operandi now?</h2>
<p>In my recent book, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538170311/Money-for-Mayhem-Mercenaries-Private-Military-Companies-Drones-and-the-Future-of-War">Money for Mayhem: Mercenaries, Private Military Companies, Drones and the Future of War</a>, I record Prigozhin’s adept weaving of disinformation and misinformation. </p>
<p>Numerous meticulously orchestrated campaigns flooded Africa’s online social platforms <a href="https://www.state.gov/disarming-disinformation/yevgeniy-prigozhins-africa-wide-disinformation-campaign/">promoting</a> the removal of French and western influence across the Sahel. </p>
<p>Prigozhin oversaw the creation of the Internet Research Agency, which operated as the propaganda arm of the group. It supported Russian disinformation campaigns and was sanctioned in 2018 by the US government for meddling in American elections. Prigozhin <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/14/europe/russia-yevgeny-prigozhin-internet-research-agency-intl/index.html">admitted</a> to founding the so-called troll farm: </p>
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<p>I’ve never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time.</p>
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<p>From a financial perspective, Prigozhin’s approach involved establishing a <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1581">convoluted network of lucrative natural resources mining operations</a>. These spanned gold mines in the Central African Republic to diamond mines in Sudan. </p>
<p>This strategy was complemented by significant cash infusions from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/09/how-russia-recruiting-wagner-fighters-continue-war-ukraine">Russian state</a> to support the Wagner Group’s direct involvement in hostilities. This extended from Syria to Ukraine, and across north and west Africa.</p>
<p>My research shows Prigozhin networks are solid enough to last. But only as long as the golden rule of the mercenary remains intact: guns for hire are getting paid.</p>
<p>In Libya and Mali, Russia is unlikely to yield ground due to enduring geopolitical objectives. These include generating revenue from oil fields, securing access to ports for its navy and securing its position as a kingmaker in the region. However, the Central African Republic may see less attention from Moscow. The Wagner Group’s involvement here was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/07/africa-corps-wagner-group-russia-africa-burkina-faso/">primarily linked</a> to Prigozhin’s personal interests in goldmine revenues.</p>
<p>The Russian ministry of defence will no doubt seek to create a unified and loyal force dedicated to military action. But with the enduring legacy of Soviet-style bureaucracy, marked by excessive paperwork and procrastination in today’s Russian officials, one might surmise that greater allegiance to Moscow will likely come at the cost of reduced flexibility.</p>
<p>History has shown that Africa serves as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/wagner-group-mercenaries-in-africa-why-there-hasnt-been-any-effective-opposition-to-drive-them-out-207318">lucrative arena for mercenaries</a> due to various factors. These include: </p>
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<li><p>the prevalence of low-intensity conflicts reduces the risks to mercenaries’ lives compared to full-scale wars like in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/13/russia-ukraine-war-list-of-key-events-day-720">Ukraine</a></p></li>
<li><p>the continent’s abundant natural resources are prone to exploitation</p></li>
<li><p>pervasive instability allows mercenaries to operate with relative impunity.</p></li>
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<p>As it is, countries in Africa once considered allies of the west are looking for alternatives. Russia is increasingly looking like a <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-essential-reads-on-russia-africa-relations-187568">viable candidate</a>. In January 2024, Chad’s junta leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby, met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow to “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/putin-meets-chad-junta-leader-russia-competes-with-france-africa-2024-01-24/">develop bilateral ties</a>”. Chad previously had taken a pro-western policy.</p>
<p>A month earlier, Russia’s deputy defence minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who’s been tasked with overseeing Wagner’s activities in the Middle East and north Africa, <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2023/12/04/russian-officials-visit-niger-to-strengthen-military-ties/">visited Niger</a>. The two countries <a href="https://theconversation.com/niger-and-russia-are-forming-military-ties-3-ways-this-could-upset-old-allies-221696">agreed to strengthen military ties</a>. Niger is currently led by the military after a <a href="https://www.iiss.org/en/publications/strategic-comments/2023/the-coup-in-niger/">coup in July 2023</a>.</p>
<h2>Where does it go from here?</h2>
<p>There are a number of paths that the newly named Africa Corps could take.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It gets deployed by Moscow to fight in conflicts meeting Russia’s geopolitical ends. </p></li>
<li><p>It morphs into paramilitary units under the guise of Russian foreign military intelligence agencies.</p></li>
<li><p>It splinters into factions, acting as heavily armed personal guards for local warlords. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The propaganda machinery built by Prigozhin may falter during the transition. But this won’t signal the immediate disappearance of the Russian disinformation ecosystem. </p>
<p>Russian diplomatic efforts are already mobilising to preserve the status quo. This is clear from Moscows’s <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/brief-russia-deepens-counter-terrorism-ties-to-sahelian-post-coup-regimes/">backing</a> of the recent Alliance of Sahelian States encompassing Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. All three nations are led by military rulers who overthrew civilian governments a recently announced <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/niger-mali-burkina-faso-say-they-are-leaving-ecowas-regional-block-2024-01-28/">plans to exit</a> from the 15-member Economic Community of West African States.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessandro Arduino is a member of the International Code of Conduct Advisory Group.</span></em></p>Will the Wagner Group under new leadership uphold the ruthless modus operandi that propelled it to the spotlight in Africa?Alessandro Arduino, Affiliate Lecturer, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201472023-12-19T13:17:49Z2023-12-19T13:17:49ZAlexei Navalny disappears from jail – another in the long line of Russian dissidents to fall foul of Vladimir Putin<p>There is growing concern about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny who is reported <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/12/russia-navalnys-enforced-disappearance-raises-grave-concerns-un-expert">to have disappeared</a> from the Russian prison colony in which he has been serving a lengthy sentence. Lawyers for the 47-year-old dissident said he had last been in contact two weeks ago. </p>
<p>Navalny’s imprisonment has been condemned by human rights organisations as “politically motivated” and he was due to face fresh charges. But it was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/18/courts-halt-cases-against-alexei-navalny-after-disappearance-of-jailed-activist">announced on Monday</a> that seven criminal proceedings that were pending had been put on hold. This has fuelled fears about his whereabouts and also his health, which has reportedly deteriorated due to the conditions in which he was being held.</p>
<p>There has been speculation that he may have been <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-navalny-prison-moved-incommunicado/32725465.html">transferred to a harsher prison</a>. Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to Russian president Vladimir Putin, declined to comment, saying he had “neither the intention nor the ability to track the fate of prisoners”.</p>
<p>Nalvany’s apparent disappearance comes as Putin has launched his campaign for a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/08/vladimir-putin-to-run-for-russian-president-again-in-march-2024">fifth term of office</a>. Elections scheduled for March 2024 are generally thought to be no more than a formality, given the lack of any real opposition. </p>
<h2>Silencing dissent</h2>
<p>The Russian government has penetrated, intimidated, or silenced most opposition inside Russia. It accomplishes this through a spectrum of methods that ramp up depending on the type of activity and the prominence of the opposition leader. The severity of opposition action determines the intensity of response. </p>
<p><strong>How the Putin government deals with its opponents</strong></p>
<p>If anyone in Russia criticises the Putin regime – either online or in person – the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s powerful internal security agency, can initiate human or technical monitoring. Human monitoring involves the FSB recruiting a person and instructing them to become acquainted with a suspect, listen to their conversations, and initiate opposition-themed discussion to draw out the suspect’s reactions.</p>
<p>The FSB has several options if a person takes the bait and expresses agreement with the anti-government provocation. It can approach the person and recruit them as a source to report on colleagues, often using the threat of arrest as incentive. It can invite them to a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08850607.2023.2280430">“prophylactic” conversation</a>, informing them that the FSB is aware of their activity and recommends they cease before they get into real trouble. Or the FSB can arrest them and hold them briefly to frighten them into stopping their oppositionist speech. In lower-level cases, the goal is to disrupt the activity before it becomes dangerous.</p>
<p>In combination with human operations, the FSB also has <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/isw-russias-fsb-supports-law-expanding-digital-surveillance/">legal access to Russian internet</a> and voice communications to monitor conversations, determine the intensity of oppositionist speech, and identify group leaders. Communication intercepts <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-net/2022">are allowed</a> in Russia with a formal court order. </p>
<p>But the wide spectrum of criminal violations that the FSB is responsible for investigating – from economic and fraud laws to terrorism laws – and the broad latitude the FSB enjoys in interpreting those laws, makes it easy to find a reason to justify a communication intercept warrant. The expansion of laws <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/07/russia-criminalizes-independent-war-reporting-anti-war-protests">prohibiting anti-war rhetoric</a> since the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes it even easier.</p>
<h2>Harsh treatment</h2>
<p>The next level of intensity involves a person joining and actively participating in an opposition movement, such as in anti-regime demonstrations or publications. In such cases, like those that occurred in <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-1000-protesters-arrested-ukraine-invasion/31738786.html">February and March 2022</a>, the FSB can arrest or physically restrain participants, with support from the Russian National Guard, and charge the organisers with a spectrum of crimes. These can range from terrorism and extremism to treason. </p>
<p>Becoming an opposition figurehead and gaining a following that potentially rivals Putin is the highest form of anti-regime activity and prompts the most intense response. That most often means long jail sentences. Anti-Putin politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested in April 2022 and charged with treason in August 2023. He’s now serving <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-opposition-politican-kara-murza-loses-appeal-against-treason-sentence-2023-07-31/">25 years in prison</a>.</p>
<p>Navalny, who has continued to criticise Putin even from prison, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/20/russian-opposition-figure-alexei-navalny-says-faces-new-charges">was charged with terrorism</a> in October 2022, which will probably keep him in prison for life – however long that turns out to be, given recent reports of his ill-health and the conditions in which he is held.</p>
<h2>Ultimate sanction</h2>
<p>Beyond long jail sentences, a few select opposition figures warrant the highest form of punishment: assassination. This comes when other methods of persuasion and intimidation fail and an opposition leader becomes a symbol. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31669061">Boris Nemtsov</a>, Navalny’s and Kara-Murza’s political partner, died under suspicious circumstances in February 2015. He had been arrested for anti-Putin speech in 2007, 2010 and 2011, before being shot dead in Moscow. Kara-Murza survived <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-kara-murza-trial-poisonings-treason/32320597.html">two suspected poisonings</a>, in 2015 and in 2017. </p>
<p>Navalny was targeted for assassination in 2020 when the FSB reportedly <a href="https://theconversation.com/alexei-navalny-poisoning-what-theatrical-assassination-attempts-reveal-about-vladimir-putins-grip-on-power-in-russia-145664">tried to poison him</a> using the chemical weapon Novichok. The investigative journalist organisation Bellingcat assessed that Kara-Murza and Navalny had been under investigation for years and the same FSB element <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/11/navalny-kara-murza-tailed-by-same-fsb-squad-before-alleged-poisonings-investigation-a72911">had been tailing</a> both of them.</p>
<p>But assassination is a last resort for suppressing opposition because of the prospect that an individual could become a martyr – even more popular in death than in life. A long prison sentence allows an opposition leader to remain a symbol of defeat for the Russian population to see. </p>
<p>Navalny’s apparent disappearance is probably the result of his continued ability to make anti-regime statements from prison. Some <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/12/14/alexei-navalny-russias-opposition-leader-is-missing-in-the-gulag">western media reports</a> have speculated that he has been murdered. But it is more likely he has been transferred to another prison where his ability to communicate with the outside world is more firmly controlled.</p>
<p>Former Wagner Group boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who became prominent for his criticism of the Russian military’s handling of the war in Ukraine, went a step further and turned his company’s military power on Moscow. His <a href="https://theconversation.com/yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-group-boss-joins-long-list-of-those-who-challenged-vladimir-putin-and-paid-the-price-212181">sudden death</a> in an airplane crash in August 2023, possibly caused by an anti-aircraft missile, is not surprising in the context of the intensity scale.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Riehle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Navalny survived poisoning only to be arrested and sentenced to more than 30 years in jail. Now he has disappeared.Kevin Riehle, Lecturer in Intelligence and Security Studies, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122212023-08-24T20:51:05Z2023-08-24T20:51:05ZVladimir Putin’s suspected elimination of Yevgeny Prigozhin: The hunter to become the hunted?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544594/original/file-20230824-3987-zkdg4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3988%2C2167&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People carry a body bag away from the wreckage of a crashed private jet near the Russian village of Kuzhenkinoi on Aug. 24, 2023. Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group, reportedly died in the crash along with nine other people.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/vladimir-putins-suspected-elimination-of-yevgeny-prigozhin-the-hunter-to-become-the-hunted" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, is presumed dead. Russia’s Air Transport Agency has said <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/24/prigozhin-wagner-plane-crash-list-dmitry-utkin/">he was on the passenger manifest of 10 people on board a private jet that came down in a fiery crash</a> close to Moscow, killing everyone on board, while a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/24/prigozhin-presumed-dead-final-nail-in-coffin-for-russias-wagner-group.html">Telegram channel associated with Wagner confirmed his passing.</a></p>
<p>Plane crashes do happen, but in Russia, any unexpected events with political links are viewed with great suspicion. An incident of this magnitude will invariably cast suspicion on the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin’s regime is unlikely to be able to disown the crash — and there will most certainly be unforeseen and unintended consequences.</p>
<p>Many believed Prigozhin was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/24/opinions/wagner-chief-prigozhin-borrowed-time-putin-treisman/index.html#:%7E:text=Wagner%20Group%20founder%20Yevgeny%20Prigozhin,mutiny%20against%20Russia's%20military%20leadership.">living on borrowed time</a> ever since he led an unsuccessful uprising against Russian forces in June, when he not only demanded a change in Russia’s military leadership but challenged Putin’s rationale for his war on Ukraine.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-wagner-group-revolt-in-russia-could-mean-for-the-war-in-ukraine-208428">What the Wagner Group revolt in Russia could mean for the war in Ukraine</a>
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<h2>Eliminating opponents</h2>
<p>Though Prigozhin said his actions <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-26/putin-defense-chief-who-was-focus-of-wagner-mutiny-visits-troops?in_source=embedded-checkout-banner">weren’t an act against Putin</a>, there could hardly have been a more brazen affront. Normally, Putin <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-people-putin-is-suspected-of-assassinating-2016-3">promptly and mercilessly eliminates opponents for far less.</a></p>
<p>In fact, during the morning of the mutiny, Putin <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9791119/putin-wagner-group-rebellion/">labelled the mutineers traitors and their actions treason</a>. Yet by the afternoon, faced with the reality that his military and his security services had shown no inclination to fight for him, Putin granted the mutineers amnesty. Several days later, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/world/europe/putin-prigozhin-meeting-wagner.html">he met with Prigozhin</a> without punishing him.</p>
<p>The Russian leader was clearly faced with an intractable dilemma. His personality-centred regime — despite well-intentioned attempts by scholars to provide <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2017.1282669">sophisticated theoretical characterizations of “Putinism”</a> — does not fit the standard mould for authoritarian leaders.
Various historical strands, philosophies or precedents for clues simply muddy the waters when it comes to Putin’s rationales and motives.</p>
<p>In certain ways, Putin’s rule is both more simple and more sinister. He is all about power and privilege, and given the nature of his corrosively corrupt regime, which <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/08/23/yevgeny-prigozhins-reported-death-may-consolidate-putins-power?utm_content=article-link-1&etear=nl_today_1&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=8/23/2023&utm_id=1734548">the <em>Economist</em> magazine calls a “mafia state,”</a> he must ruthlessly and visibly punish challengers to deter anyone from infringing on his powers.</p>
<p>Normally, Putin’s brutality has paid off and reinforced his image of invincibility. Opponents have been shot, poisoned, fallen out of windows or committed sudden suicide. Antony Blinken, the United States secretary of state, quipped recently: <a href="https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-07-21-23/h_57611fbdfa9f02986dafbb36c1dff340#:%7E:text=US%20Secretary%20of%20State%20Antony%20Blinken%20said%20that%20Wagner%20founder,has%20an%20open%2Dwindows%20policy.">“NATO has an open-door policy; Russia has an open windows policy.”</a></p>
<p>Putin, however, also appreciated the risks of eliminating Prigozhin. He had good reason to be cautious. </p>
<h2>Prigozhin loyalists</h2>
<p>Unlike other political opponents, or various dissidents, Prigozhin commanded a powerful base. The Wagner Group, co-founded by Dmitry Utkin, may have been bloated by the recruitment of thousands of convicts, but at its core the organization is comprised of highly trained former Russian military men, often from elite units, who have been fiercely loyal to Prigozhin.</p>
<p>These men could be profoundly dangerous if angered and focused on a particular cause.</p>
<p>Yet Putin could not afford to have the leader of the mutiny go unpunished.</p>
<p>The early reaction of the Wagner Group to the death of Prigozhin, (and his No. 2, Utkin) — declaring on the social media platform Telegram that Prigozhin was a “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/plane-allegedly-carrying-wagner-chief-prigozhin-crashes-after-mutiny-against-putin/#:%7E:text=On%20its%20Telegram%20group%2C%20Wagner,had%20been%20on%20the%20plane.">hero of Russia, a true patriot of his Motherland… (who) died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia”</a> — offers a noteworthy warning of events to come.</p>
<p>In fact, just weeks before the mutiny, Prigozhin was portrayed as a hero in Russia. In Rostov-on-Don, he and the mutineers were greeted by the population with enthusiasm. </p>
<p>As news began to spread of his death, Russians began leaving masses of flowers at Wagner headquarters in St. Petersburg.</p>
<p>The risk here for Putin is that rather than looking strong and fearsome — which could be the case in the short-term amid state media’s reporting of the crash — he will also appear duplicitous and increasingly desperate. </p>
<p>Over the long term, it’s hardly inconceivable that the core members of Wagner, who so admired and were so loyal to Prigozhin, will seek revenge against the Russian leader. In that case, Putin, who always views himself as a hunter, might well become the hunted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aurel Braun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The core members of the Wagner Group, who are loyal to the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, will likely seek revenge against Vladimir Putin for his death. Is the Russian leader now living on borrowed time?Aurel Braun, Professor, International Relations and Political Science, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2076892023-06-14T16:03:31Z2023-06-14T16:03:31ZUkraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has finally begun - but why now and to what end?<p>A few days into <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-heavy-fighting-russia-donbas-counteroffensive/32454060.html">the news that the Ukrainian army has recaptured territorities</a> from the Russian occupying forces, Kyiv’s counteroffensive still has plenty to intrigue us. Announced in autumn 2022, this summer 2023 campaign has been a long time coming. So much so that it almost came to seem like Godot in Samuel Beckett’s play: its arrival seemed imminent, but never came. At the beginning of June 2023, it appears to have finally averted the “Godot curse”, with the <a href="https://fr.mil.ru/fr/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12469652@egNews">Russian Ministry of Defence</a>, then <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/international/europe/en-ukraine-des-actions-de-contre-offensive-evoquees-par-volodymyr-zelensky-20230611_KOT6YAINF5BRRPCYZZKX6HGMWA/">Kyiv officials</a>, now admitting that it has indeed begun.</p>
<p>The reason why Ukraine has been trumpeting about this large-scale operation for so long, without it actually materialising, is that, at the tactical level, it is essential to keep the details of the military action vague so that it can benefit from the element of surprise. However, a number of questions remain about this counteroffensive. </p>
<p>Why this summer and not later? After all, waiting a little further could have enabled the Ukrainian army forces to enjoy the <a href="https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/good-bad-and-ugly-assessing-year-military-aid-ukraine">military equipment promised by the West</a>. Sanctions, as well as the sheer weight of an occupation that now spans 20% of the Ukrainian territory, could have further sunk the Russian war effort.</p>
<p>Secondly, and most importantly, what are Kyiv’s strategic objectives? Is it to seek a decisive victory? Or is it to prepare the ground for negotiations in which Ukraine would enter from a position of strength? By speculating on the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of these operations, we may have neglected to consider the ‘why’.</p>
<h2>The economic causes</h2>
<p>The launch of the counteroffensive was discreet and gradual. But it followed a carefully considered timetable and geography.</p>
<p>The timing depended on a number of internal and external considerations. For the Ukrainian military command, it was essential to maintain and amplify the momentum gained by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-putins-retreat-from-kherson-could-be-his-most-humiliating-defeat-yet-194254">recapture of Kherson</a> and the long blockade of Russian forces in the <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/kremlin%E2%80%99s-pyrrhic-victory-bakhmut-retrospective-battle-bakhmut">battle of Bakhmut</a>. At the end of the winter and the <em>rasputitsa</em> (thaw), the Ukrainian armed forces took the initiative. </p>
<p>There are a number of advantages: the state of the terrain - neither frozen nor muddy - means that forces are more agile, giving them the opportunity for surprise and breakthrough; the gradual arrival of military equipment; and the fact that the tactical roles have been reversed, with the Ukrainians now leading the offensive and the Russians defending. In other words, the timetable for operations will no longer be dictated by the Kremlin but by Kyiv’s tactical analyses.</p>
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<p>From a political viewpoint, the timing responds to several imperatives. Ukraine’s general elections have been slated for the autumn: the outgoing president cannot move toward that deadline without attempting to recapture occupied territories. When it comes to Western opinion, the start of the invasion and the discovery of <a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/forum/documenting-war-crimes-ukraine">war crimes committed by Russia</a> are still sufficiently fresh for there to be no ‘Ukrainian fatigue’. Within European governments, support for the Ukrainian state remains massive and unquestioned. Above all, Ukraine had to attack before the United States embarked on its pre-election schedule in the autumn. Indeed, there is no doubt that American politicians, once launched into the presidential campaign, will either forget about Ukraine or debate the funds granted to Ukraine to defend itself.</p>
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À lire aussi :
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<p>The chosen geographical areas also make sense, beyond the element of surprise necessary for the success of such operations. It would appear Ukrainian forces are attacking <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65851760">in the south</a>, towards Crimea, but also in the Donbass region and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65567143">Bakhmut area</a> in particular. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-ukraine-dam-breach-means-for-the-countrys-counteroffensive-and-aid-deployment-207361">destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam</a> has helped to build up a Russian “bastion” beyond the Dnieper river. But it would also be mistaken to overestimate its impact: in any case, the Ukrainian armed forces would have had to cross the Dnieper line under challenging conditions.</p>
<p>For the Ukrainian army the focus is now on preventing a possible Russian advance towards Odessa in the south-west, make its presence felt in the south and take back the illegally annexed Donbass region. </p>
<h2>Strategic reasons</h2>
<p>By dint of wondering about the “when” and “where” of this counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, we have put the structural reasons for this operation on the back burner. After all, launching the reconquest with weapons in hand was no easy task. Since the beginning of the invasion, Ukraine has suffered considerable human, territorial, financial and industrial losses. </p>
<p>If the Ukrainians have decided to take action now, it is because they believe that the Federation is neither on the brink of economic collapse, nor of a political revolution, nor militarily demobilised. Expecting salvation from sanctions, hypothetical regime change, desertions or the exhaustion of the Russian defence ecosystem is, in Kyiv’s eyes, illusory.</p>
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<p>On the other hand, the counteroffensive depends upon a certain view of relations with the United States, NATO and the EU: Kyiv believes that the country receives all the more support the more it shows its determination to recover its sovereignty by its own means. And it is right to do so: the West sent out the bulk its financial and military aid after Ukraine managed to <a href="https://www.ouest-france.fr/monde/guerre-en-ukraine/guerre-en-ukraine-retrait-total-des-russes-a-kiev-l-est-sous-la-menace-le-point-sur-la-nuit-b3461bf5-b435-484c-9e81-84acd6a2a08e">save its capital from occupation</a> in April 2022. </p>
<h2>What war aims for Ukraine in 2023?</h2>
<p>What will be the outcome of these operations by Ukrainian forces? While tactical successes and setbacks are unpredictable, strategic gains can be estimated. Two major options are now open.</p>
<p>Either the Ukrainian offensives make real inroads into some of the territories conquered, occupied and fortified by the Russian armed forces, and then the war will take a real turn in 2023. If these breakthroughs are successful in the Donbass, Ukraine will be able to consider that it has won a decisive battle by preventing the enemy from turning the eastern part of its territory into an annex of mainland Russia. Cancelling, at least in part, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/annexions-russes-en-ukraine-quand-la-force-tord-le-bras-au-droit-192125">illegal annexations of September 2022</a>; challenging the integration of the Donbass into Russian territory; inflicting a blow to the separatist militias… These are the outcomes that could prevent Ukraine from being partitioned. If the offensives succeed in the south of the country, the fate of Crimea, annexed in 2014, will be called into question.</p>
<p>The other alternative would consist of questionable successes on the military front. In this case, after the 2023 general elections in Ukraine, the strategy of war of attrition will undoubtedly prevail. Forced to recognise their powerlessness in the current state of affairs, the Ukrainian authorities would then have to re-examine their position in order to regain their territorial integrity: taking a long-term view, nibbling into Russian strongholds, exerting diplomatic pressure, engaging in partial negotiations, etc. If the head-on strategy fails, a strategic rethink will have to be considered. But the fact is that the Ukrainian authorities have chosen a massive and rapid reconquest as the horizon for 2023.</p>
<h2>Looking for the decisive victory?</h2>
<p>The military operations currently underway call for the utmost caution.</p>
<p>It is neither written that this counteroffensive will break down Russian defences nor that it will lead to a complete recapture of the territory. Surprises can arise from a number of factors, including <a href="https://www.ladepeche.fr/2023/02/15/guerre-en-ukraine-la-bielorussie-pourrait-elle-entrer-dans-le-conflit-10998628.php">direct and official involvement of Belarus</a>, Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russian territory, disinformation campaigns to discredit individual Ukrainian officials, and internal struggles within Russia, among others.</p>
<p>But we also know Ukraine will not resign itself to territorial amputations without a fight. This promises a protracted war effort, given the scale of the territorial losses and the Russian war effort. And the search for a “decisive battle” is illusory: Moscow was fooled into thinking it could take Kyiv in a matter of days. Kyiv is well aware that several waves of offensive action are needed to challenge the Russian occupation. In any case, Europeans can see that war has returned to their continent for a long time to come – whatever the outcome of the battles in the summer of 2023 in eastern and southern Ukraine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cyrille Bret ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Ukraine’s recapture of villages in the Donetsk region in early June raises a myriad of questions.Cyrille Bret, Géopoliticien, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2049602023-05-04T13:46:48Z2023-05-04T13:46:48ZUkraine war: drone ‘attack’ on Kremlin – logic suggests a false flag to distract Russians ahead of Victory Day on May 9<p>Whether the alleged <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-drone-incident-what-do-we-know-2023-05-03/">drone assassination attempt</a> on the Russian president in the Kremlin was an audacious attack by Ukraine or a clumsy attempt at a false flag operation by Moscow may never be known. But from the Kremlin’s standpoint, at least Russia now has footage of its own, demonstrating its ability to shoot down drones the way Ukraine has for more than 12 months of the war. </p>
<p>The Kremlin <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-attacked-kremlin-with-drones-failed-bid-kill-putin-ria-2023-05-03/">has portrayed the incident as</a> “a planned terrorist attack and an attempt on the president”, thwarted by “timely actions taken by the military and special services”. The attackers are portrayed as inept in their execution and ill-prepared in their planning. It’s well-known that Putin rarely, if ever, stays overnight in the Kremlin. </p>
<p>The “assassination attempt” scenario requires a degree of credulity that surely only exists among Putin’s ardent supporters. The <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/kremlin-drone-spectacular-has-prompted-a-furious-guessing-game-and-a-welter-of-conspiracy-theories-12872254">footage of the attack</a> shows a quadcopter drone flying in at an oddly convenient photogenic angle. The notion that this could be an actual attempt on Putin’s life ignores the fact that a device of this size can carry only a small payload, relatively slowly and over a short distance. What’s more, the centre of Moscow is a drone no-fly zone and the large Kremlin complex is both heavily defended and fortified. So the likelihood of getting anywhere near Putin was a non-starter. </p>
<p>Unless the attack was simply motivated by the kudos of demonstrating an ability to strike at the heart of Russian power, it makes no military sense on Kyiv’s part. If Ukrainians were able to smuggle an armed drone into Moscow, a much better target would be the Victory Day parade in Red Square scheduled for May 9 where Putin is usually out in the open – a much easier target. </p>
<p>Such a drone attack on a military parade <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/nicolas-maduros-speech-cut-short-while-soldiers-scatter">occurred in 2018</a> in Caracas in an alleged attempt on the life of Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro – so it is not without precedent. So, even if the motivation for a drone attack by Kyiv was for kudos, you would think that an attack on Victory Day would be preferable to a night raid on an empty Kremlin. </p>
<p>When you add to that Kyiv’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-03-23/h_faf8589a9f40f570a88507e0bc241c07">unambiguous denial</a> of any involvement in the raid, it raises the question of who would have chosen to attack the Kremlin that way? </p>
<h2>An act of theatre?</h2>
<p>So if this was not a Ukrainian attack, what could be the motivation of Russia for staging its own act of mobile phone theatre? In the past, Putin – then prime minister in the dying days of the presidency of Boris Yeltsin – <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-russia-president-1999-chechnya-apartment-bombings/30097551.html">allegedly staged</a> terrorist bombings of apartment blocs in Moscow to justify an even more violent second war in Chechnya in 1999. </p>
<p>The official Kremlin <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71091">statement</a> already alluded to Russia reserving “the right to take countermeasures wherever and whenever it deems appropriate”. The subsequent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/may/04/russia-ukraine-war-live-air-raid-sirens-in-kyiv-and-eastern-regions-zelenskiy-denies-responsibility-for-kremlin-drone-attack#top-of-blog">heavy attacks on Kyiv and Odesa</a> by drone and missile bombardment are consistent with the revenge narrative – but then such attacks also occurred before the Kremlin incident. </p>
<p>Russia, it is clear, needs no additional justification to <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-shells-kill-21-civilians-in-ukraine-s-kherson-zelenskiy-says/ar-AA1aHibR">target civilians</a>, as it did <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65421341">last week</a> – and has consistently <a href="https://www.state.gov/war-crimes-by-russias-forces-in-ukraine/">for the past year</a>. Russia’s barbarous and illegal killing of ordinary Ukrainian civilians has been a constant feature of this conflict. </p>
<p>Another explanation might be that the attack was designed to distract Russian public attention from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65434772">actual Ukrainian drone attacks</a> elsewhere, such as the more significant attack on a Crimean oil depot on April 29. But given the planning required to prepare for such a stunt – as well as the narrative that has followed – this too is unlikely.</p>
<p>More plausible is that this alleged attempt on Putin’s life will be used for other purposes. It could be to used to justify another round of mobilisation or the release of new casualty figures. Or it might be used to explain Putin’s absence from the military parade next week on security grounds. Victory Day parades have already been cancelled <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-russia-scales-back-may-9-victory-day-celebrations-amid-fear-of-popular-protests-204638">elsewhere</a> in Russia, supposedly on security grounds.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-russia-scales-back-may-9-victory-day-celebrations-amid-fear-of-popular-protests-204638">Ukraine war: Russia scales back May 9 Victory Day celebrations amid fear of popular protests</a>
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<p>In reality, there are neither the available military vehicles nor soldiers to spare for these events given the scale of the conflict and its associated casualties. Another potential embarrassment for the Kremlin is that family members would parade carrying photographs of their recently dead relatives which would show to the world the scale of the losses. </p>
<p>Above all, there is nothing to celebrate for Putin 15 months into the war. Despite the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/02/russian-regions-scrap-victory-day-parades-amid-fear-of-ukraine-strikes">best efforts of Russian forces</a>, Ukraine is still holding onto the fiercely contested ruins of the city of Bakhmut, which would have been the first notable gain since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-the-bloody-battle-for-soledar-and-what-it-tells-us-about-the-future-of-the-conflict-197625">fall of Soledar</a> in January this year.</p>
<p>Whatever the motivation for the drone attack on the Kremlin, the timing is instructive. With its focus on its anticipated counter-offensive, Ukraine would be unlikely to undertake anything that risked the perception of escalation involving an attack on the Russian capital and leadership headquarters. </p>
<p>For Russia, by contrast, the attack may be used as a way to stiffen public resolve ahead of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, as well as portray their leader as someone who – like them – is vulnerable to attack. Whichever way one looks at it, what seems likely to be the latest theatrics staged by the Kremlin expose, rather than mask, the fact that this coming May 9 will be yet another no-victory day for the Russian president.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-victory-day-celebrations-cant-mask-how-badly-things-are-going-for-vladimir-putin-182609">Ukraine: Victory Day celebrations can't mask how badly things are going for Vladimir Putin</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204960/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hastings Dunn has previously received funding from the ESRC, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Open Democracy Foundation and has previously been both a NATO and a Fulbright Fellow.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU's Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.</span></em></p>The drone ‘attack’ on the Kremlin remains shrouded in mystery. Here are some of the possible explanations.David Hastings Dunn, Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of BirminghamStefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2038932023-04-17T16:12:04Z2023-04-17T16:12:04Z‘Stalin-style’ show trials and unexplained deaths of opposition figures show the depth of repression in Putin’s Russia<p>Longtime Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/apr/17/russia-ukraine-war-live-verdict-due-in-treason-trial-of-kremlin-critic-putin-meets-chinese-defence-minister">found guilty</a> of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison after what the journalist and activist has dismissed as a 1930s-style “show trial”. </p>
<p>The 41-year-old, who holds Russian and British passports, was originally detained in April 2022 and charged with criticising the Russian army. But the charge list <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/06/russian-prosecutors-seek-25-year-prison-term-for-kremlin-critic-kara-murza-a80743">was subsequently expanded</a> to include treason and working for an undesirable organisation.</p>
<p>Kara-Murza has for years been a consistent opponent of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He has also been involved in anti-regime parties and think tanks including the Institute of Modern Russia and the Open Russia Foundation. He was a key proponent of the Magnitsky Act, which enabled the US government to freeze the <a href="https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/criticizing-the-kremlin-human-rights-sanctions-coming-in-the-case-of-vladimir-kara-murza/">foreign assets</a> of Russian elites.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.legal500.com/gc-magazine/interview/the-magnitsky-act-what-every-general-counsel-needs-to-know/">The law</a> was named after tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who in 2007 uncovered a corruption scheme that saw the Kremlin defraud Russian taxpayers of <a href="https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/press-and-media/news/what-s-really-behind-putin-s-obsession-magnitsky-act">US$230 million</a> (£185 million). Magnitsky was arrested, tortured and eventually died in a Moscow pre-trial detention <a href="https://www.russian-untouchables.com/eng/arrest/">centre</a>.</p>
<p>Over the years, Kara-Murza has been a <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1320">major advocate</a> for the sanctioning Russia’s pro-Putin elites by the US, UK and others, making him a prime target for the Kremlin. His standing in the Kremlin also wasn’t helped by his close relationship with Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader who was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31669061">shot dead on a Moscow street in 2015</a>. </p>
<p>His insistence that Putin was behind Nemtsov’s death would have alienated him from the authorities even further. Three months after Nemtsov’s death, Kara-Murza suffered kidney failure, which is widely thought to be been as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-mysterious-illness-in-russia/2015/05/28/f8802714-055f-11e5-bc72-f3e16bf50bb6_story.html">result of poisoning</a>.</p>
<p>Two years later, Kara-Murza suffered the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38844292">same symptoms</a>, pointing to another poisoning. Naturally there were no clear links to the Kremlin, but investigative journalism group Bellingcat found that Federal Security Service agents were following Kara-Murza in 2015 and 2017 – just before <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/11/navalny-kara-murza-tailed-by-same-fsb-squad-before-alleged-poisonings-investigation-a72911">both poisonings</a>.</p>
<h2>Opposition decapitated</h2>
<p>Kara-Murza’s final court statement stated that the Putinist system had returned to 1930s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/10/vladimir-kara-murza-final-statement-court/">show trials</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve been surprised by how far my trial, in its secrecy and contempt for legal norms, has surpassed even the “trials” of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s. And that’s not even to mention the harsh sentence requested by the prosecution or the talk of “enemies of the state”. In this respect, we’ve gone beyond the 1970s – all the way back to the 1930s. As a historian, for me this is an occasion for reflection. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There has been a long history of opposition leaders and anti-Putin activists being killed or persecuted. As well as <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/boris-nemtsov-the-man-who-dared-to-criticize-vladimir-putin/a-52561085">Nemtsov’s murder</a>, this includes the 2006 assassination of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/alexander-litvinenko-the-man-who-solved-his-own-murder">Alexander Litvinenko</a>, and – just recently – the reported poisoning of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/14/alexei-navalny-in-critical-situation-after-possible-poisoning-says-ally">Alexei Navalny</a>. Nalvalny has been in prison since <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-opposition-leader-alexei-navalny-arrested-upon-arrival-in-moscow/">January 2021</a>, when he was detained at Moscow airport after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from another poisoning attempt in mid-2020.</p>
<p>The removal of opposition figures and the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/797410249/breaking-down-putins-latest-move-to-consolidate-power-in-russia">constitutional changes introduced in 2020</a>, which effectively mean that Putin can remain in power until 2036, are strong indications of the president’s desire to remain in power indefinitely.</p>
<p>Over three decades, Russia under Putin has become a classic “<a href="https://spindictators.com/">spin dictatorship</a>”. The Kremlin routinely manipulates the political process to ensure it retains power via controlling the Russian media and <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/virtual-politics-and-the-corruption-post-soviet-democracy">even via “virtual politics”</a>, where fake parties are created in a fiction designed to divide any opposition to Putin’s regime.</p>
<p>But alongside this manipulation, Putin has presided over a regime where political opponents have been neutralised, imprisoned or murdered – Kara-Murza is merely the latest example. </p>
<h2>Consolidation of a police state</h2>
<p>This repression is not limited to prominent opposition figures such as Kara-Murza and Navalny. Putin’s heavy-handed approach has even led to children being arrested in Moscow in March 2022 for <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/russian-police-detain-children-and-old-women-as-they-try-to-quell-anti-war-movement-12556138">laying flowers outside the Ukrainian embassy</a>. </p>
<p>Another child, Masha Moskaleva, now 13, who drew a anti-war picture and was denounced to the authorities by her school principal, was sent to an <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-girl-sent-to-orphanage-after-making-anti-war-picture-released-to-mom">orphanage</a>. Her father, Alexei Moskalev, was given a <a href="https://theins.ru/en/news/260547">two-year</a> sentence in part for Masha’s drawing.</p>
<p>In early March 2022, the Russian parliament passed legislation giving 15-year prison sentences for spreading <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-latest-russia-law-b2028440.html">“false information”</a> about the Russian military. And there are accounts that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/09/world/europe/putin-russia-war-ukraine.html">denunciations reminiscent of the Stalin era</a> are on the rise again as citizens are encouraged to <a href="https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/03/12/the-fear-of-stalin-has-been-crucial-to-forming-putins-ideology-en">spy on and accuse each other</a>. </p>
<p>In such circumstances it is commendable that there is anyone willing to protest at all. Flowers were laid at statues of Ukrainian writers <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russians-lay-flowers-improvised-memorials-commemorate-dnipro-dead-2023-01-20/">Taras Shevchenko and Lesiya Ukrainka</a> across Russia. Although not much, it is something under the circumstances. Although most Russians <a href="https://euobserver.com/opinion/156857">may say they support the war</a>, in reality the picture is <a href="https://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/pdfs/RAD292.pdf">blurrier</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhle in late March, the Wall Street Journal’s Russia correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, <a href="https://theconversation.com/evan-gershkovich-wall-street-journal-reporter-latest-in-long-line-of-journalists-punished-for-doing-their-job-203584">was arrested</a> and charged with espionage. Not since <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/business/wsj-journalist-arrested-russia/index.html">1986</a> had the Kremlin arrested a foreign journalist. </p>
<p>Kara-Murza said in his <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-kara-murza-trial-prosecution-stalin-show-trial/32357698.html">final court statement</a>: “The day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate.” By creating martyrs and pushing the people into a corner, the Kremlin risks creating a situation when Russians have little to lose.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203893/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Opposing the Russian president appears as dangerous in today’s Russia as back in the days of the Stalin purges and show trials.Stephen Hall, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2038662023-04-17T14:30:29Z2023-04-17T14:30:29ZPentagon leak of US intelligence on Ukraine and other allies shows failure to learn from Chelsea Manning affair<p>The world’s media was predictably alive last weekend with speculation about <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-65270164">Jack Teixeira</a>, the young US guardsman who was charged in a case involving leaked confidential US defence and intelligence documents. The actual charge levelled against the 21-year-old Airman First Class is the “unauthorised retention and transmission of national defence information, and unauthorised removal and retention of classified documents”, for which he could receive 15 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.</p>
<p>What many people wanted to know is how such a young and relatively junior officer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/17/a-little-kid-trying-to-be-important-locals-react-to-pentagon-leak-suspect">had access to such an array of secrets</a>. And how US intelligence security could have allowed him to allegedly share this classified material on a <a href="https://uk.pcmag.com/how-to-work-from-home/126914/what-is-discord-and-how-do-you-use-it">Discord</a> server normally used to discuss video games. </p>
<p>The affair suggests that US intelligence agencies are still as vulnerable to this kind of leak as it was at the time of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/22/chelsea-manning-leaked-military-documents-free-world-prison">Chelsea Manning</a> in 2010. Manning, an army intelligence analyst was released from a US military prison in 2017 having served only a short portion of a 35-year sentence for leaking classified – Iraq war – intelligence material to Wikileaks. </p>
<p>This is important because for Ukraine some of the intelligence that Kyiv is sharing is very sensitive, providing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/10/ukraines-air-defences-could-soon-run-out-of-missiles-apparent-pentagon-leak-suggests">updates about the country’s capabilities</a>. This intelligence showed how the Ukrainian government views the status of the war, including the conflict <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/us-ukraine-counter-offensive-pentagon-leaks-reveal">raging near Bakhmut</a>. Ukraine will be rightly dismayed, but they are heavily reliant on the US for much of their sophisticated military capability and so cannot restrict intelligence flows. </p>
<p>For the UK, most attention focused on the confirmation in the leaked documents that British special forces <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/11/up-to-50-uk-special-forces-present-in-ukraine-this-year-us-leak-suggests">are operating in Ukraine</a>. This will be used by Moscow to bolster the <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2023/03/russia-wont-sit-idly-by-after-finland-and-sweden-join-nato/">narrative</a> that Russia is being encircled by Nato.</p>
<p>Russia’s large intelligence community is skilled in both <a href="https://defence.nridigital.com/global_defence_technology_mar22/russia_electronic_warfare">electronic interception</a>, and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02684527.2019.1573537?casa_token=h-eoYcQdLnIAAAAA:LTsKuFs64tnbaQvYL8KuLR7TA_6pzjJzxgQOh6swSB5X3SCeuYtGaKHzg1pM5o2ZdSBWEy_JvEz8">human intelligence</a> through its undercover officers and informant handling. So it is unlikely that Moscow learned much new. It had made its own assessments, but these have now been confirmed through the words of its adversaries. </p>
<p>The leaked reports are interesting for what they don’t reveal. Russian analysts can check where the US and Ukraine do not have good coverage. More importantly, the intelligence trove will show how US, Ukraine and other countries’ analysts are assessing the progress of the war. The details are secondary to understanding how the allies are thinking. </p>
<h2>Intelligence lapses</h2>
<p>Before his arrest, Teixeira worked in the <a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/04/14/how-did-jack-teixeira-earn-top-secret-security-clearance/">intelligence wing</a> of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, meaning he had held top security clearance since 2021. He also allegedly ran a Discord server, a messaging platform, where the classified documents were leaked. Early <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/pentagon-intelligence-leak-discord.html">reporting</a> suggested he had taken the platform’s members into his trust by asking them not to repost the documents.</p>
<p>But to ask how someone so young had access to secrets is to ask the wrong questions. It is perfectly reasonable for someone of his age to be security cleared and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02684527.2019.1665688?casa_token=ladsR52KsCMAAAAA:wZBzlnuK1cMl8zECOQPpMo4EtXhii-4GXd9ZyELL8n0tmBgucSoqfQt_w1lLhOouZ9kFh8nvA_PE">have access</a> to classified material, but only if they need to know the information. But it is not immediately clear why the Massachusetts Air National Guard needs top-secret intelligence about Ukraine.</p>
<p>More baffling is why there were not greater controls in place. It suggests that top-secret documents can be printed without requiring additional permission. It suggests that documents are not given unique codes tying them to an individual accessing or moving them. It also suggests that they do not need to be viewed in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02684527.2020.1767389">secure room</a>, and are capable of being extracted from the system without there being some kind of trip alarm. </p>
<p>That Teixeira was apparently running a Discord server should have been disclosed as part of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02684527.2019.1665688?casa_token=ladsR52KsCMAAAAA:wZBzlnuK1cMl8zECOQPpMo4EtXhii-4GXd9ZyELL8n0tmBgucSoqfQt_w1lLhOouZ9kFh8nvA_PE">his security vetting</a>, raising a standard alert to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08850607.2019.1605804">counterintelligence</a> to keep an eye on the activities there. </p>
<p>Notably, the leak has come from the armed forces – rather than the CIA or NSA. This suggests, as was the case with Manning, that the armed forces are the weak link in US intelligence. </p>
<p>Allowing intelligence to move around the US system is still a response to 9/11. The <a href="https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/jnatselp12&section=32&casa_token=0icl3AoB_foAAAAA:MtrGXD351LbEG7YlXqmfTCw_qeQ3E_3X52sWM1t9IC79Q9VkrK_Nkj1gEj0DhCuVGTT12R5z">siloing</a> of intelligence is part of how the plotters managed to evade the US authorities. Separate pieces of intelligence that did not raise sufficient alarm were held by individual agencies. They were not stitched together in 2001 in time to reveal the whole plot. Siloed information was judged to be a weakness of the US intelligence system, and resulted in more openness.</p>
<h2>Special relationship?</h2>
<p>For the UK, the confirmation that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/11/up-to-50-uk-special-forces-present-in-ukraine-this-year-us-leak-suggests">special forces are operating in Ukraine</a> is potentially awkward. This is a high-risk strategy for the UK. Limited special forces activities to extract individuals or perform limited tasks, such as destroying a particular Russian capability on a “get in and get out” basis, has some logic to it. A continuous deployment “in support of Ukraine” is to flirt with the prospect of a Russian public relations coup if UK personnel are killed or captured by Russian forces. </p>
<p>Reports have focused on the “revelation” that the US might be spying on its allies, and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/13/pentagon-leak-us-felt-un-chief-too-accommodating-to-russia-on-grain-deal-report">United Nations</a>. This should surprise nobody. All intelligence-capable countries conduct intelligence activities against both enemies and allies. Against their allies, these activities are not so aggressive, but it is as important to understand an ally’s position as an adversary’s. </p>
<p>Suggesting that the US has gone rogue in its intelligence gathering is to misunderstand a key purpose of intelligence which is to provide <a href="https://mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/Marine-Corps-Intelligence-Activity-and-Service-Level-Intelligence-Support.pdf">decision support</a> to policymakers. But it remains important not to lose intelligence: that is the unforgivable sin in intelligence circles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert M. Dover has previously received funding from the ESRC and AHRC on projects looking at learning lessons from intelligence. </span></em></p>The leaks have revealed much about shortcomings in the way the US intelligence community operates.Robert M. Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2037992023-04-13T16:05:45Z2023-04-13T16:05:45ZUkraine recap: downbeat US intelligence leak suggests no end in sight for the misery of this war<p>What we know – or think we know – about the progress of the war in Ukraine over the past few days has come courtesy of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65238951">leaked Pentagon documents</a> which appear to cover, in some detail, a wide range of issues around the conflict. As you’d expect, among the main areas of discussion is the likelihood of a Ukrainian spring counter-offensive being launched sometime soon. </p>
<p>But there are also what appear to be revelations about the presence of British special forces in Ukraine and discussions of Russian infighting over the number of their casualties among other things. </p>
<p>As ever with leaked material, it’s important to add the caveat that, while the Pentagon has apparently confirmed that the documents appear genuine, any conclusions that are being reached by commentators must be read bearing in mind the maxim that “truth is the first casualty of war”.</p>
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<p><em>Since Vladimir Putin sent his war machine into Ukraine on February 24 2022, The Conversation has called upon some of the leading experts in international security, geopolitics and military tactics to help our readers <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ukraine-12-months-at-war-134215?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Ukraine12Months">understand the big issues</a>. You can also <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Ukraine12Months">subscribe to our fortnightly recap</a> of expert analysis of the conflict in Ukraine.</em></p>
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<p>But, if genuine, the Pentagon’s assessment of the much-anticipated counter-offensive is far from upbeat. Stefan Wolff, an international security expert at the University of Birmingham, notes an air of pessimism on the part of US intelligence that Ukraine’s spring push will yield any major breakthroughs. </p>
<p>The problem, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-pentagon-leaks-paint-gloomy-picture-of-long-war-that-cant-be-won-but-must-not-be-lost-203698">writes Wolff</a>, is a rapidly diminishing stockpile of arms. Ukraine remains heavily dependent on Soviet-era armour and artillery and is running short on ammunition (it should be noted here that the same can be said of Russia). The munitions promised by Ukraine’s allies in the west have been slow in arriving and the Ukrainian military has yet to be fully trained to use them. </p>
<p>Since neither side is backing down from its preferred outcomes from the conflict, it looks set to be a long war.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-pentagon-leaks-paint-gloomy-picture-of-long-war-that-cant-be-won-but-must-not-be-lost-203698">Ukraine war: Pentagon leaks paint gloomy picture of long war that can’t be won but must not be lost</a>
</strong>
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<p>All of which inevitably means more tragedy for the people of Ukraine. As of March 20, according to the UN’s Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the conflict has <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/03/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-20-march-2023#:%7E:text=Related&text=From%2024%20February%202022%2C%20which,8%2C317%20killed%20and%2013%2C892%20injured.">killed 8,317 civilians and injured a further 13,892</a> since the war began at the end of February last year. </p>
<p>A particular disgrace is the report, from the World Health Organization, that it had recorded more than 850 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine. One such attack was on Maternity Hospital 3 in Mariupol during the siege of that port city in the Donetsk region last March. Three people were killed, including a small child.</p>
<p>Rodwan Abouharb, an expert in international relations at UCL, has published research on the effects of war on the infant mortality rate (IMR) and found that while wars push up IMRs by more than 10%, the really insidious thing is that by destroying a country’s health infrastructure, an aggressor country ensures that people will continue to die unnecessarily for years after the fighting stops. </p>
<p>Here <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-the-devastating-effects-of-conflict-on-infant-mortality-rates-new-research-203187">he tracks IMRs</a> from wars as diverse as Iraq (where the first Gulf War pushed the IMR up by a grotesque 47.9% between 1990 and 1991) to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between 1991 and 1994, where the IMR continued to rise until 1997. As he notes: “It’s hard to imagine war crimes more heinous than those committed against infant children who have not yet reached their first birthday.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="ISW map showing Ukraine and the main areas of fighting and control." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=847&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520805/original/file-20230413-28-y1bi9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The state of the conflict as of April 12 2023 according to the Institute for the Study of War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Institute for the Study of War</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To attack a country’s infants is to steal its future. But there is also evidence that Russia has literally been stealing Ukrainian children. According to the Ukrainian government, 19,384 children have been deported to Russia since the start of the war. As covered in <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-iccs-putin-arrest-warrant-may-be-symbolic-but-must-be-the-beginning-of-holding-the-russian-leader-accountable-201907">previous reports here</a>, arrest warrants have been issued for both the Russian president, Vladkmir Putin, and his children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova.</p>
<p>Finding those children and reuniting them with their families will be a daunting challenge. Francesca Lessa of the University of Oxford and Svitlana Chernykh of the Australian National University have researched the history of child kidnappings during dictatorships and <a href="https://theconversation.com/finding-ukraines-stolen-children-and-bringing-perpetrators-to-justice-lessons-from-argentina-202577">offer a case study</a> from Argentina in the 1970s. During this period child kidnappings were a deliberate policy to remove children from activist parents and bring them up with a different ideological slant. Compounding the problem of identifying the stolen children was the fact that the regime had murdered many of their parents.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/finding-ukraines-stolen-children-and-bringing-perpetrators-to-justice-lessons-from-argentina-202577">Finding Ukraine's stolen children and bringing perpetrators to justice: lessons from Argentina</a>
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<h2>Geopolitics</h2>
<p>It was difficult not to appreciate the irony of Finland’s decision to join Nato on April 4. One of the most oft-repeated justifications for Putin’s aggression against Ukraine was his fear that Nato was deliberately provoking Moscow by expanding eastwards since the breakup of the Soviet Union. But the addition of Finland as Nato’s 31st member effectively doubles the alliance’s land border with Russia.</p>
<p>Simon Smith, an expert in international relations and security at Staffordshire University, traces <a href="https://theconversation.com/finland-joins-nato-in-a-major-blow-to-putin-which-doubles-the-length-of-the-alliances-border-with-russia-203217">Helsinki’s changing security stance</a> since the days when “Finlandisation” was used by scholars to describe any country that was forced to endure the interference of a bigger neighbour (as the Soviet Union had interfered by forcing Finnish neutrality). Finland’s accession also adds a country with an already robust defence policy and a well-funded military to the alliance. It’s hard not to see its decision to join as something of an own goal for Putin.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/finland-joins-nato-in-a-major-blow-to-putin-which-doubles-the-length-of-the-alliances-border-with-russia-203217">Finland joins Nato in a major blow to Putin which doubles the length of the alliance's border with Russia</a>
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<p>But if Finland (and possibly soon, Sweden as well) have joined Nato, swelling the ranks of countries that are in direct opposition to Russian aggression, they aren’t necessarily on the same page as the rest of the world. Russia may have the direct support of very few countries (only seven voted with Russia in February against a UN resolution calling for an end to the fighting), but – as Jose Caballero at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) notes – Moscow appears to have the tacit support of a growing number of countries. </p>
<p>This trend, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-democratic-countries-around-the-world-are-not-prepared-to-support-ukraine-and-some-are-shifting-closer-to-russia-203699">writes Caballero</a>, is particularly marked in Africa, Latin America and Asia – where, of course, China’s Xi Jinping has declared his country’s “limitless” friendship for Russia.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-democratic-countries-around-the-world-are-not-prepared-to-support-ukraine-and-some-are-shifting-closer-to-russia-203699">Why democratic countries around the world are not prepared to support Ukraine – and some are shifting closer to Russia</a>
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<p>Spare a thought for Mongolia, sitting landlocked between Russia and China. Just recently the country’s prime minister, Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, voiced his fears that the world would yet again sink into a polarised world order – a new cold war. Mongolia’s geography means it is heavily dependent on both Russia, from which it gets most of its energy, and China, which is its main export market. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of Asia showing position of Mongolia, Russia and China." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518767/original/file-20230331-20-w1vw9k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Landlocked: Mongolia is squeezed between Russia to the north and China to the south.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Hermes Furian via Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>But, as the University of Bradford’s international security expert <a href="https://theconversation.com/mongolia-squeezed-between-china-and-russia-fears-new-cold-war-202086">Christoph Bluth writes</a>, since independence it has pursued a multipolar foreign policy, looking for economic, cultural and political partnerships wherever they are available. A new cold war, said Oyun-Erdene, would be “like a divorce … When the parents divorce, the children are the ones who get hurt the most.” </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mongolia-squeezed-between-china-and-russia-fears-new-cold-war-202086">Mongolia: squeezed between China and Russia fears 'new cold war'</a>
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<h2>Narratives (and the fate of those who tell them)</h2>
<p>Given that Putin has always insisted that Russia and Ukraine are essentially the same country, it’s fascinating to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fairy-tales-shape-fighting-spirit-ukraines-children-hear-bedtime-stories-of-underdog-heroes-while-russian-children-hear-tales-of-magical-success-179630">read this piece</a> about the differing bedtime stories told to the children in the two countries. Sophia Moskalenko, who is an expert on the psychology of fairy tales and Mia Bloom, who studies children’s mobilisation into violent extremism – both of them at Georgia State University – acknowledge the power of folklore in shaping the worldview of children and, ultimately, of the adults they grow up to be.</p>
<p>Traditional Ukrainian bedtime stories tend to favour the underdog fighting and prevailing against the odds: typical Ukrainian protagonists start out as unlikely heroes, but their courage, cleverness and grit help them succeed against the odds (remind you of anyone?) Many Russian tales, meanwhile, feature a character known as “Ivan the Stupid”. Ivan – portrayed as a good-hearted but simple fellow, tends to prevail through no particular virtue of his own, but generally through the intervention of a magical character, the moral being trust to luck and everything will come out well in the end.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fairy-tales-shape-fighting-spirit-ukraines-children-hear-bedtime-stories-of-underdog-heroes-while-russian-children-hear-tales-of-magical-success-179630">How fairy tales shape fighting spirit: Ukraine's children hear bedtime stories of underdog heroes, while Russian children hear tales of magical success</a>
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<p>Something most Russian children seem unlikely to be hearing, at least from their political leadership, is the truth. And its depressing to report that one US journalist who was in Russia trying to get at the truth, has been detained and faces charges of espionage. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, faces a 20-year prison sentence if convicted. </p>
<p>Tim Luckhurst, a former BBC correspondent who now researches the history of journalism at Durham University, writes that Gershkovich is just the latest in a depressingly long list of reporters <a href="https://theconversation.com/evan-gershkovich-wall-street-journal-reporter-latest-in-long-line-of-journalists-punished-for-doing-their-job-203584">who have faced jail</a> – or worse – for simply doing their job too well.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/evan-gershkovich-wall-street-journal-reporter-latest-in-long-line-of-journalists-punished-for-doing-their-job-203584">Evan Gershkovich: Wall Street Journal reporter latest in long line of journalists punished for doing their job</a>
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<p><em>Ukraine Recap is available as a fortnightly email newsletter. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Newsletter+Ukraine+Recap+2022+Mar&utm_content=WeeklyRecapBottom">Click here to get our recaps directly in your inbox.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A selection of the best of our coverage of the conflict from the past fortnight.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031462023-04-03T20:10:08Z2023-04-03T20:10:08ZRussia’s shadow war: Vulkan files leak show how Putin’s regime weaponises cyberspace<p>Recent revelations about the close partnership between the Kremlin and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/30/vulkan-files-leak-reveals-putins-global-and-domestic-cyberwarfare-tactics">NTC Vulkan</a>, a Russian cybersecurity consultancy with links to the military, provide some rare insights into how the Putin regime weaponises cyberspace. </p>
<p>More than 5,000 documents have been leaked by an anonymous <a href="https://www.techtimes.com/articles/289822/20230331/vulkan-files-unmask-putin-russia-launched-shocking-cyberwarfare-world.htm">whistleblower</a>, angry at Russia’s conduct in the war in Ukraine. They purport to reveal details about hacking tools to seize control of vulnerable servers; domestic and international disinformation campaigns; and ways to digitally monitor potential threats to the regime. </p>
<p>Although caution is always necessary before accepting claims about cyber capabilities, it’s noteworthy several Western intelligence agencies have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/30/russian-cyberwarfare-documents-vulkan-files/">confirmed</a> the documents appear genuine.</p>
<p>The leak also corroborates the view of many strategists: that the Russian government regards offensive cyber capabilities as part of a holistic effort to degrade its enemies. This includes the sowing of mistrust via social media, the gathering of <em><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/13/how-russian-kompromat-destroys-political-opponents-no-facts-required/">kompromat</a></em> (compromising material), and the ability to target crucial infrastructure. </p>
<p>That list of enemies is a long one, and has grown since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Naturally, the Kremlin’s just-released 2023 <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6426ad869a79473fe8810ade">Foreign Policy Concept</a> identifies the United States as the “main source of threats” to Russian security.</p>
<p>But Ukraine, every NATO and European Union member, and several other states are identified as “<a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/07/new-zealand-joins-russias-unfriendly-countries-list/">unfriendly countries</a>”, including Australia, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1641455526491074560"}"></div></p>
<h2>War in the shadows</h2>
<p>Russia utilises a range of methods to wage war in cyberspace.</p>
<p>On one end of the spectrum, it uses groups attached to official agencies, such as the GRU (military intelligence) and the FSB (ostensibly domestic intelligence, but also carries out missions overseas).</p>
<p>The GRU’s groups include <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/russia-gru-sandworm-serebriakov/">Sandworm</a> and <a href="https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/who-is-fancy-bear/">Fancy Bear</a>. Another group, <a href="https://www.crowdstrike.com/adversaries/cozy-bear/">Cozy Bear</a>, is associated with the FSB.</p>
<p>One or more of these groups have been responsible for a series of prominent cyber attacks on a range of targets, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-military-cyberattack-idINKCN0QB2CH20150806">Pentagon</a> in 2015</p></li>
<li><p>the Ukrainian <a href="https://cyberlaw.ccdcoe.org/wiki/Power_grid_cyberattack_in_Ukraine_(2015)">power grid</a> in 2015</p></li>
<li><p>the 2016 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/29/cozy-bear-fancy-bear-russia-hack-dnc">Democratic National Convention</a></p></li>
<li><p>the 2017 <a href="https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/apt-sandworm-notpetya-technical-overview/">NotPetya</a> ransomware attacks, which targeted Ukraine but spread globally</p></li>
<li><p>German and French <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/france-election-cyber-germany-idUSL1N1IB1SL">elections</a> in 2017 and 2018 </p></li>
<li><p>the <a href="https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/incident/russian-gru-connected-fancy-bear-hacking-group-targets-international-olympic-committee/">International Olympic Committee</a></p></li>
<li><p>US-based NGOs and <a href="https://www.gmfus.org/news/gmf-statement-2018-cyber-attacks">think tanks</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/advisory-apt29-targets-covid-19-vaccine-development">COVID-19 vaccine data</a></p></li>
<li><p>the 2021 <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-06/russian-state-hackers-breached-republican-national-committee">Republican National Committee</a></p></li>
<li><p>and a 2022 attempt to cause a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/sandworm-russia-ukraine-blackout-gru/">power blackout</a> in Ukraine.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum, Russian information operations regularly use armies of bots and trolls, as well as unsuspecting “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/94/5/975/5092080">citizen curators</a>”, to spread false narratives. </p>
<p>Doing so is cheap and increases the distance between the attacker and its agents, allowing for plausible deniability.</p>
<p>Like biological warfare, it also weaponises the targets to do the job of spreading the narrative disease for it. </p>
<p>Russian information campaigns operate globally, among nations it considers its friends as well as its adversaries. Russian-weaponised media can be found in <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/08/russias-wagner-group-in-africa-influence-commercial-concessions-rights-violations-and-counterinsurgency-failure/">Africa</a>, where the Russian Wagner paramilitary organisation has been especially active, as well as in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/technology/twitter-russia-india.html">South Asia</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-trolls-targeted-australian-voters-on-twitter-via-auspol-and-mh17-101386">Australia</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russian-trolls-targeted-australian-voters-on-twitter-via-auspol-and-mh17-101386">Russian trolls targeted Australian voters on Twitter via #auspol and #MH17</a>
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<p>In many respects, Russian information operations mimic Soviet geopolitical doctrine during the Cold War. This focused on courting areas of the world where the West was weakest.</p>
<p>But in the grey space between official agencies, useful idiots and unwitting proxies is an area of increasing emphasis of Russian cyberwar: outsourcing. Some of these, such as Vulkan, retain an aura of respectability as consultancies that do government work as well as contracting to other firms.</p>
<p>They also include the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg, which was used to coordinate social media attacks on the US Democratic Party during the 2018 mid-term elections, leading to an <a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download">indictment</a> by the Department of Justice. </p>
<p>Others are <a href="https://www.state.gov/transnational-organized-crime-rewards-program-2/maksim-viktorovich-yakubets/">organised criminal gangs</a>, like the aptly named “EvilCorp”, that use malware to harvest people’s banking details or personal information.</p>
<p>The November 2022 breach of Australia’s private health insurer <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/11/australian-police-blame-russian-hackers-for-medical-records-leak">Medibank</a> was one example, which exposed patients’ sensitive health details such as treatments for drug addiction or HIV.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1591920169785479169"}"></div></p>
<h2>The Vulkan revelations</h2>
<p>The Vulkan leak adds more detail to what we know about Russian methods, tactics and targets in cyberspace. The GRU group Sandworm is identified as having authorised Vulkan to help build “<a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2023/03/30/skan-the-cyberattack-tool-developed-by-vulkan_6021229_13.html">Skan-V</a>”, a piece of software that can monitor the internet to detect vulnerable servers to hack.</p>
<p>Another Vulkan project, known as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/30/vulkan-files-leak-reveals-putins-global-and-domestic-cyberwarfare-tactics">Fraction</a>”, was designed to monitor social media sites for key words to identify regime opponents, both at home and abroad.</p>
<p>An even larger project in which Vulkan seems to have been engaged was “<a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2023/03/30/inside-vulkan-the-digital-weapons-factory-of-russian-intelligence-services_6021230_13.html">Amezit</a>”. This is a tool that would enable operators to seize control of the internet both inside Russia and in other nations, and hijack information flows.</p>
<p>To function, its users need to be able to control physical infrastructure such as mobile phone towers and wireless internet nodes. Amezit can then be used to mimic legitimate sites and social media profiles, scrub content that might be deemed hostile, and replace it with disinformation.</p>
<p>Given the requirement to possess physical infrastructure, it’s clear Azemit was designed not solely as a piece of software, but to operate in tandem with the coercive instruments of a state.</p>
<p>This has internal uses as well as external ones. Domestically, it could be used to silence dissent in restive Russian regions. In a war zone, such as Ukraine, it could be used alongside Russia’s armed forces to intercept government communications and swap genuine information sources for false ones.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-russia-wages-cyber-war-against-ukraine-heres-how-australia-and-the-rest-of-the-world-could-suffer-collateral-damage-177909">As Russia wages cyber war against Ukraine, here's how Australia (and the rest of the world) could suffer collateral damage</a>
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<p>The Vulkan leak also included information on physical objects. Although not a concise target list, its software allowed users to map physical infrastructure. This included airports worldwide, the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Muhlberg <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-vulkan-files-a-look-inside-putin-s-secret-plans-for-cyber-warfare-a-4324e76f-cb20-4312-96c8-1101c5655236">nuclear power plant</a> near Bern.</p>
<p>What’s more, the document drop featured mapped clusters of <a href="https://www.silicon.co.uk/e-regulation/governance/leaked-vulkan-files-reveal-kremlins-cyberwarfare-tactics-504543">internet servers</a> in the United States. And the Skan-V project identified a site in the US labelled “<a href="https://ctexaminer.com/2023/03/30/fairfield-named-as-site-for-cyber-attack-in-lealked-russian-documents/">Fairfield</a>” as a potentially vulnerable point of entry.</p>
<p>If the documents are accurate, Vulkan’s work for the Russian government shows how extensive the Kremlin’s attempts have been to monitor digital infrastructure, collect information about vulnerabilities, and develop the capacity to hijack it.</p>
<h2>Combating Russian cyber attacks</h2>
<p>Cyber threats are insidious because they can be used in multiple combinations and aimed at different targets. Hack-and-leak campaigns against influential figures can be mixed with attempts to sabotage vital infrastructure, perform corporate espionage, undermine social cohesion and trust, and push fringe narratives to the political centre.</p>
<p>They can be drip-fed into the digital ecosystem. Or, much like the campaign that accompanied Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014, they can be employed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-cyberattack-ukraine-2014-3">all at once</a> in a cyber-blizzard.</p>
<p>This makes cyber attacks very hard to build resilience against, and even harder to deter. They are a weapon of potentially mass disruption that can result in real casualties. Turning off the power grid in a city, for example, can lead to deaths among people on life support in hospitals, traffic accidents, and exposure to extreme cold in certain regions.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-on-russias-war-on-ukraine-threatens-to-redraw-the-map-of-world-politics-and-2023-will-be-crucial-197682">A year on, Russia's war on Ukraine threatens to redraw the map of world politics – and 2023 will be crucial</a>
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<p>But beyond infrastructure and industry, such attacks also target <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23738871.2020.1797136">social pressure points</a>: a states’ institutions, ideas and people. This makes them especially useful in attacking democracies, making the open and free exchange of views a potential vulnerability.</p>
<p>As the Vulkan leaks demonstrate, hostile governments have greater ambitions in cyberspace than being able to switch off the lights. They seek to be able to encourage us to question what we believe to be true, and pit us against one another. </p>
<p>Recognising that will be a crucial step in preventing the poisonous seeds of disinformation from taking root.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Sussex has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Carnegie Foundation, the Lowy Institute, and various Australian government agencies.</span></em></p>More than 5,000 documents were leaked by an anonymous whistleblower.Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2016042023-03-13T19:46:06Z2023-03-13T19:46:06ZUkraine war: Moldova could be the first domino in a new Russian plan for horizontal escalation<p>One of the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine is the fact that the Kremlin has lost a lot of its influence in former Soviet countries. This creates opportunities to limit Moscow’s ability to leverage its once dominant role to further its war aims. However, it also means that Russia is likely to raise the stakes and try to escalate tensions and confrontation across the region. </p>
<p>For the past several weeks, Moldova has been at the centre of such efforts by the Kremlin. And this just be an indication of how Russia envisages the next stage of its confrontation with the west.</p>
<p>Even before the start of the war in Ukraine, there were signs of the countries of Central Asia beginning to assert their individual and collective interests more strongly, a trend that has <a href="https://osce-network.net/file-OSCE-Network/Publications/OSCE-CA-2023.pdf">accelerated since February 2022</a>. Notably, as China’s role in the region has grown, partly as a result of the void created by Russia, the US has <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/blinken-visit-central-asia-moscow-ukraine/32290651.html">rekindled its relationships</a> with key partners in central Asia, especially Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in yet another sign of Russia’s diminishing stature. </p>
<p>In the south Caucasus, <a href="https://newlinesinstitute.org/turkey/turkey-challenging-russias-monopoly-in-the-south-caucasus/">Turkey has challenged</a> Russia’s erstwhile dominance of the region. Ankara has openly backed Azerbaijan in the conflict with Armenia (a Russian client) over Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkish control over key pipeline infrastructure, such as the trans-Anatolian gas pipeline which connects Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz region with the European trans-Adriatic Pipeline at the Greek-Turkish border, provides a <a href="https://www.turkishminute.com/2022/11/09/analysis-why-the-south-caucasus-is-a-strategic-region-for-turkey/">critical alternative</a> to oil and gas – either from Russia or transiting through Russia. </p>
<p>At the same time, the <a href="https://eurasianet.org/eu-emerges-as-major-player-in-armenia-azerbaijan-negotiations">European Union</a> has played a more proactive role as a mediator in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is much to the detriment of Moscow, which used to be the key power broker in this conflict. </p>
<p>The limits of Russian influence became obvious in <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-parliament-revoke-foreign-agents-bill/32311614.html">Georgia</a> recently. The government there, after three days of increasingly violent protests, had to withdraw a bill in parliament that would have severely restricted civil and political liberties in ways eerily reminiscent of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/01/russia-new-restrictions-foreign-agents">Russia’s foreign agents law</a>.</p>
<p>Further afield, Russia also seems to have overplayed its hand in the Balkans. The Serbian government – one of Moscow’s longstanding allies in the region – showed no hesitation in February when it <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/serbia-far-right-knezevic-arrested-vucic-kosovo/32274304.html">cracked down</a> on pro-Kremlin protesters that tried to storm government buildings in the capital Belgrade. </p>
<h2>Down but not out</h2>
<p>Because of the costs of the war in Ukraine, Russia may be limited in the extent to which it can stem – or even reverse – this loss of influence. But it would be wrong, and dangerous, to underestimate Russian efforts to do so. This has been most obvious for some time now in <a href="https://cepa.org/article/putins-paranoia-and-moldova/">Moldova</a>. Here, Russia has been implicated in prolonged destabilisation efforts aimed at undermining the pro-western government of Maia Sandu and thwarting the country’s efforts to join the EU.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-soccer-plot-raises-fears-of-fresh-russian-attempts-to-destabilise-neighbouring-moldova-199942">Ukraine war: 'soccer plot' raises fears of fresh Russian attempts to destabilise neighbouring Moldova</a>
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<p>Russia’s efforts to create instability in Moldova and in the breakaway region of Transnistria rely <a href="https://euvsdisinfo.eu/a-russian-psychological-operation-pressures-moldova/">primarily on disinformation</a>, by spreading rumours such as the idea that Moldova and Ukraine have been plotting to invade Transnistria. The Kremlin has also been able to exploit an <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-russian-gas-ukrainian-electricity-energy-cuts-/32122094.html">economic crisis</a> in Moldova – triggered by sky-rocketing inflation caused by the war in Ukraine – and cast doubt on the competence of the government and the legitimacy of its pro-European course. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of Moldova in light yellow, with the breakaway region of Transnistria in darker yellow." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514891/original/file-20230313-16-oboeoh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Exposed: Moldova’s location makes it strategically very important to both Russia and the west.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Hermes Furian via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moscow has also played on uncertainty, <a href="https://balkaninsight.com/2023/03/01/russian-rumour-mongering-causes-fear-of-war-in-transnistria/">alleging</a> an imminent Ukrainian attack on Transnistria or the use of a “dirty bomb” by Ukraine in the breakaway territory. Yet, at the same time, there is also a danger that whatever military assets Russia controls in Transnistria could be <a href="https://www.b92.net/eng/news/world.php?yyyy=2023&mm=03&dd=07&nav_id=115542">used to create a second front</a> in the war against Ukraine.</p>
<p>While this remains unlikely, it has forced Ukraine to <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3314025/brigadier-general-pat-ryder-pentagon-press-secretary-holds-a-press-briefing/">concentrate some of its forces</a> at the border with Transnistria. If nothing else, there is a danger of inadvertent escalation that could quickly engulf Transnistria and Moldova and draw in Ukraine and neighbouring Romania – a Nato member and a key ally of Sandu’s government, with deep historical ties to Moldova.</p>
<h2>A playbook for ‘horizontal’ escalation?</h2>
<p>Russia has invested a lot in its destabilisation efforts in Moldova. While it may seem that there has not been a lot of return on this investment, this would be the wrong conclusion to draw. Moscow has found it relatively easy to capitalise on the frustrations felt by many ordinary Moldovans by peddling a narrative that diverts blame and exacerbates fear and uncertainty.</p>
<p>Russia has carefully leveraged relationships with established and emerging willing allies in the Moldovan political establishment, such as <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/moscow-hails-irina-vblahs-victory-in-gagauzia/26917418.html">Irina Vlah</a> the recently elected leader of Moldova’s autonomous <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/10/17/dispatch-from-gagauzia">Gagauzian region</a> and the pro-Moscow opposition <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-senior-ukrainian-officials-warn-of-russian-coup-in-moldova-to-create/">Shor party</a>. This means the Kremlin maintains disproportionate malign influence in a country with weak institutions. </p>
<p>These Russian levers of influence are prominent in Moldova, but they also exist elsewhere. Recent setbacks, such as in <a href="https://theconversation.com/georgia-foreign-agent-law-protests-show-disconnect-between-pro-moscow-government-and-west-leaning-population-201430">Georgia</a> do not mean that Russia will shy away from using this influence again in the future. On the contrary, even the defeat that the pro-Russian Georgian Dream coalition of political parties suffered over the withdrawn “foreign agents law” suits a foreign policy agenda that above all invests in destabilisation. </p>
<p>An unstable post-Soviet neighbourhood may not be Moscow’s first choice, but it is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1060586X.2018.1425083">still preferable</a> from the Kremlin’s perspective than one where Russia is surrounded by strong, well-governed countries with a pro-western orientation. Such an outlook does not bode well for countries that are heavily dependent on Russia economically or militarily, including Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Nor does it bode well for countries with significant ethnic Russian communities, such as Kazakhstan – or even Nato members Latvia and Estonia.</p>
<p>This makes the current events in Moldova even more significant. If this is the trial run for a new version of the old Russian playbook of neighbourhood destabilisation, it is all the more important to stop the Kremlin in its tracks in Moldova.H</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK. He is also a past recipient of grants from the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU's Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.</span></em></p>There are fears that Russia might try to compensate for its poor performance in Ukraine by upping its meddling in neighbouring countries.Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995642023-03-08T12:08:44Z2023-03-08T12:08:44Z70 years after his death, Stalin’s ghost still haunts Russia<p>Seventy years ago, on the night of March 5, 1953, a certain Joseph Vissarionovitch Djougachvili breathed his last. He was better known under his <em>nom de guerre</em>, Stalin, “The Man of Steel”.</p>
<p>An oppressed people; a reign of Terror in the name of government; real enemies, or imaginary ones, forced to confess under torture to the most absurd of crimes; mass graves; purges; deportations; famines, censorship and “total” propaganda; a war waged against Hitler for the unimaginable price of 27 million Soviet dead; a divided Europe; and a Cold War on the point of heating up: <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310/">this was the inheritance left by the “Vodj”</a> (The Leader).</p>
<p>Three years after his death, in February 1956, his successor Nikita Khrushchev denounced “the excesses of his personality cult” <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/RSH1061-1983500301?journalCode=mrsh20">during the 20th Congress of the Communist Party</a>. In 1961, his body was finally withdrawn from Lenin’s Mausoleum, on the Red Square, in Moscow, to be placed in more modest surroundings in the necropolis near the Kremlin wall. During the Perestroika, archives were opened and the truth on the 30 years of his reign was revealed. </p>
<p>But this repudiation did not last long. If polls are to be believed, Russians <a href="https://khpg.org/en/1608809237">have become increasingly fond of him</a>. The explanations for this are multiple. They do have a lot to do of course with the personality and the historical vision of the man who has been sitting in the Kremlin since 2000 and who views his distant predecessor both as an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/09/how-putins-russia-is-erasing-the-memory-of-stalins-crimes/">“effective manager”</a> and also as the symbol of the victory of the Second World War. However, harking back to Stalin can also be inconvenient for Putin.</p>
<h2>A relatively recent return to grace</h2>
<p>The “Stalinist Revival”, it must be emphasised, is a more recent phenomenon than one might imagine. In 2008, at the end of Vladimir Putin’s second term, 60% of those surveyed by the Levada Center (one of the country’s main polling organisations) said that the crimes committed in Stalin’s era were unjustified. In 2012, at the end of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidential mandate, <a href="https://meduza.io/news/2021/06/23/levada-tsentr-v-rosssii-56-oproshennyh-schitayut-stalina-velikim-vozhdem-v-ukraine-16">only 21% of those questioned saw Stalin as a “great leader”</a>, which was lower than the 29% recorded in 1992, less than a year after the end of the USSR.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512649/original/file-20230228-18-kzzwq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stalin’s tomb, in front of the Kremlin wall. Click to zoom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tomasz Wozniak/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The dictator’s popularity took off again in 2015, the year after Crimea’s annexation. In 2019, 70% of those surveyed said that for them Stalin had played an either quite or very positive role. Only <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/politics/16/04/2019/5cb0bb979a794780a4592d0c">16% saw him in a negative light</a>. It was also from then on that young Russians, until then mostly indifferent to Stalin, started to express positive sentiments toward him. In 2021, months before the invasion of Ukraine, 56% of them considered him as a <em>veliki vojd</em> (a Great Leader); this was <a href="https://www.levada.ru/2021/06/23/otnoshenie-k-stalinu-rossiya-i-ukraina/">a new record</a>.</p>
<p>The primary reason for these favourable sentiments towards Stalin is historical: the “leader with an iron fist” is <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2012/05/russia-putin-elections-power/">a cliché deeply anchored in a political culture that is fundamentally conservative</a> and has never really experienced democracy.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Russians have not really turned the page on Stalinism. After the death of their Leader, the country experienced two small waves of “De-Stalinisation” under Khruschev (1953-1964) and Gorbachev (1985-1991), and then significantly a long period of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24468830">“Re-Stalinisation”</a> under Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko (1964-1985).</p>
<p>The Yeltsin years (1992-1999) were marked on the one hand by <a href="https://www.lexpress.fr/informations/le-lent-degel-de-la-memoire_613109.html">“an archival revolution”</a> that either revealed or confirmed the extent of Stalin’s crimes, and also on the other, by the absence of any real decommunization on a moral or legal level. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/08/world/russian-court-weighs-communist-party-s-legality.html">“trial of the Communist party”</a> in 1992, was a failure because of a difficulty in defining the Communist party, which had never been a political party in the traditional sense, but rather was an “instrument of power control”. Russia never knew its own version of the “Nuremberg Trials” with the PCSU in the dock; this could have educated younger generations. </p>
<h2>The nostalgia for “greatness”</h2>
<p>The absence of a communist “Nuremberg Trial” has played an important role in the failure for Russia to become a genuine democracy. </p>
<p>During the second half of the 1990s, on the back of the geopolitical and economic decline of the country, we were privy to the re-emergence of discourse and policies that harked back to the long tradition of a strong Russian state: (<a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/what-we-do/projects/jean-monnet-ii/perverting-power-vertical-politics-and-aesthetics-global-east">“the power vertical”</a>. This was a trend which was replayed and amplified during Putin’s two first terms, from 2000-2008. </p>
<p>Remember when in 2005, while expressing himself before the Russian Federal Assembly (the combined bicameral legislature of the Houses of Parliament), Putin called the dismantling of the USRR <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7632057">the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”</a>. That same Putin, during many years, kept banging on about this simple idea: it was Lenin, with his <a href="https://mjp.univ-perp.fr/constit/su1922.htm">project for a federation of states, adopted in December 1922</a>, who was retrospectively responsible for the disintegration of the USSR. The subtext was that the “catastrophe” would never have happened, had it been <a href="https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/2008/9/4/caa796f9-24f0-4e25-98da-4e98b20f18c8/publishable_fr.pdf">Stalin’s project for “autonomy”</a>, in the ascendant at that moment. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512650/original/file-20230228-24-cqr5t3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512650/original/file-20230228-24-cqr5t3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512650/original/file-20230228-24-cqr5t3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512650/original/file-20230228-24-cqr5t3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512650/original/file-20230228-24-cqr5t3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512650/original/file-20230228-24-cqr5t3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512650/original/file-20230228-24-cqr5t3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The portrait of Stalin is frequently held up on May 9 during the</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexey Borodin/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The war over memory</h2>
<p>Conspiracy theories form the core of Stalinophilia in Russia. Putin has frequently emphasised that even if he does not refute Stalinist crimes and the reality of the great purges of the 1930s, <a href="https://www.lexpress.fr/monde/europe/en-russie-le-retour-en-grace-de-staline_2135197.html">he is just as wary of criticisms of Stalinism</a>, which he sees as a means to weaken Russia today, in presenting it as a country that, in the end, had not changed much from its totalitarian past. From this perspective, Putin sees attacking Stalin as participating in a Western conspiracy theory, and an attempt to downgrade Russia to a second-rank country, or even a third-rank country, in contrast to its “rightful” position.</p>
<p>Criticism of Stalin becomes particularly suspect when it relates to its action during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) . The “cult” of this war <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2021/02/18/brejnev-l-antiheros-d-andrei-kozovoi-leonid-brejnev-yeux-grands-fermes_6070434_3260.html">finds its roots in the Brezhnev era</a>, when Putin was a young officer in the KGB. It’s through this cult that Stalin was rehabilitated in the eyes of millions of Russians, for whom he is closely associated with victory in 1945. The revisionist propaganda, alongside a legislative arsenal designed to fight any <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2021-02-17/ty-article/.premium/russia-enacting-law-to-back-heroic-narrative-about-its-role-in-wwii/0000017f-f450-d223-a97f-fddd41b30000">“falsification of history”</a>, ended up being effective: the victor of 1945 eclipsed the tyrant of the Great Terror. </p>
<p>This policy of wilful amnesia has borne the results we now see. And so, in a 2005 survey, 40% of those questioned considered that the Red Army had been destroyed by the Stalinist purges compared to <a href="https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2021/06/22/levada-dolia-rossiian-vozlagaiushchikh-otvetstvennost-za-porazhenie-sssr-v-nachale-voiny-na-stalinskie-repressii-sokratilas-v-dva-raza">only 17% agreeing with this view in 2021</a>. Even the Gulag has ended up being relegated to the status of an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/29/russia-gulag-camps-putin-nationalism-soviet-history">“unfortunate side effect”</a>.</p>
<h2>Can Putin “catch up and surpass” Stalin?</h2>
<p>This being said, the “Stalinophilia” of the population nevertheless remains a double-edged sword, because it can also nourish resentment towards rulers. For Russians who express respect for Stalin, he represents in effect less of a historical character and more a <a href="https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/84991">symbol of a “Great Russia”</a>, a powerful and respected country, a Russia where justice and order reign. </p>
<p>The decision to invade Ukraine, in February 2023, must from this perspective be seen as a manifestation of Putin’s will to “catch up and surpass” Stalin, in a parody of a <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1957/11/11/telle-est-la-prediction-faite-le-6-novembre-par-m-khrouchtchev_2322157_1819218.html">famous slogan of the Soviet era</a>. While speaking to the leaders of the counter-intelligence agency FSB on February 28, Putin asked his men to double their efforts to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-tells-fsb-security-service-up-its-game-against-western-spy-agencies-2023-02-28/">“eradicate the vermin who seek to divide Russians with the support of the West”</a>. </p>
<p>Is a witch hunt in the league of 1937 in the works? At least the Russians won’t be able to say they weren’t forewarned. They wanted Stalinism? They will get it! </p>
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<p><em>This article was translated from French by <a href="https://www.fleurmacdonald.co.uk/">Fleur Macdonald</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreï Kozovoï ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Stalin, who died on March 5, 1953, was partially rehabilitated in the decades that followed. These days, he is in some respects a source of inspiration for Vladimir Putin.Andreï Kozovoï, Professeur des universités, Université de LilleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2008542023-03-01T10:56:09Z2023-03-01T10:56:09ZGleb Pavlovsky obituary: the man who turned Vladimir Putin into Russia’s action man<p>Vladimir Putin’s former adviser and spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky, <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/27/ex-kremlin-adviser-gleb-pavlovsky-dies-at-71-a80344">who has died aged 71</a>, was once described as <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/Interview_Kremlin_Political_Consultant_Sees_Medvedev/1936080.html">“Putin’s Karl Rove”</a>. He was the man who got things done in the Kremlin, like Rove did for his political master, George W. Bush.</p>
<p>Pavlovsky – a dissident turned apparatchik turned dissident again – was at the heart of Russian political thinking, whether on the inside or the outside, for the best part of five decades. He is credited as one of the key architects of Russia’s post-Soviet political system, which has become known as the “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/super-presidential-risks-and-opportunities-in-russia/">super-presidency</a>” and was instrumental in orchestrating the cult of personality which surrounds the current Russian president.</p>
<p>Many years later, as an outsider and prominent Kremlin critic after falling out with Putin in 2011, Pavlovsky reflected on his work in building the “myth” of Putin:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This myth that Putin decides everything, that there is no alternative to Putin, we worked on constantly throughout his first two terms. Just as everyone knew the Soviet Union was Lenin’s state, for the majority of Russians today Russia is Putin’s state.</p>
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<p>Pavlovsky first rose to prominence as a dissident student from Odesa, now a heavily contested and key port city in Ukraine. He edited the dissident journal <em>Poiski</em>, for which he was arrested for <a href="https://chronicle-of-current-events.com/2019/02/16/the-trial-of-gleb-pavlovsky/">false fabrications</a> and exiled internally for three years in the Soviet Union’s far-north Komi Republic in 1982. </p>
<p>Returning to Moscow in 1985, Pavlovsky became an enthusiastic supporter of the reforms of the then Soviet general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev. Quickly establishing himself as a shrewd political operator, in 1995 he founded a political consultancy, the Effective Policy Fund, which Yeltsin hired to work on his 1996 presidential campaign. Pavlovsky went on to work on the 2000 campaign of Yeltsin’s heir apparent Putin, and in all spent 16 years at the heart of Kremlin strategy and image-building.</p>
<p>He quickly made a name for himself as a “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/gleb-pavlovsky/">political technologist</a>” (his own term, apparently) and was front-and-centre of this new approach under both Yeltsin and Putin. Political technology is simply another way of saying <a href="https://www.deciphergrey.com/post/the-globalisation-of-political-technology">political manipulation</a>, by which a figure like Pavlovsky used all the organs of power at his disposal to help ensure the regime could remain in power.</p>
<p>His effectiveness is amply demonstrated in the way he helped Yeltsin win reelection to the presidency in 1996, just months after the incumbent’s appproval had hit a low of <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs/article-abstract/30/3/255/409/In-Pursuit-of-the-Russian-Presidency-Why-and-How?redirectedFrom=PDF">8%</a> and a year after Yeltsin’s bloc of allied parties lost to the Communist-Nationalist bloc in the 1995 parliamentary elections. Pavlovsky helped devise an <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/gleb-pavlovsky-final-act/">electoral strategy</a> of “no alternative to Yeltsin”, which played on the idea that if Yeltsin lost, the Soviet Union would return.</p>
<h2>Putin as ‘Stirlitz’ – Russia’s favourite macho man</h2>
<p>At the end of the 1990s, Russians craved stability above all and were looking for a strong figure to sort out the chaos created under Yeltsin. Pavlovsky and his team of spin doctors held focus groups which offered a range of strong figures from Russian history including Lenin, Stalin and Peter the Great. </p>
<p>They also threw in a character from a popular Soviet-era drama, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_Moments_of_Spring">Seventeen Moments of Spring</a>, in which a Russian spy, Maxim Isaev, infiltrates the Nazi party under the name of Max Otto von Stirlitz. As Pavlovsky was to recall many years later:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We even did an experiment in one magazine. They did a cover: “President Year 2000”. This magazine was extremely popular. It pictured this Stirlitz character wearing [the] SS uniform. We realised that we needed a young, strong, powerful intelligence officer. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pavlovsky gave them Putin as Russia’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/gleb-pavlovsky/">modern-day</a> Stirlitz. One of the selling points was that you could hardly get someone more different to the hapless and unpopular Yeltsin.</p>
<h2>Managed democracy through ‘permanent referendum’</h2>
<p>Pavlovsky played a crucial role in this campaign and in the “<a href="https://www.eurozine.com/the-politics-of-no-alternatives-or-how-power-works-in-russia/">permanent referendum</a>” that followed. The term referred to the way in which all key decisions were presented publicly with the message that it was Putin’s way or a return to the bad old days. </p>
<p>With a series of what came to be referred to as “colour revolutions” breaking out in former Soviet bloc countries – including neighbouring Ukraine – the Kremlin was concerned that such popular dissent would prove contagious for Russia. Pavlovsky’s strategies of political technology <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/postorange_2947jsp/">were mobilised</a>, from creating <a href="https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii88/articles/gleb-pavlovsky-putin-s-world-outlook">“opposition” parties</a> that competed with each other to the <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2013/05/12/rise-and-fall-of-surkovs-sovereign-democracy-a23891">manipulation of electoral systems</a> to ensure the right result, the ending of gubernatorial elections, and the development of <em>dramaturgiya</em> (<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russias-elections-the-rise-and-fall-of-dramaturgiya/">scripted election themes</a>) to present one’s candidate leader as a safeguard against an invented threat – such as all-powerful oligarchs, for example.</p>
<p>While the concept of “sovereign democracy” was developed by another senior Putin adviser, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1324acbb-f475-47ab-a914-4a96a9d14bac">Vladislav Surkov</a>, it was eagerly taken up by Pavlovsky. He helped <a href="https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/sovereign-democracy-a-new-russian-idea-or-a-pr-project/">develop the idea</a>, which essentially means executive power with elected representatives whose <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/sovereign_democracy_4104jsp/">sole function</a> is to rubber-stamp decisions.</p>
<h2>Putinist to dissident</h2>
<p>In 2008, Putin – having served the two four-year terms allowed by the Russian constitution – relinquished the presidency to his faithful lieutenant, the prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. As we know, Putin intended to resume the presidency in 2012 – but in 2011, Pavlovsky broke with Putin and declared his backing for a second Medvedev term.</p>
<p>After this, the former Putin apparatchik was a constant thorn in his side, giving interviews and penning books and articles criticising his former patron. Of the decision to invade Ukraine, Pavlovsky told <a href="https://pressroom.rferl.org/about-us">RFE/RL</a> in April 2022 that the Russian president had “stepped into a trap”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ukraine was supposed to be a lever for pressuring the west into discussion over security issues – it’s a game of strategy. I was flabbergasted to see him throw away all negotiating opportunities over the genuine security of Russia, and instead opt for this strange pogrom that he calls a “special military operation”.</p>
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<p>In 2016 Pavlovsky predicted that, while Putin has embedded himself firmly into the system so that nothing happens without his say-so, he has also embedded his <em>sistema</em> so deeply into Russian politics that <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2016-04-18/russian-politics-under-putin">it will outlast him</a>, however his regime ends. </p>
<p>“In all likelihood, it will not matter who climbs to the top; the only way he will be able to rule is through sistema,” Pavlovsky explained – having played such a key role in creating this sistema for his then master.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pavlovsky became the ultimate insider – until he fell out with the boss he had helped make all-powerful.Stephen Hall, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Politics, International Relations and Russia, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1986002023-02-09T12:27:46Z2023-02-09T12:27:46ZWagner Group in Africa: Russia’s presence on the continent increasingly relies on mercenaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506773/original/file-20230127-22-5wwdne.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mercenaries have been a fixture in Africa since the second half of the 20th century. They have been used to protect incumbent leaders or install new ones in conflict zones. </p>
<p>Their offering – guns for hire – has remained essentially the same for decades. However, they’ve recently undergone an evolution that forces countries to look more closely at their roles – which range from technical advisers to frontline combatants.</p>
<p>Today, mercenaries are employed to <a href="https://www.mironline.ca/outsourcing-war-mercenaries-as-a-foreign-policy-tool/">advance states’ foreign policy</a>. And Moscow is leading the way. </p>
<p>Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo have offered lucrative natural resource contracts and a landing pad for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-war-with-ukraine-five-reasons-why-many-african-countries-choose-to-be-neutral-180135">return of Russia to Africa</a>. Russia first gained influence on the continent during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War era</a> of the late 1940s when African states picked sides in the battle between the west and the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>Moscow still considers Africa a region where it can project power – and profit from abundant natural resources. Russia’s strategy this time is rooted more in profit-seeking than ideology. It’s about cost efficiency and crude realpolitik, which pays little attention to morals or ethics. </p>
<p>While the Russian army is bogged down in a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589">war with Ukraine</a>, mercenary outfits like the Wagner Group – a quasi-private military company – are a placeholder for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/sergey-lavrov-tours-africa-amid-diplomatic-isolation/a-60745880">Moscow’s geopolitical interests</a> in Africa.</p>
<p>Under President Vladimir Putin (1999-2008, and from 2012 to present), <a href="https://castbox.fm/episode/%5BBoots-Off-the-Ground%3A-Security-in-Transition-in-the-Middle-East-and-Beyond%5D-Episode-25%3A-Russian-Mercenaries-a-Weak-Link-in-Great-Power-Competition-id2055526-id490006090?country=gb">Russian private military companies</a> and mercenaries have become an essential component of Russian foreign policy. </p>
<p>In Africa, the Wagner Group has found a fertile ecosystem to spread Russian influence. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-essential-reads-on-russia-africa-relations-187568">Five essential reads on Russia-Africa relations</a>
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<p>Over the last seven years, while researching on <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinese-private-security-firms-are-growing-their-presence-in-africa-why-it-matters-187309">Chinese</a> private security companies in Africa, I have also mapped the evolution of mercenaries and private military companies from Russia and <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/turkish-private-military-companies-are-learning-russia-204574">Turkey</a> across the region. In my view, in Africa, Russia has used the Wagner Group to protect influential leaders and advance Moscow’s geopolitical agenda. </p>
<p>The group helps secure mega investments and intervenes in crisis-ridden hotspots, often without regard for civilian losses. This profoundly affects the continent’s stability.</p>
<h2>What is the Wagner Group?</h2>
<p>Since Putin took power in 2012, the Russian ministry of defence has operated without independent parliamentary oversight. </p>
<p>Individual relationships have superseded military and intelligence bureaucracy. Private networks have allowed Putin’s inner circle to work in the shadows, and promote the use of paramilitary groups and mercenary outfits. </p>
<p>The Wagner Group is believed to have been set up by retired colonel <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58009514">Dmitri Utkin</a> – providing a link between the group and Russia’s military intelligence service. Details of its origins are obscure, but the outfit first hit international headlines in 2014 after Russia’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/3/18088560/ukraine-everything-you-need-to-know">invasion of Crimea</a>, eastern Ukraine. </p>
<p>The Wagner Group is thought to be financed by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/24/yevgeny-prigozhin-the-hotdog-seller-who-rose-to-the-top-of-putin-war-machine-wagner-group">Yevgeny Prigozhin</a>, a catering magnate turned notorious commander. </p>
<p>For years, the Wagner Group denied any official links to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Moscow/The-Kremlin">Kremlin</a>, the seat of Russian power. However, Prigozhin came out in the open in <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/paramilitary-boss-contests-claim-that-russian-military-was-involved-in-soledar-fighting/">social media exchanges</a> between himself and Russia’s top military officials. </p>
<p>Considering the Kremlin’s penchant for military deception, however, Prigozhin could be an actor in the story. He may not necessarily hold the leading role.</p>
<p><a href="https://jamestown.org/program/unleashing-the-pmcs-and-irregulars-in-ukraine-crimea-and-donbas/">Sergey Sukhankin</a> researches Russian private military companies. He says Prigozhin is not an oligarch (an extremely wealthy Russian with political and social sway) able to create his own private army. </p>
<p>He likely represents another layer of obfuscation between Wagner and its absolute puppet master. </p>
<h2>Why Africa?</h2>
<p>From Mali to Sudan, the Wagner Group benefits from a lucrative combination: political instability, abundant natural resources and low-intensity armed opposition.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/04/russia-wagner-group-expand-ties-sudan">Sudan</a> in 2017, the Wagner Group provided security and logistical support to protect former president Omar al-Bashir. In exchange, Russian businesses secured diamond mining concessions. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/central-african-republic/russias-influence-central-african-republic">Central African Republic</a>, which has rich diamond and gold deposits, the group began supporting the government’s battle against rebel groups in 2017. In exchange, Russian advisers have gained the state’s ear on political and economic matters. </p>
<p>In gas-rich <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/29/africa/russian-mercenaries-mozambique-intl/index.html">Mozambique</a>, the Wagner Group supported government forces fighting insurgents in the country’s north. A month before Wagner’s deployment in September 2019, Mozambique signed agreements on mineral resources, energy and defence with Russia.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking-arrival-russias-wagner-group-mali">Mali</a> in 2021, the government contracted the Wagner Group to fight extremism in the Sahel. Russia’s foreign affairs minister, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/mali-asked-private-russian-military-firm-help-against-insurgents-ifx-2021-09-25/">Sergei Lavrov</a>, confirmed this.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/massacres-executions-and-falsified-graves-wagner-groups-mounting-humanitarian-cost-mali">reports</a> of Russian mercenaries’ violence towards non-combatants keep growing. </p>
<p>UN experts have <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/01/1133007">called for investigations</a> into the group’s role in the massacre of several hundred civilians in Mali in March 2022. In January 2023, the US labelled Wagner a <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1220">criminal organisation</a>.</p>
<p>The group’s growing footprint in Africa has been met by tighter sanctions against its leaders and their companies. The <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1220">US</a> and <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021/12/13/eu-imposes-restrictive-measures-against-the-wagner-group/">European Union</a> have led the charge. Sixteen European nations, including France, the UK and Germany, have cited the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/24/africa/russia-mercenaries-mali-intl/index.html">Russian government’s involvement</a> in providing material support in Wagner Group’s deployment in Mali.</p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>Despite the international uproar, sanctions have <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b75d0b8e-fcd8-4722-9180-39a01279d3b4">limited impact</a>. It’s likely that Russian mercenaries will continue to increase their footprint in Africa. </p>
<p>In my view, the Wagner Group’s growing presence in Africa illustrates that “manageable chaos” is the final goal. </p>
<p>This means maintaining insecurity and profiting from the ongoing instability via <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/undermining-democracy-and-exploiting-clients-the-wagner-groups-nefarious-activities-in-africa/#reference19">exploitative relationships</a> with multiple African governments. </p>
<p>The Kremlin’s continued reliance on the Wagner Group sheds light on the <a href="https://africacenter.org/experts/joseph-siegle/russia-strategic-goals-africa/">strategic importance of Africa</a> in Russia’s foreign policy. As Moscow seeks to tap into Africa’s natural resources and challenge western influence, it’s found a receptive audience among states dissatisfied with the west’s track record. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-war-with-ukraine-five-reasons-why-many-african-countries-choose-to-be-neutral-180135">Russia’s war with Ukraine: Five reasons why many African countries choose to be ‘neutral’</a>
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<p>The history of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/the-rise-of-mercenary-armies-in-africa/a-61485270">mercenary activity in Africa</a> serves as a cautionary tale, however. </p>
<p>The exploitation of “manageable chaos” for profit leads to resource depletion, corruption, human rights abuses and impaired long-term development. Uncovering the true security capabilities of these mercenary outfits is a necessary step towards accountability and legitimacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alessandro Arduino does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Wagner Group has become a tool to further Russian objectives in Africa without attracting the scrutiny that regular military units would.Alessandro Arduino, Affiliate Lecturer, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976252023-01-12T13:19:48Z2023-01-12T13:19:48ZUkraine war: the bloody battle for Soledar and what it tells us about the future of the conflict<p>The battle over the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar has been <a href="https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1612694326710079488/photo/1">raging for several days now</a>, with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/64240404">claims and counter-claims</a> about whether Russia now has full control there. </p>
<p>As of the evening of January 11, Soledar was at best under partial control of the <a href="https://theprint.in/world/what-is-wagner-group-shadowy-russian-mercenaries-in-kyiv-to-assassinate-volodymyr-zelensky/851900/">Wagner group</a> of mercenaries, according to an assessment by the US-based <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-11-2023">Institute for the Study of War</a> and the <a href="https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1613421834564673543/photo/1">UK Ministry of Defence</a>. </p>
<p>But heavy Russian bombardment <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-donetsk-fighting-soledar/32220061.html">into January 12</a> confirmed <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-denies-russia-controls-soledar-says-fighting-is-intense-2023-01-11/">Ukrainian assessments</a> that fighting over the town remained intense.</p>
<p>Regardless of the outcome, this particular battle – and several other developments around it – is instructive for a broader understanding of where the war in Ukraine is and where it might be headed. </p>
<p>Three particular lessons stand out. First, even small territorial gains are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63580372">enormously costly</a> in personnel and materiel, and they are only achievable after protracted fighting that inflicts significant losses on both sides and ties up substantial resources. If Russia is eventually able to capture Soledar, it will do so only after <a href="https://twitter.com/Maxar/status/1613283217624399872">razing the town to the ground</a>. </p>
<p>Controlling Soledar will, if anything, only be a stepping stone towards the much bigger prize of nearby Bakhmut, one of the last big cities in Donetsk oblast that has not been captured by Russia. Yet, here Ukrainian forces <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-donetsk-fighting-soledar/32220061.html">remain firmly in control</a>. Even if Russia were to succeed with its efforts in Soledar, the predicted collapse of Ukrainian defences in the Donetsk region or a strategic withdrawal <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/why-russia-is-targeting-ukrainian-town-soledar-2023-01-11/">are by no means foregone conclusions</a>.</p>
<p>The second insight that can be gleaned from the battle for Soledar and the broader context in which it takes place is that both sides maintain maximalist objectives and seem generally unwilling to engage in efforts towards a negotiated settlement. This is despite a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-it-is-interested-future-talks-with-ukraines-human-rights-2023-01-12/">recent meeting</a> between the human rights commissioners of Russia and Ukraine, Tatiana Moskalkova and Dmytro Lubinets, in Ankara at which another prisoner exchange was agreed and in which both sides agreed to continue their humanitarian dialogue. </p>
<p>From the Russian perspective, the massive onslaught against Soledar – and the ongoing battles <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-11-2023">elsewhere</a> along the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces in Donetsk oblast are extremely costly in terms of troops and munition. They only make sense if the Kremlin’s aim remains the occupation of all of the four regions Russia annexed after sham referendums back in September.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-west-condemns-sham-referendums-in-russian-occupied-areas-191432">Ukraine war: west condemns 'sham' referendums in Russian-occupied areas</a>
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<p>As fighting has intensified on the ground, so it has between <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64235712">different Russian political factions</a>. On the one hand, the assault on Soledar was led by forces of the Wagner group, headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin. </p>
<p>Prigozhin may have been, in part, motivated by the prospect of gaining access to the nearby <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-thinks-putin-ally-prigozhin-wants-control-salt-gypsum-mines-near-bakhmut-2023-01-05/">salt and gypsum mines</a>. But he also used his apparent success on the battlefield to shore up his influence in Putin’s inner circle. He has not held back from <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-crony-yevgeny-prigozhin-thinks-military-brass-are-out-to-get-him">scathing criticism</a> of the efforts of the top brass of the Russian military. </p>
<p>While Prigozhin may yet win the battle over Soledar, he lost the arguably more political battle when his close ally Sergei Surovikin – the main architect of the campaign to destroy critical Ukrainian infrastructure – <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64235713">was replaced</a> on January 11 by the chief of the Russian general staff, Valery Gerasimov, as overall commander for the war in Ukraine. Gerasimov was the architect of the original Russian invasion back in February last year. So his appointment is another signal that Putin has not given up on his maximalist war aims. </p>
<p>This, in turn, raises the spectre of the opening of a second front in the war. During a visit to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-says-ukraine-must-be-ready-belarus-border-2023-01-11/">warned again</a> of the dangers of an invasion from Belarus. In light of recently beefed-up defence cooperation between Moscow and Minsk and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belarus-says-joint-air-defence-units-with-russia-have-been-reinforced-2023-01-11/">planned</a> joined military exercises at the end of January, this remains a significant threat to Ukraine. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-putins-belarus-visit-ends-with-talk-of-increased-defence-cooperation-and-nuclear-sabre-rattling-196888">Ukraine war: Putin's Belarus visit ends with talk of increased defence cooperation and nuclear sabre-rattling</a>
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<p>Surovikin’s replacement with Gerasimov also comes at a time when the relentless campaign of drone and missile attacks against Ukraine appears to have ended – without achieving its aim of breaking Ukrainians’ defensive spirit. This may partly indicate depleted Russian stocks of weapons and ammunition. But – together with the intensifying ground battles in Donbas – it also indicates a renewed Russian focus on the ground war and the expectation of future territorial gains.</p>
<p>Putin’s changes in the military leadership also foreshadow a likely Russian offensive, either in Donbas alone or in Donbas and opening a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-stages-war-games-near-belarus-amid-fears-russian-assault-2023-01-11/">second front from Belarus</a>. Russia’s partial, if chaotic, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-completes-partial-mobilisation-defence-ministry-2022-10-31/">mobilisation</a> took place in the autumn, and has succeeded in its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/13/russia-announces-kherson-evacuation-raising-fears-city-will-become-frontline">evacuation and redeployment</a> of forces from Kherson in October. </p>
<p>This has given the Kremlin a significant pool of manpower and the time to regroup forces and train and integrate newly mobilised troops. Together with the prevailing superiority of Russian artillery and air power, this will afford Gerasimov a potential advantage in future offensives.</p>
<p>The third – and longer-term – lesson, therefore, is the need for more western support. <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/marders-leopards-abrams-bradleys-western-weaponry-ukraine/32212668.html">Commitments</a> to send more air defence systems and battlefield vehicles to Ukraine are an important step. Once delivered, it also signals that the west remains firmly behind Ukraine’s defence efforts and is backing Kyiv in its aim of restoring full territorial integrity. </p>
<p>But, given how slow western deliveries have been at times, British, Polish, French and likely German <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/092b8894-4441-4747-bfd4-5b21a0c68709">military supplies</a> are unlikely to influence the outcome of the current battle over Soledar. </p>
<p>On balance, then, the events in and around Soledar over the past week illustrate that no matter the outcome of the current fighting, this is not a turning point. It’s another strong indication that the war is likely going to be long and costly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK. He is also a past recipient of grants from the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU's Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.</span></em></p>Russia appears to have refocused on the land war with the aim of taking more territory.Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1962572022-12-09T10:01:56Z2022-12-09T10:01:56ZThe CIA and the new cold war: what history tells us about its influence today – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499981/original/file-20221209-30192-uu5no9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=124%2C80%2C4749%2C3156&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Powerful politicians in the US once called for the dissolution of the CIA. How relevant is it today?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/surveillance-citizens-secret-service-special-agents-1303948264">Anelo via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This episode of The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/in-depth-out-loud-podcast-46082">In Depth Out Loud podcast</a> tells the inside story of the CIA v Russia – from cold war conspiracy to “black” propaganda in Ukraine. </p>
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/5e29c8205aa745a456af58c8/6392ff69d29b670011b232a8" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="190px"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-563" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/563/073b078b1fc9085013377310bc6db3368fb84a13/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a professor emeritus of American history at the University of Edinburgh, writes that with formidable Kremlinologist William J. Burns
now in charge of the CIA, the agency might be expected to be an influential player in the US response to a “new cold war”. But how much does Washington trust the CIA these days – and how much influence does it really have on events in Ukraine? To shed light on these questions, he takes us back to the early days of the Ronald Reagan presidency.</p>
<p>The audio version of this article is narrated by Sam Scholl in partnership with Noa, News Over Audio. Listen to more articles from The Conversation, for free, on the <a href="https://newsoveraudio.com/publishers/103?mpId=17937807d4095-03ef8e1781bb1c8-445466-1fa400-17937807d41112&embedPubName=The%20Conversation&embedPubId=103">Noa app</a>. </p>
<p>This story came out of a project at The Conversation called Insights, which generates long-form journalism and is working with academics from a wide range of backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges. You can read <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">more stories in the series here</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>The music in In Depth Out Loud is Night Caves, by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvwbOVMlp3o">Lee Rosevere</a>. In Depth Out Loud is produced by Gemma Ware.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The audio version of a long form article on the history of the CIA and its relationship with Russia.Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Professor Emeritus of American History, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1961632022-12-08T09:48:05Z2022-12-08T09:48:05ZUkraine war: new figures suggest only one in four Russians support it, but that won’t be enough to oust Putin<p>Leaked internal Russian government polling recently indicated that <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/russia/russian-public-support-for-war-plummets-leaked-poll.html">as few as one in four</a> Russians may be in favour of the war in Ukraine. Analysts believe that the forced mobilisation of over 300,000 civilians and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-casualties-deaths.html">high level of casualties</a> have all contributed to waning support for Russia’s war effort. </p>
<p>The polling, which also found that more than half the Russian people hope their government will enter peace talks, was reportedly conducted for the Kremlin’s Federal Guard Service (FSO) and published by the exiled dissident news website Meduza.</p>
<p>It’s important to bear in mind the source of this reporting and that obtaining accurate survey data one way or another <a href="https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2011/04/measuring-public-opinion-under-political-repression">is notoriously difficult</a> but the UK ministry of defence said the results were “consistent with a separate October 2022 survey [<a href="https://www.levada.ru/en/2022/11/01/conflict-with-ukraine-october-2022/">conducted by the independent Levada Center</a>] which found that 57% respondents reported being in favour of talks”.</p>
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<p>This alleged collapse of support for the war has led to speculation about the security or otherwise of Vladimir Putin’s <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/vladimir-putin-health-elections-russia-ukraine-western-officials-b1007508.html">position as president</a>. But while this is clearly the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2022-03-02/beginning-end-putin">most precarious moment</a> in Putin’s presidency, the chances of Putin being ousted remain low – even if maintaining his grip on power will become much more difficult.</p>
<p>Since taking office in 2000, Putin has enjoyed solid public support, which <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/28383/putin-approval/">reached 82%</a> after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. But research suggested that Putin’s popularity with the Russian public <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1060586X.2016.1144334">was genuine</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s near total monopoly over the media has meant that information is tightly controlled. Most of the news that citizens consume comes from of television shows that spew <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/14/world/europe/russian-tv-insider-says-putin-is-running-the-show-in-ukraine.html">pro-Putin propaganda</a>. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, this propaganda machine was ramped up to win over hearts and minds after the invasion in February. News programmes <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/inside-putins-propaganda-machine">faithfully repeated the line</a> that the Russians were successfully liberating Ukraine from neo-Nazi Ukrainians who were allegedly raping Russian women and killing their husbands (even as late as April when it was becoming clear to the rest of the world that this “military operation” was going far from swimmingly).</p>
<p>When the west responded to Russia’s invasion with its harsh packages of sanctions, leading to severe shortages and inflation, Putin’s propaganda machine squarely placed the blame on the west – which reports said had always been trying to destabilise Russia. And <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/07/my-country-right-or-wrong-russian-public-opinion-on-ukraine-pub-87803">research has shown that</a>, for the most part, this disinformation campaign has been fairly effective. Most Russians still believe Nato is responsible for escalating the conflict in the Donbas. They are also fearful for the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine.</p>
<h2>Putin’s grip on power</h2>
<p>While a growing number of the Russian population is expressing unhappiness at the war, estimating the exact number is tricky. And there remain plenty of reasons why these signs of discontent do not spell the end of Putin’s grip on power.</p>
<p>For one thing, Putin has coup-proofed his regime, ensuring that loyalists <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/503fb110-f91e-4bed-b6dc-0d09582dd007?shareType=nongift">dominate the upper echelons of the military</a> and security services (although the error-prone conduct of the war might well lead to discontent in the lower ranks, especially among more junior generals whose attrition rate has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-are-so-many-russian-generals-being-killed-179517">remarkably high</a>). </p>
<p>Putin’s political elite tend to share his worldview and hanker after a return to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-invasion-suggests-putin-is-more-vladimir-the-reactionary-than-peter-the-great-186133">glory days of empire</a>. The <em><a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/reading-russia-the-siloviki-in-charge/">siloviki</a></em> – strong men – who surround him are just as <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-security-services-siloviki-putin-regime/">hawkish about the conflict</a> and Russia’s place in the world, as is Putin himself. These include the advisers responsible for feeding Putin the flawed intelligence that the Russian military would easily crush Ukraine’s armed forces. </p>
<p>At the other end of the political spectrum, a bottom-up regime change would require far greater popular discontent. A <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820">noted study</a> by US researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan has shown that for protests to be successful, there would need to be at least <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/10/vladimir-putin-regime-anti-war-protests-russia-russian">3.5% of the population</a> – in Russia’s case, 5 million people – taking to the streets against the regime. So far we’ve only seen thousands willing to brave reaction from the security services by expressing their discontent with Putin’s leadership.</p>
<p>And the Russian public is far too polarised to ensure the success of a revolution or a coup attempt. This is the most salient takeaway from the most recent polling. Russia’s climate of division is <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/729166/summary">more conducive to a dictatorship than a healthy democracy</a>. </p>
<p>An online experiment by academics from the US and Germany, the results of which were published in blog form in June 2022, found that citizens that supported the war were willing to <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/06/20/do-russians-want-to-punish-fellow-citizens-who-oppose-the-war-in-ukraine-evidence-from-an-online-experiment/">punish fellow citizens</a> who did not share their views on the conflict. Based on my interviews a couple of months ago with Russians who <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-ive-just-returned-from-georgia-where-they-are-angry-about-the-conflict-and-fear-an-invasion-191620">fled to Georgia</a>, this bitter disagreement exists within members of the same family.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-ive-just-returned-from-georgia-where-they-are-angry-about-the-conflict-and-fear-an-invasion-191620">Ukraine war: I've just returned from Georgia where they are angry about the conflict and fear an invasion</a>
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<h2>Controlling opinion</h2>
<p>Public opinion in Russia tends to be fairly tightly controlled, apart from an elite relatively few who are able to access international media via VPNs (virtual private networks) or shortwave radio and other means of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/03/international-news-russia-kremlin-media-censorship/627120/">bypassing the Putin administration’s blanket censorship</a>. Most Russians still rely on the television for their news – which is entirely state-owned and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60932542">completely on-message</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Career limiting move: a Russian journalist stages a one-woman protest against the war on Russian primetime news.</span></figcaption>
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<p>So it’s not surprising that most Russians trust the government and believe that their <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2012/05/russia-putin-elections-power/">president knows best</a>. As with many in the Soviet Union, many <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/world/europe/russians-prefer-a-strong-leader-to-democracy.html">Russians prefer</a> a strong hand, or a decisive style of leadership. And older citizens remember the chaos of the years after the Soviet Union was dissolved, during the country’s brief experiment with democracy. This last factor explains why there is a sizeable number of Russians who may dislike the war, but otherwise <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/07/my-country-right-or-wrong-russian-public-opinion-on-ukraine-pub-87803">support Putin</a>.</p>
<p>In the early days, despite his clear authoritarian tendencies, Putin didn’t need to resort to repression. This is no longer the case – and repression has become <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-06/kremlin-pushes-new-wave-of-repression-at-home-as-war-drags-on">more widespread</a>. As the country prepares for the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-not-sure-run-russia-president-2024-peskov-expert-typical-2022-11?r=US&IR=T">2024 presidential election</a>, there are fears that there will be more show trials, repressive laws and threats and violence against those who protest against them. </p>
<p>While Putin faces many more challenges to his power than he did in the past, reports of his impending downfall are clearly exaggerated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Lindstaedt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Public approval of the war has declined significantly, but the president himself appears safe, for the time being.Natasha Lindstaedt, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910582022-10-03T05:32:08Z2022-10-03T05:32:08ZIs this the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin?<p>Vladimir Putin’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/30/putin-ukraine-annexation-russia-ceremony/">bizarre ceremonies</a> formalising Russia’s annexation of some 15% of Ukraine once again revealed the yawning chasm between Kremlin triumphalism and reality.</p>
<p>Never mind Russian forces didn’t even <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63072113">fully control</a> the territories Putin brought under the Russian flag. Never mind Russia’s “referendums” were a blatant fabrication – with voting often held <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/30/fictitious-annexation-follows-voting-gunpoint">at gunpoint</a>. Never mind that by now more people have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-draft-flee-border-1.6597416">fled Russia</a> than the 300,000 extra troops to be “partially mobilised” in support of Putin’s flagging war effort. And never mind that Russian forces are retreating in many of their newly-acquired lands, with the key city of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/01/humiliation-for-vladimir-putin-as-ukrainians-liberate-key-city-of-lyman">Lyman</a> liberated by Ukraine less than 24 hours after its annexation was announced.</p>
<p>Putin’s vitriolic rantings to a decidedly subdued audience provided plenty of distasteful soundbites. He referred to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/europe/putin-speech-ukraine-russia.html">West</a> as Satanists with “various genders”, calling for <a href="https://euobserver.com/world/156188">holy war</a> against the transexual Western bogeymen. His characterisation of Americans as <a href="http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69465">neo-colonialists</a> was laughably hypocritical since Putin was literally in the process of announcing the recreation of an empire.</p>
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<p>He made references to Catherine the Great, claimed southern Ukraine had always been Russian, and liberally invoked the imperial term “Novorossiya”. NATO expansion, supposedly the trigger for Russia’s existential security crisis that left it with no option but to invade its neighbour, barely got a mention in Putin’s tsunami of xenophobic bile.</p>
<p>But the real story of Putin’s latest melodrama is that he has unequivocally bet his political survival on “victory” over Ukraine and the West.</p>
<p>Crucially, there are now definite signs his grip on power is starting to fray, even if Putin’s demise may still be some way off. </p>
<h2>Existential crises breed internal ones</h2>
<p>Dictators often meet their ends through inadvertent overreach. So, too, Putin’s new fragility stems from his own choices. Obsessed with recreating a footprint over what he believes are Russia’s historical lands, and determined to blame the West as the global embodiment of moral decrepitude, Putin has created his own existential threat.</p>
<p>Yet his invasion of Ukraine has been an utter disaster. His conventional forces have been revealed as a <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/">chimera</a>: poorly trained, poorly led, hopelessly corrupt, and often badly equipped.</p>
<p>This is now becoming an internal threat that his domestic messaging is struggling to explain.</p>
<p>What were sold as glorious Russian victories were repelled, got bogged down and then became embarrassing retreats, forcing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/12/russia-losses-propaganda-react-ukraine/">Kremlin propagandists</a> to simultaneously try to put out multiple spot fires. But spinning defeats as temporary setbacks can only work for so long. And finding others to blame, from false conspiracies about NATO forces fighting alongside Ukrainians, to criticism of field commanders for failing Russia, is also a temporary solution. </p>
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<p>Eventually it will become patently obvious that the one man who isn’t permitted to be criticised – Vladimir Putin – is ultimately in charge of the mess. </p>
<p>Implicitly this is already happening. <a href="https://twitter.com/M_Simonyan/status/1576522714093096960?s=20&t=y3sAnH1HFcxcbkbJVx7thw">Margarita Simonyan</a>, Putin’s chief cheerleader in Russia’s tightly controlled media landscape, has suddenly dissociated herself from politics, plaintively claiming she has no political authority.</p>
<p>When loyal mouthpieces start trying to look dispassionate, it’s time for dictators to worry. </p>
<h2>Putin has been forced to abandon the political centre</h2>
<p>The enigma of Putin and Putinism is that he has never really offered a guiding vision for Russia, despite being effectively the Kremlin’s longest serving leader since Stalin. He has tended to avoid identifying with a particular ideological position, and isn’t even a member of United Russia, the party invented to represent his interests in Russia’s parliament. </p>
<p>Instead, Putin has presided over a centralised authoritarian government, playing <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-the-putin-regime-really-works/">divide-and-rule</a> with different Kremlin cliques, and elevating friends and cronies while also occasionally <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-purges-in-putins-shrinking-inner-circle">purging them</a>. Indeed, Russia has a system of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2336825X211061488">bureaucratic bargaining</a> between power ministries and powerful individuals that isn’t completely alien to what we witness in the West.</p>
<p>But in Putin’s Russia, the strength of vertical lines of authority means major contests around policy aren’t mediated by discussion, debate or other expressions of preference. Rather, they’re decided by the will of one individual. </p>
<p>This has served Putin well in the past, allowing him to present the face of a political “centrist” whose choices soften the extremism of ultranationalists and communists, and keep him aloof from petty politics. But battlefield failures have now required him to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/12/russia-ukraine-war-defeat-opposition-putin-stab-in-the-back-conspiracy-theory-far-right/">lurch to the far right</a>. That side of Russian politics has never completely supported Putin, even though it remains beholden to him to retain political influence. It is also weakly supported by the population, and many of its leaders are figures of ridicule. </p>
<p>Hence Putin is betting on his ability to drag popular sentiment with him. True, Russia’s phoney democracy ensures he won’t be removed at the ballot box, and appetites for public protest remain low. But he will now be expected to take actions even more unpopular than his botched <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-says-mistakes-military-mobilisation-should-be-corrected-ria-2022-09-29/">partial mobilisation</a>, which has been abruptly walked back.</p>
<p>His critics, like the Chechen leader <a href="https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/10/01/ramzan-kadyrov-calls-for-drastic-measures-in-ukraine">Ramzan Kadyrov</a>, have already called on Putin to announce martial law in Russia’s border regions, and use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Doing so will not just hasten Russia’s military defeat, but will weaken Putin further domestically. </p>
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<h2>Scapegoating is tricky in the face of collective failure</h2>
<p>In the past, Putin has been able to purge with impunity. The military, the security services, and various oligarchs who displeased him have all at some point felt Putin’s wrath.</p>
<p>But Russia’s failures in Ukraine cannot be isolated to a few bad generals, or bad information from Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR. They are systemic, revealing flaws across Russian strategic thinking, military planning, economic management, intelligence analysis and political leadership.</p>
<p>The more the failures mount up, the less tenable Putin’s selective scapegoating becomes. He has replaced <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/20/why-russia-keeps-losing-generals-ukraine/">military leaders</a> rapidly, and is now reportedly issuing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-giving-orders-generals-ukraine-battlefield-dysfunction-grows-us-intelligence-2022-9">orders directly</a> to field commanders, including refusing to allow them to fall back and regroup. </p>
<p>Intelligence assessments confidently arguing Ukrainians would welcome the Russian invaders were premised on Putin’s own reading of the situation, published in a 2021 <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-new-ukraine-essay-reflects-imperial-ambitions/">screed</a> that painted Ukrainians as little more than wayward Russians. Moscow’s overconfidence in its <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2022/03/08/sanctions-on-russian-fund-show-dashed-hope-of-moscows-cooperation-with-democracies/?sh=1193c13ea431">sovereign wealth fund</a> has been insufficient to insulate vital parts of the Russian economy against Western sanctions.</p>
<p>And Putin’s belief the West would fold in the face of weaponised <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hit-major-russian-undersea-gas-pipelines-europe-2022-09-27/">Russian energy</a> seems only to have strengthened its resolve.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-fighting-three-undeclared-wars-its-fourth-an-internal-struggle-for-russia-itself-might-be-looming-189129">Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth – an internal struggle for Russia itself – might be looming</a>
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<p>Of course, none of this means Putin will be overthrown tomorrow. He retains broad and deep control over Russia’s population, and over the elites he permits to serve him. But his earnest projections of strength belie his increasing vulnerability. By mobilising his population to fight in Ukraine, Putin has broken his compact with the people. And by attempting to shift the blame for failure wholesale onto his subordinates, he has, for the first time, created an incentive for elites to unite against him.</p>
<p>For a stark indication of how much Putin’s political fortunes have changed, we need only look at the new confidence of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Having survived an attempted Russian decapitating strike in February, Zelenskyy is now overtly calling for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russia-ukraine-updates-zelenskyy-requests-accelerated-application-to-join-nato/a-63291961">regime change</a> in Russia. </p>
<p>Responding to Putin’s demand that Ukraine return to the bargaining table, Zelenskyy observed that he “will not hold any negotiations with Russia as long as Putin is the President of the Russian Federation. We will negotiate with the new President”.</p>
<p>The end of Vladimir Putin? It might come sooner than you think.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Fulbright Commission, the Carnegie Foundation and various Australian government agencies.</span></em></p>There are now definite signs his grip on power is starting to fray, even if Putin’s demise may still be some way off.Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1914322022-09-28T09:34:03Z2022-09-28T09:34:03ZUkraine war: west condemns ‘sham’ referendums in Russian-occupied areas<p>Polls <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-voting-annexation/32053737.html">have closed</a> in four Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine after four days of voting in referendums on their future status. Predictably, the results showed “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-annexation-votes-end-amid-russian-mobilisation-exodus-2022-09-26/">overwhelming support</a>” for joining Russia.</p>
<p>Tass, Russia’s state-owned news agency, <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1514213">has reported</a> that early counting has revealed more than 97% of votes were cast in favour of the occupied regions joining the Russian Federation. </p>
<p>The very idea that people who lived under a hostile occupying power for months and in many cases were forced to participate in the vote have had a free choice, or that their choice mattered, is laughable even by Russian standards. </p>
<p>In 2014, Russia at least kept up some facade of a campaign in the equally illegal and shambolic <a href="https://theconversation.com/crimea-votes-to-secede-from-ukraine-as-eu-considers-sanctions-against-russia-24426">Crimean referendum</a>. This time, there were merely three days between the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/medvedev-says-moscow-backed-separatists-must-hold-referendums-join-russia-2022-09-20/">announcement</a> of the referendums on September 20 and their start on September 23. </p>
<p>The referendums <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63052207">violate</a> almost every conceivable democratic standard. Ballot boxes were reportedly <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63013356">carried</a> from house to house to force people to cast their votes. There was an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63032705">intimidating</a> military presence in polling stations. No credible international observers were <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/27/europe/russia-ukraine-referendum-intl/index.html">monitoring</a> the vote in the occupied areas or in Russia or Crimea, where refugees from Ukraine have also been called upon to vote. </p>
<p>Given the <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-26">increasingly precarious situation</a> of Russian forces on the ground in Ukraine, the rush to cement a new status quo is understandable. In the Kremlin’s logic, once these territories have become part of Russia as a result of the referendums and an act of the Russian parliament – possibly as <a href="https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1574633113598283777/photo/1">early</a> as September 30 – they will enjoy Russia’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/sep/25/ukraine-annexed-territory-will-have-russia-protection-says-sergei-lavrov-video">full protection</a>”. </p>
<p>To drive home this point, Putin ordered a partial mobilisation and threatened nuclear strikes. The former Russian president and now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, subsequently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-warns-west-that-nuclear-threat-is-not-bluff-2022-09-27/">repeated</a> this warning. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-putin-calls-up-more-troops-and-threatens-nuclear-option-in-a-speech-which-ups-the-ante-but-shows-russias-weakness-191044">Ukraine war: Putin calls up more troops and threatens nuclear option in a speech which ups the ante but shows Russia's weakness</a>
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<p>But, like many times before in this disastrous war, it is hard to see what – if anything – Putin is likely to gain. Ukrainian military operations to liberate the Russian-occupied territories <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-fighting-mobilization-protests/32053755.html">continue</a>. Potential conscripts are <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/00ee8cef-446b-4042-9278-a7603965a698">fleeing Russia en masse</a> to neighbouring countries. In Russia itself, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63035427">protests</a> against mobilisation continue. </p>
<p>Countries otherwise considered relatively friendly with Russia, such as Kazakhstan, have <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-ukraine-referendums-recognize-russia/32052907.html">already announced</a> that they will not recognise the results of the illegal referendums. The <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-uk-sanctions-russians-referendums/32052857.html">UK</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-impose-new-sanctions-russia-over-sham-referendums-ukraine-2022-09-28/">Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-sanctions-russia-referendums/32054285.html">European Union</a>, meanwhile, are planning to put sanctions on individuals associated with organising them. </p>
<p>The United States is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-preparing-new-11-billion-arms-package-ukraine-us-officials-2022-09-27/">preparing</a> another military support package for Ukraine worth US$1.1 billion (£1.03bn). Nato has warned Russia in no uncertain terms of “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-warns-russia-severe-consequences-case-nuclear-strike-2022-09-27/">severe consequences</a>” in case of a nuclear strike.</p>
<h2>Putin’s strategic objectives</h2>
<p>Despite all of these predictable consequences, the Kremlin carries on regardless. And despite multiple setbacks, Putin is holding on to some of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-whats-really-behind-putins-deployment-of-peacekeeping-troops-experts-explain-177585">objectives</a> that have been at the centre of his invasion of Ukraine since its very start at the end of February 2022. </p>
<p>Once it became clear to Russia that the self-declared so-called people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk had lost their value of political leverage over Ukraine because Kyiv was <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-whats-really-behind-putins-deployment-of-peacekeeping-troops-experts-explain-177585">unwilling</a> to accept Moscow’s terms for a peace settlement in the east of the country, Putin opted for war to capture more of Ukraine’s territory. </p>
<p>This way, he was hoping to secure a durable land bridge to Crimea, potentially cutting off access to the Black Sea completely and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-invasion-stage-two-of-russias-war-is-ringing-alarm-bells-in-nearby-moldova-heres-why-181813">connecting</a> Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine to the Russian-controlled breakaway of Transnistria in Moldova.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-invasion-stage-two-of-russias-war-is-ringing-alarm-bells-in-nearby-moldova-heres-why-181813">Ukraine invasion: 'stage two' of Russia's war is ringing alarm bells in nearby Moldova – here's why</a>
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<p>There was always some degree of uncertainty over exactly how Russia’s well-established “<a href="https://www.ponarseurasia.org/the-changing-de-facto-state-playbook-from-opportunism-to-strategic-calculation/">de-facto state playbook</a>” would play out in Ukraine. But the installation of some form of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-putin-could-try-to-split-the-country-into-regional-puppet-governments-179214">Russian-controlled administration</a> in the occupied areas had always been part of that plan. </p>
<p>Moscow’s early withdrawal from Kyiv in April and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-surprise-counteroffensive-kharkiv-russia-land-east-rcna46805">now from Kharkiv</a> indicates where the Kremlin puts the strategic emphasis of the aggression – in the Donbas and the southeast of Ukraine. These are areas where Russia is still making modest advances and where Ukraine’s liberation of occupied territories is progressing much more slowly. </p>
<p>Putin and his generals may not have much manpower and material resources left, but they use them in areas that make, from a Russian perspective, the most strategic sense.</p>
<h2>Senseless human sacrifice</h2>
<p>Holding the referendums in the territories currently controlled by Russia, therefore, fits into a strategy to shore up domestic support for an increasingly unpopular war at home. If nothing else, defending Russian territory – however ludicrous a notion that is with reference to Ukraine – makes it legally possible for Putin to use not only the reservists being currently mobilised, but also new conscripts due to arrive in Russian army barracks in the coming weeks and months as part of Russia’s regular autumn conscription cycle.</p>
<p>What Putin may achieve, at huge cost, is that these likely poorly trained and equipped soldiers will hold on to some of the territories now claimed as Russian as a result of the referendums. They will, though, no more turn the tide in the war decisively in Moscow’s favour as the referendums will persuade the international community that Russia is engaged in anything but the crime of aggression against Ukraine. The results of the referendums will not be accepted by any significant international actor. Western military support for Ukraine will not diminish and sanctions against Russia will not soften. </p>
<p>But the danger of further escalation remains, and with it the ever-increasing human and material costs of this senseless Russian war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the United States Institute of Peace. He is a past recipient of grants from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU's Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tatyana Malyarenko receives funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Jean Monnet Programme of the European Union</span></em></p>The Kremlin claims 97% of votes counted are for the four occupied regions to join the Russian Federation.Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamTetyana Malyarenko, Professor of International Relations, National University Odesa Law AcademyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1900462022-09-12T20:27:57Z2022-09-12T20:27:57ZWith his army on the back foot, is escalation over Ukraine Vladimir Putin’s only real option?<p>Vladmir Putin has a new problem. His invasion of Ukraine is not just bogged down. It’s going rapidly backwards.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s armed forces have launched two stunningly successful counteroffensives around Kharkiv in the nation’s east, and in the south near the Russian-occupied city of Kherson. Kyiv is now claiming to have recaptured some <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2022/9/10/russia-ukraine-live-news-2">2,000 square kilometres</a> of its territory, with the potential to <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-7">cut off and trap</a> a sizeable portion of the Russian invasion force.</p>
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<p>By the Kremlin’s own standards, this is hardly winning. Realising Russia’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62231936">war aims</a> – including <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3186482/russia-seeking-regime-change-ukraine-lavrov-says-moscow-expands">regime change</a> and the establishment of a “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/20/is-ukraines-endgame-a-russian-land-bridge/">Crimean corridor</a>” that denies Ukraine access to the Black Sea – would require nothing short of a dramatic reversal of its fortunes.</p>
<p>Putin now essentially has <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/putins-choices-in-ukraine-retreat-attrition-or-escalation/">three options</a>.</p>
<p>First, he can seek a political solution, hoping to hold onto the territory Kremlin proxies captured in the eight years prior to his 2022 invasion. That’s an unattractive choice, especially since a bullish Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hardly <a href="https://twitter.com/KyivPost/status/1569049610756280320?s=20&t=0fDwPan-PplqwasKfXAGyw">in the mood</a> to negotiate favourable terms for Moscow. Internationally, it would be a humiliating blow to Russian prestige: a smaller state defeating a top-tier nuclear power in a major land war.</p>
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<p>Domestically, and more worrying for Putin, it would sharply call his leadership into question. Mounting signs of domestic discontent now even include St Petersburg regional deputies publicly calling for Putin to be <a href="https://theins.ru/news/254850">tried for treason</a>, another group from Moscow calling for him to <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/moscow-municipal-lawmakers-demand-putin-resignation/32027762.html">step down</a>, and even <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1569070513909022720?s=20&t=K7rUK26jF0rEm4vKyVq3pg">state media</a> questioning the conflict.</p>
<p>Option two for Putin is to try to reimpose a long and grinding campaign. But even if his forces can blunt the Ukrainian advance, Russia can achieve only a stalemate if the war returns to static artillery duels. That would buy time. It would wear down Ukrainian forces and allow him to test whether <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-using-energy-weapon-white-house-says-about-nord-stream-shutdown-2022-09-02/">using energy as a weapon</a> fragments the European Union’s resolve over the winter. </p>
<p>However, at Russia’s current <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/08/russia-ukraine-deaths-casualties-rises/">rate of losses</a> its conventional forces will be exhausted beyond about 12 months. Both NATO and Ukraine would be well aware of that.</p>
<p>Putin’s third option is to escalate: to send a message to both the West and Ukraine that he means business. Given the dubious nature of his other choices, that may be increasingly likely. But where? And, of equal importance, how?</p>
<h2>Invade Moldova</h2>
<p>Numerous experts have claimed Moscow might <a href="https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-next-war-how-russian-hybrid-aggression-could-threaten-moldova/">seek to annexe</a> Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniestria, plus further chunks of Moldovan territory. And in early September, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-moldova-not-threaten-its-troops-breakaway-region-2022-09-01/">warned of armed conflict</a> if Moldova threatened the 2,000 Russian troops guarding Transdniestria’s large ammunition dump at Cobasna.</p>
<p>An actual invasion would be difficult, because it would require Russian control over the Ukrainian city of Odesa for land access. But an airborne reinforcement of its Transdniestrian garrison might be tempting, or launching a hybrid warfare campaign to justify doing so.</p>
<p>In April 2022, there were several “<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/08/02/transdniestria-moldova-and-russia-s-war-in-ukraine-pub-87609">terrorist incidents</a>”, including the bombing of Transdniestria’s Ministry of State Security, as potential pretexts for such a move.</p>
<p>That said, invading would arguably be counterproductive, not least because it may prompt Moldova’s close partner Romania – a member of NATO – to become involved.</p>
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<h2>Send a ‘stabilisation force’ to Kazakhstan</h2>
<p>Although unlikely, a Russian incursion into Northern Kazakhstan to “protect ethnic Russians” was commonly nominated by Russia-watchers playing grim games of “where does Putin invade next?”. Or, at least, they did before Ukraine.</p>
<p>Russian forces under the banner of the “Collective Security Treaty Organization” (<a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/03/how-the-intervention-in-kazakhstan-revitalized-the-russian-led-csto/">CSTO</a>), comprising some of the former Soviet states, actually intervened as recently as January 2022 at the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/02/csto-deployment-in-kazakhstan-strategic-shift-or-political-consolidation/">request of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev</a>.</p>
<p>However, that was soon exposed as a ploy to help Tokayev defeat his enemies. Since then, he has <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/24/whats-behind-kazakhstan-not-recognizing-ukraines-separatists">drifted towards neutrality</a> on the war in Ukraine.</p>
<p>A new Russian intervention would certainly reinforce to restive Central Asian states that the Kremlin sees the region as its privileged sphere of influence. Indeed, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87652">hinted</a> that northern Kazakhstan was next on Russia’s invasion list. Yet, with many of its forces already tied up in Ukraine, it’s questionable whether doing so would really be worth the effort.</p>
<h2>Full mobilisation</h2>
<p>The significant losses suffered by Russian forces might be covered by putting the nation on a war footing. A general mobilisation would direct the economy towards military production, and provide an unending stream of personnel.</p>
<p>Putin has avoided this so far, choosing a <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-north-caucasus-recruitment/31915842.html">shadow approach</a> instead, which has called up an extra <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/world/europe/putin-russia-military-expansion.html">137,000 Russians</a>.</p>
<p>It does remain a live option, although it would mean admitting the conflict is a war (not a “Special Military Operation”), which would be domestically unpopular and result in untrained and ill-equipped conscripts flooding the front line.</p>
<h2>Draw NATO in</h2>
<p>Apart from the Moldovan scenario, Putin might elect to stage a “provocation” against a NATO state like Estonia. That would be a risky gambit indeed: given what we have seen of the performance of Russia’s conventional forces, even a limited war with NATO would hasten Russia’s defeat, and thus far Putin has assiduously avoided such provocations, apart from bluster and rhetoric.</p>
<p>Perversely, that might allow Putin to salvage some domestic pride by claiming he lost to NATO rather than Ukraine.</p>
<p>Yet his <a href="https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/08/24/six-months-into-the-war-in-ukraine-russian-media-has-a-new-message-either-we-win-or-world-war-iii-begins/">propaganda machine</a> has already been falsely claiming NATO is directly involved in the fight against Russian forces.</p>
<p>And if Putin isn’t prepared to initiate a peace process, then really only one escalation pathway remains.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-fighting-three-undeclared-wars-its-fourth-an-internal-struggle-for-russia-itself-might-be-looming-189129">Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth – an internal struggle for Russia itself – might be looming</a>
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<h2>Arrange a radiological ‘accident’</h2>
<p>The Kremlin has obliquely <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/accidents-can-happen-european-nuclear-plants-too-russian-ex-president-says-2022-08-12/">hinted</a> at this for a while.</p>
<p>Russian forces have controlled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant near the city of Kherson since March, turning it into a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-army-turns-ukraines-largest-nuclear-plant-into-a-military-base-11657035694">military base</a>. Rocket and artillery fire is actually not a huge concern, since the plant is heavily <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-war-zone-disaster/">hardened</a>.</p>
<p>But if the plant loses connection to the Ukrainian grid – which has already <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62782497">happened</a> several times – the reactors are only controlled by their own power generation, with no fail safe. </p>
<p>Arranging a false flag “accident” blamed on Ukraine is certainly possible, raising the nightmare prospect of a new Chernobyl.</p>
<h2>Use tactical nuclear weapons</h2>
<p>Look, it’s unlikely. But it can’t be ruled out.</p>
<p>Realistically, using tactical nuclear weapons would be of <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-vladimir-putins-nuclear-threats-a-bluff-in-a-word-probably-187689">dubious military value</a>. There would be no guarantee NATO would back down, or that Ukraine would capitulate. It would be very difficult for Russia’s few remaining partners to continue supporting Putin, either tacitly (like China) or indirectly (like India).</p>
<p>Indeed, while much has been made of Russia’s supposed “<a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia%E2%80%99s-crazy-nuclear-war-strategy-escalationto-de-escalate-180680">escalate to de-escalate</a>” doctrine, involving using nuclear weapons to force others to blink, there’s plenty of evidence it’s a <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/07/myths-and-misconceptions-around-russian-military-intent/myth-9-russian-nuclear-strategy">myth</a> designed to increase fear of nuclear war among Moscow’s adversaries.</p>
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<p>In summary, Putin’s choices remain poor, both domestically and internationally. He may soon feel forced to pick between those that are unpalatable, and those that are risky.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, identifying what he will choose is guesswork: we simply don’t know enough about how Putin’s mind works, or how he prioritises information to make decisions.</p>
<p>But perhaps there’s one hint. Throughout his tenure, Putin has consistently invited NATO and its allies to blink. At this crucial time, <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-ukraine-invasion-is-slowly-approaching-an-inflection-point-is-the-west-prepared-to-step-up-186388">the West owes it to Ukraine</a>, and for the sake of its own credibility, to ensure it does not give the Russian president what he wants.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Sussex has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Lowy Institute, the Carnegie Foundation, and various Australian government agencies.</span></em></p>Vladmir Putin has a new problem. His invasion of Ukraine is not just bogged down. It’s going backwards.Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1892112022-09-06T17:14:44Z2022-09-06T17:14:44ZWhy Vladimir Putin still has widespread support in Russia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481887/original/file-20220830-36076-qz7uav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4715%2C3330&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vladimir Putin appears larger than life on screen as he addresses an audience at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on the eighth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea in March 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Vladimir Astapkovich/Sputnik Pool Photo via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the early stages of Vladimir Putin’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-putin-authorises-military-operations-donbass-domestic-media-2022-02-24/">“special military operation” in Ukraine</a>, there was speculation in the western media that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/30/can-putin-be-overthrown-russias-leader-has-sought-to-prevent-a-coup.html">his days as Russian leader were numbered</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/russia-s-failure-to-take-down-kyiv-was-a-defeat-for-the-ages-analyst-1.5850242">As Ukrainians fought fiercely against Russian forces</a>, many commentators claimed that unprecedented western sanctions would soon bring the Russian economy to its knees. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-oligarch-statements-against-ukraine-war-putin-loyalty-wavering-doj-2022-5">Russian oligarchs were supposedly going to shed their loyalty to Putin’s regime</a> as their assets and yachts were seized in the West. The wider Russian population would soon feel the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sanctions-russia-economy-effect/">economic pain of sanctions</a> and be unwilling to accept the <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/russian-casualties-ukraine-reaching-tipping-point">growing death toll for Russian forces</a> in Ukraine.</p>
<h2>Increase in popularity</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraine-invasion-by-russia-is-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-putin-and-his-friends?ref=author">This scenario</a> has yet to take place, and there aren’t any meaningful signs that it will in the near future. </p>
<p>In fact, Russian public opinion polls have suggested <a href="https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/">an increase in Putin’s popularity after the invasion</a>. <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/04/06/do-russians-tell-the-truth-when-they-say-they-support-the-war-in-ukraine-evidence-from-a-list-experiment/">Support for the war itself is not as high as Putin’s overall approval rating — but he can still count on majority support for the invasion</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/meltdown-averted-six-months-russians-face-economic-pain-2022-08-23/">the Russian economy has remained surprisingly robust</a> — to a considerable extent helped by the sanctions meant to damage it. By denying themselves Russian oil and to a lesser extent gas, European countries contributed to an increase in oil and gas prices that has buoyed the Russian coffers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman and child walk along a street with T-shirts with the letter Z on them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481900/original/file-20220830-27772-kuwp8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481900/original/file-20220830-27772-kuwp8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481900/original/file-20220830-27772-kuwp8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481900/original/file-20220830-27772-kuwp8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481900/original/file-20220830-27772-kuwp8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481900/original/file-20220830-27772-kuwp8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481900/original/file-20220830-27772-kuwp8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman and her child wear T-shirts with the letter Z, which has become a symbol of support for the Russian military, as they walk on the grounds of the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in August 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Western commentators have also suggested that, simmering beneath the opinion poll numbers, there is latent opposition to Putin that isn’t being expressed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/opinion/russia-putin-corruption.html">because of fear</a>. At the same time, there have been arguments that the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/07/15/i-once-supported-putin-now-i-know-the-truth-00031740">Russian population is subject to a barrage of pro-Kremlin propaganda</a> and therefore unable to really question the status quo. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A balding man in a suit and red tie sits in a white easy chair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482147/original/file-20220831-18-rlbiz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this August 2021 photo, Putin attends a meeting with members of the United Russia Party with the logo of the party in the background in Moscow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Mikhail Voskresensky/Sputnik, Kremlin/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This alternative to Putin’s world view <a href="https://www.russiapost.info/society/death_of_liberal_russia_p2">is almost nowhere to be found in Russian media</a>.</p>
<p>There’s no question the Russian population is subject to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/world/europe/russian-media-ukraine-war.html">Russian media largely loyal to the Kremlin</a> — and <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/3484858-heres-who-russia-has-punished-for-speaking-out-against-the-war-in-ukraine/">speaking out publicly against the war</a> will certainly get you into trouble in Russia. But that doesn’t mean Putin lacks genuine supporters. </p>
<h2>Risking wealth, status</h2>
<p>Most of Russia’s population is, at worst, willing to quietly <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/putins-patriotism-problem">acquiesce in Putin’s regime</a>.</p>
<p>There are good reasons for this beyond fear. First of all, many Russian oligarchs and political leaders are closely bound to Putin through a system of patronage that is deeply entrenched. Without Putin, they are likely to lose much of their wealth and status. </p>
<p>At the same time, some of those in the <a href="https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/nationalist-and-imperial-thinking-define-putins-vision-russia">upper echelons of Russian society support Putin’s nationalist agenda</a>. Many Russian nationalists believe Russia has been reborn under Putin.</p>
<p>In some ways, <a href="https://defense.info/book-review/2019/09/the-putin-narrative-the-rebirth-of-the-russian-state/">that’s true</a> after the widespread misery of the 1990s.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-did-putin-invade-ukraine-now-is-it-for-the-u-s-s-r-again-179275">collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991</a> was a major blow to Russian prestige. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wild-decade-how-the-1990s-laid-the-foundations-for-vladimir-putins-russia-141098">economic and political turmoil of the 1990s</a> that followed under President Boris Yeltsin is not looked back upon with nostalgia by many Russians.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aging woman with a pot on her head strikes it with a spoon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482149/original/file-20220831-4878-alxm6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482149/original/file-20220831-4878-alxm6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482149/original/file-20220831-4878-alxm6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482149/original/file-20220831-4878-alxm6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482149/original/file-20220831-4878-alxm6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482149/original/file-20220831-4878-alxm6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482149/original/file-20220831-4878-alxm6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this March 1993 photo, a woman in Moscow strikes a saucepan on her head with a spoon while shouting anti-Yeltsin slogans during a Women’s Day protest march against the cost of food.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the Yeltsin era, Russia <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-liberal-democrats-who-once-thought-russias-future-was-in-their-hands/2017/08/17/77335b28-8298-11e7-9e7a-20fa8d7a0db6_story.html">seemed to be joining the western liberal fold</a>, but for many, that brought only economic pain and disorder. Not only was Russia a second-class power on the world stage, but the benefits of economic and political liberalization seemed to lack substance. </p>
<p>During the 1990s, <a href="https://intellinews.com/moscow-blog-a-history-of-russian-crises-192705/?source=blogs">older Russians saw their savings wiped out not once but twice within a decade</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Fatalistic anger’</h2>
<p>I spent some time in the city of Podol'sk near Moscow during the second financial crash of 1998 as hyperinflation destroyed savings and made many imported goods unaffordable. A sort of fatalistic anger was a common response to yet another economic blow.</p>
<p>Currency devaluation soon followed, and yet the <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2018/08/22/remembering-russias-1998-financial-crash-op-ed-a62595">Russian economy recovered far more quickly than many observers expected</a>.</p>
<p>Shortly after the 1998 financial crash, Yeltsin helped <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50807747">bring Putin to power</a> as acting president at the end of 1999. An unlikely successor for Yeltsin in terms of his political profile, I didn’t expect much to change under Putin. </p>
<p>At first, Putin’s policies were similar to Yeltsin’s.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An aging man with grey hair stands next to a younger blonde man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482151/original/file-20220831-6799-zpi5u5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this May 2000 photo, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin stands with the new one, Vladimir Putin, on the day Putin was made full rather than acting president of the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alexander Zenlianichenko)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, by the time I visited Russia for the first time in several years in 2015, I could feel a palpable change in mood since my last visit. Not only was there greater order and cleanliness on the streets, but also a growing feeling of self-confidence in the Russian capital.</p>
<p>This was a year <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603">after Russia had annexed Crimea</a>. <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/poll-majority-of-russians-support-crimea-annexation-but-worry-about-economic-effects/29859570.html">Most Russians supported that move</a>.</p>
<p>Putin had <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/29/1088886554/how-putin-conquered-russias-oligarchy">not rid Russia of the hated oligarchs, but they had been brought into line</a>. Attempts were also made <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/corruption/anti-corruption-digest/russian-federation?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_VGjJPm6vhg6W&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-4&p_p_col_count=1&_101_INSTANCE_VGjJPm6vhg6W_delta=10&_101_INSTANCE_VGjJPm6vhg6W_keywords=&_101_INSTANCE_VGjJPm6vhg6W_advancedSearch=false&_101_INSTANCE_VGjJPm6vhg6W_andOperator=true&p_r_p_564233524_resetCur=false&_101_INSTANCE_VGjJPm6vhg6W_cur=3">to reduce or give the appearance of reducing corruption</a>. </p>
<h2>Order after chaos</h2>
<p>Putin the strongman had brought a degree of order after the chaos, and many Russians welcomed it even though a number of <a href="https://ridl.io/putin-on-democracy/">democratic elements of the Yeltsin regime disappeared</a>. Western-style liberalism had not offered most Russians the sort of life promised to them by proponents of reform as the Soviet Union collapsed.</p>
<p>Even today, evidence suggests many Russians — including those born after the Soviet Union’s collapse — <a href="https://www.russiapost.info/society/death_of_liberal_russia_p3">value many things before democracy and western political liberalism</a>. The relative economic stability and order provided under the Putin regime has had widespread appeal.</p>
<p>Western sanctions have undoubtedly hit many Russians. However, the blanket and unprecedented nature of western sanctions — <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/27/western-media-coverage-ukraine-russia-invasion-criticism">and western hypocrisy in its treatment of Russia</a> — feed into Putin’s narrative that the West wants to keep Russia down.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-wont-back-down-in-ukraine-177765">Why Vladimir Putin won't back down in Ukraine</a>
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</em>
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<p>The West has made it easy for Putin to claim to be a defender of Russian interests.</p>
<p>In the absence of obvious alternatives to Putin, only his health is likely a significant potential threat to his rule at the moment, and recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62246914">speculation about his ill health</a> seems to be based on little or no meaningful evidence.</p>
<p>As far as we can reasonably tell, Putin is here to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189211/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Hill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no question the Russian population is subject to a Russian media largely loyal to the Kremlin. But that doesn’t mean Vladimir Putin lacks genuine supporters.Alexander Hill, Professor of Military History, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1897782022-09-02T03:59:18Z2022-09-02T03:59:18ZWhy Gorbachev’s legacy still threatens Putin<p>Little remains of the legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader and one of the greatest reformers in Russian history.</p>
<p>In the name of “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (restructuring), Gorbachev dismantled totalitarianism, abolished censorship, freed hundreds of political prisoners, and held competitive elections that inaugurated a decade of democratisation.</p>
<p>By jettisoning the USSR’s ideologically driven foreign policy, he also ended the Cold War and brought humanity back from the brink of nuclear annihilation.</p>
<p>During his presidency, Vladimir Putin has systematically destroyed these historic achievements. On their ruins, his regime is mobilising militants behind a new totalitarian project.</p>
<p>Once again, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/06/russian-teacher-shocked-as-she-faces-jail-over-anti-war-speech-pupils-taped">education</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220701-rebel-moscow-theatre-shuts-doors-after-final-show">culture</a> are being policed by the state. Once again, <a href="https://memohrc.org/ru/content/programma-podderzhka-politzaklyuchyonnyh-i-drugih-zhertv-politicheskih-repressiy">hundreds of prisoners of conscience</a> are languishing in prisons and labour camps. And once again, Russia is locked in a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/russian-tv-says-nuclear-war-only-alternative-russia-victory-ukraine-1709539">potentially apocalyptic</a> confrontation with the West.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1565089885366919169"}"></div></p>
<h2>Gorbachev’s dialogue with a dissident</h2>
<p>Nothing better illustrates the differences between Gorbachev and Putin than how they treated their adversaries.</p>
<p>In December 1986, Gorbachev phoned <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-andrei-sakharov-went-from-soviet-hero-to-dissident-and-forced-the-world-to-pay-attention-to-human-rights-157688">Andrei Sakharov</a>, the most vilified dissident in the USSR. Sakharov had been languishing for seven years in internal exile in the closed city of Gorky for his condemnation of the invasion of Afghanistan. In a radical rupture with the etiquette of his predecessors, Gorbachev politely invited Sakharov to return to Moscow to “<a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/12/19/Freedom-came-with-a-phone-call/9238535352400/">resume your patriotic work</a>”.</p>
<p>This act of civility was only the beginning of what <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=NQpaBWWh4_AC&pg=PA1714&lpg=PA1714&dq=%22the+sharp+and+profound+Gorbachev-Sakharov+dialogue,+a+dialogue+which+became+one+of+the+engines+of+our+progress%22&source=bl&ots=yAI3qj8w1H&sig=ACfU3U1b1LE2HI4YUp8M3km1YHuKef8jNA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivldOPw_L5AhXEwzgGHZX_AHoQ6AF6BAgDEAM#v=onepage&q=%22the%20sharp%20and%20profound%20Gorbachev-Sakharov%20dialogue%2C%20a%20dialogue%20which%20became%20one%20of%20the%20engines%20of%20our%20progress%22&f=false">one liberal intellectual called</a> “the sharp and profound Gorbachev-Sakharov dialogue, a dialogue which became one of the engines of our progress”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-andrei-sakharov-went-from-soviet-hero-to-dissident-and-forced-the-world-to-pay-attention-to-human-rights-157688">How Andrei Sakharov went from Soviet hero to dissident — and forced the world to pay attention to human rights</a>
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<p>When Gorbachev introduced multi-candidate elections to a new Soviet legislature, the Congress of People’s Deputies, Sakharov became one of 2,250 new parliamentarians.</p>
<p>His voice might have been lost in the tumult of this unwieldy assembly. However, Gorbachev repeatedly intervened to allow Sakharov to take the podium and deliver speeches that set the agenda of Russia’s democratic reforms.</p>
<p>After Sakharov died of a heart attack in December 1989, Gorbachev <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/12/16/gorbachev-praises-sakharov/5c19e614-c727-49bd-8435-a9e0c66cc3f9/">lamented</a> this “great loss” of “a person with his own ideas and convictions, which he expressed openly and directly”.</p>
<p>Contrast this openness to dialogue with Putin’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/03/this-gentleman-alexei-navalny-the-name-putin-dares-not-speak">strange inability</a> to utter even the name of his principal adversary, Aleksei Navalny, who was subject to a decade of vilification, trumped up criminal prosecutions, and violent attacks by Kremlin proxies before state security agents poisoned him with the nerve agent novichok.</p>
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<h2>Gorbachev’s restraint</h2>
<p>There’s no doubt Gorbachev’s greatest achievement was the relatively peaceful dismantlement of a highly militarised totalitarian regime with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>As his power ebbed during the terminal crisis of the USSR, Gorbachev was unable to prevent excesses by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/01/13/soviet-troops-seize-lithuanias-tv-station/34739858-1b02-4f92-85e8-ab612554fd4e/">military hardliners in the Baltic states</a>. However, at the decisive moment, he resisted the temptation to wage war to preserve the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe or suppress the nationalist movements that were tearing the Soviet federation apart at its seams. </p>
<p>His reticence earned him the vilification of the neo-Stalinists and radical nationalists who dominated Russian opposition politics in the 1990s.</p>
<p>But it almost certainly saved millions of people from the ethnic cleansing and genocidal massacres that devastated the former Yugoslavia, eastern Europe’s other Leninist federation.</p>
<p>Gorbachev’s restraint also unshackled Russia’s civil society after seven decades of totalitarian regimentation. The early years of perestroika witnessed a proliferation of “informal groups”, small clubs of citizens engaged in the kind of associational life that’s the lifeblood of democratic politics. </p>
<p>The most important of these informals was the Memorial Society, which emerged as a group of activists petitioning for the construction of a monument to the victims of Stalinism. As Memorial grew into a grassroots human rights movement, it was denied legal status by obstructionist bureaucrats. Gorbachev, at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/19/yelena-bonner-obituary">prompting of Sakharov’s widow</a>, ordered its registration.</p>
<p>For the next three decades, Memorial shone a spotlight on atrocities in the flashpoints of the former Soviet space and on repression within Russia. Unsurprisingly, it became a principal target of Putin’s anti-NGO laws and the Kremlin’s small army of <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-nationalists-attack-event-for-high-school-history-students-ulitskaya/27704871.html">anti-Western proxies</a>. Last December, when Memorial was banned, Gorbachev <a href="https://meduza.io/feature/2021/11/16/vlast-unichtozhaet-nashu-pamyat">spoke out in its defence</a>.</p>
<p>During his six years in power, Gorbachev evolved from a Leninist true believer into a kind of social democrat. In the end, his political credo revolved around the notion of “universal values”, which repudiated Marxism-Leninism’s division of the world into capitalism and socialism.</p>
<p>In the name of universal values, Gorbachev became the only Soviet leader to embrace the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/12/08/excerpts-from-gorbachevs-speech/a6b37f64-2b28-44db-bdd2-c54869b0acb1/">principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>.</p>
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<h2>Putin’s ‘traditional values’</h2>
<p>For Putin’s propagandists, universal values are an object of derision, a pitiful delusion that blinded naive reformers like Gorbachev to an unfolding national catastrophe.</p>
<p>In its place, they offer “traditional values”, which justify attacks on international human rights norms, domestic repression, and genocidal war in Ukraine. At the same time, these <a href="https://nstarikov.ru/sud-nad-gorbachevym-14932">propagandists slander</a> Gorbachev as a criminal who should be tried for treason. </p>
<p>Despite the torrent of hatred directed at him, Gorbachev remained true to universal values. In 1993, while Putin was already <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-bribe-scandal/31867449.html">mired in the corruption schemes</a> that would make him one of the world’s richest kleptocrats, Gorbachev donated part of the money from his Nobel Prize to the newspaper <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/novaya-gazeta-nobel-prize-journalists-killed/24944541.html">Novaya Gazeta</a>, a bastion of courageous reportage and liberal values in post-Soviet Russia.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-fascists-the-russian-states-long-history-of-cultivating-homegrown-neo-nazis-178535">Putin’s fascists: the Russian state's long history of cultivating homegrown neo-Nazis</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When neo-nazis <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/05/stanislav-markelov-anastasia-baburova-murders">murdered one of Novaya Gazeta’s journalists </a>alongside Russia’s most prominent human rights lawyer in 2009, Gorbachev accompanied the newspaper’s editor to a <a href="https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/148821/">meeting in the Kremlin</a> with then President Dmitrii Medvedev to demand action. Like other independent media, Novaya Gazeta became <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/28/russian-news-outlet-novaya-gazeta-to-close-until-end-of-ukraine-war">a victim of the domestic crackdown</a> that followed the invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>Putin may have levelled Russia’s democratic institutions and pulverised its civic landscape, but he has been unable to extirpate one thing: the memory of the democratic experiment that Gorbachev set in motion.</p>
<p>For decades since the unveiling of glasnost and perestroika, millions of Russians have acted as free citizens, protesting, debating and associating, despite the dangers of an increasingly authoritarian environment. Those experiences cannot be unlived. They are already part of Russia’s democratic tradition. They are Gorbachev’s most enduring legacy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Horvath receives funding from Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>For over a decade, Putin has been systematically destroying Gorbachev’s historic achievements.Robert Horvath, Senior lecturer, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881212022-08-18T12:39:57Z2022-08-18T12:39:57ZUkrainian people are resisting the centuries-old force of Russian imperialism – Ukraine war at 6 months<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479479/original/file-20220816-16068-oq2vva.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C28%2C4763%2C3130&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People attend an exhibition of Russian equipment destroyed by the armed forces of Ukraine, in Lviv, Ukraine, Aug. 11, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-attend-the-opening-of-the-exhibition-of-russian-news-photo/1242453575?adppopup=true">Olena Znak/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The war being waged by Russia in Ukraine has been described in many ways – an attempt to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26769481">recreate the USSR</a>, a militant <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/opinion/russia-ukraine-putin-eurasianism.html">attempt to create a new Eurasia civilization</a>, or a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ukraine-russia-us-proxy-war-b2073399.html">proxy war between Russia and the West</a>. But whatever Russian President <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/putins-ambitions-seriously-set-back-failures-ukraine-ex-cia-chief-1692236">Vladimir Putin’s ambitions and aspirations</a> were in the past, they have become ever more blatantly imperial and colonial as the fighting continues. </p>
<p>A colonial war, like Russia’s in Ukraine, is one in which a self-styled superior people believes it has the right, even the duty, to do what it feels is good for its inferiors – which conveniently conforms to its own self-interest. </p>
<p>“Colonial” or “imperial” are not just epithets thrown around casually, as are the now-familiar accusations of <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition-179063">fascism and genocide, most recently used against Russia</a>.</p>
<p>As polemical as their usage can be, colonialism and imperialism have explanatory power. </p>
<p>Imperialism was an <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/russias-empires-9780199924394?cc=us&lang=en&">antiquated system of domination</a> that attempted to include diverse peoples within a single state under the authority of a purportedly superior institution – emperors, nobles or Übermenschen – or in overseas empires under the control of a foreign master who promised to “civilize” – as they put it – the benighted natives. </p>
<p>Think of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/British-raj">British in India</a> – white men lording it over millions of Indians in the name of a higher civilization. Or the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/House-of-Habsburg">Habsburg dynasty ruling peoples</a> from Spain to the Netherlands to Austria and Hungary via strategic marriage and military conquest. </p>
<p>If empires were diverse and inegalitarian, modern nation-states were supposedly intended by their creators to be relatively homogeneous and egalitarian. <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2259-imagined-communities">Nation-makers recognized popular sovereignty</a> rather than dynastic rule. They operated democratically. The right to rule rose up from the people. </p>
<p>Consider the earliest capitalist states of the 17th and 18th centuries – England, the Netherlands and France – that practiced nation-making at home in Europe. By the time of the French Revolution of 1789, their <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo81816822.html">people were dealt with as equal citizens under the law</a>, not as a monarch’s subjects. </p>
<p>But in their colonies – like the Dutch East Indies or French Indochina – <a href="https://academic.oup.com/california-scholarship-online/book/18905">the locals were subjects of imperial authorities from afar</a>, bereft of rights and sovereignty.</p>
<p>In the historical stories told by nationalists, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/14/empires-with-expiration-dates/">nation-states were supposed to be the legitimate successors of empires</a>. Relatively homogeneous culturally, with rulers chosen by the people, they were products of the modern world, while empires were seen as archaic and doomed to collapse. </p>
<p>But it has not quite worked out that way in the past century. And Russia’s war on Ukraine is a reflection of that.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men, one in a suit, the other in a uniform, talking across a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479478/original/file-20220816-9774-fdxygk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, listens to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s report in the Kremlin in Moscow on July 4, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraine/209b825923bd40ecaa5b3d85c8a86c26/photo?Query=(persons.person_featured:(Vladimir%20AND%20Putin))%20AND%20%20(Putin%20Ukraine)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1175&currentItemNo=0">Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>21st-century imperialists</h2>
<p>Over the past century, those who believed egalitarian and democratic nation-states would logically and naturally succeed empires have gotten a reeducation in political theory. </p>
<p>Nation-states can be imperialist and seek to envelop other nationalities within their territory or dominate their neighbors militarily or economically. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/kurdish-repression-turkey">Turkey treats its tens of millions of Kurds like a colonized people</a>. A nation-state privileging one ethno-religious people, like Israel, <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/palestinians-in-israel-then-and-now">subjects millions of Palestinians to inequitable domination</a>. </p>
<p>Large diverse states, like the United States and India, swing between multicultural egalitarianism, recognizing the rights of minorities, and bouts of xenophobic hostility to those <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-immigration-rule-is-cruel-and-racistbut-its-nothing-new">differing from the majority, white</a> or <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/mass-movement-or-elite-conspiracy-the-puzzle-of-hindu-nationalism/oclc/847441763">Hindu</a>. </p>
<p>Within such states some people are treated more favorably than others. Minorities often experience not only discrimination, but violence. Other large, diverse states, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/world/europe/putin-war-ukraine-recolonization.html">like Putin’s Russia</a>, also vacillate between a multinational nation-state – about 80% are ethnic Russians – and imperial treatment of various subordinate peoples. </p>
<p>The Kremlin elite has promoted a <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/russias-road-to-autocracy/">virulent nationalism to rally the population</a> in its war against Ukraine, which represents a turn toward neocolonialism.</p>
<p>Take Putin’s opportunistic and disingenuous use of the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-vows-that-as-in-1945-ukraine-will-be-liberated-from-nazi-filth/">language of liberation</a>, of <a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-claims-that-ukraine-is-committing-genocide-are-baseless-but-not-unprecedented-177511">preventing genocide</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/decrying-nazism-even-when-its-not-there-has-been-russias-invade-country-for-free-card-183695">removal of Nazis</a> as justification for his invasion of Ukraine. He uses that language in the way 19th-century imperialists did when they invaded, dominated and exploited other countries, claiming they were reluctantly undertaking the <a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478">burden that white men had to bear to defend</a> against barbarians and savages. </p>
<p>Having failed to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/nato-sees-russia-war-entering-stalemate-neither-side-can-win-rcna20877">decapitate the Ukrainian government</a>, the Kremlin retreated to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/renewed-russian-attacks-strike-areas-ukraine-86927182">taking territory savagely in the east and south of the country</a>. The <a href="https://uacrisis.org/en/russkiy-mir-as-the-kremlin-s-quasi-ideology">mythology of the Russkiy Mir</a> – the supposed unity of the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian peoples – has been instrumentally deployed by Russia to justify the brutal attack on the very people who were supposed to be the brothers and sisters of the Russians. </p>
<h2>‘Threatened by dangerous inferiors’</h2>
<p>Contrary to Russia’s plans, Kyiv did not surrender. Ukrainians instead <a href="https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2022/0802/1313587-ukraine-russia-resistance-movement/">flocked to the struggle</a> against alien rule. The result of the invasion has been the strengthened resolve of Ukrainians to resist a new colonialism, which they remember having experienced for hundreds of years under the czars and the Soviets. </p>
<p>As a historian <a href="https://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ecrn/crn_papers/Suny4.pdf">who has studied</a> <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/emeritus/rgsuny.html">empires and nations</a>, I believe that once a government like Putin’s has concluded that its existence is threatened by dangerous inferiors, it is motivated to use its greater power and its own righteous sense of historical superiority to bring its enemies under control. </p>
<p>If indirect rule by pliant native rulers or satraps are not sufficient to remove the perceived danger, territorial acquisition is likely to follow. The option left to Moscow as the war grinds into stalemate is direct rule over Ukrainian territory. </p>
<p>Lands under the fragile and contested control of the Russians are already being <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682">consolidated into a newly named territory</a>. A <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/luhansk-governor-says-russia-will-shift-main-focus-donetsk-region-2022-07-04/">governor has been appointed</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russia-starts-giving-passports-to-ukrainians-from-donetsk-luhansk/a-49207353">passports issued</a>; the <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2017/02/27/ukraines-breakaway-luhansk-republic-adopts-russian-ruble-a57280">ruble imposed</a> as the official currency. Russia’s maximal goals appear to be to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/19/putin-russia-annex-ukraine-kherson-donetsk-luhansk">take possession of the whole crescent</a> in eastern Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson/Nikolaev as well as Crimea, <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-annex-crimea-why-putin-invaded-2014-what-happened-nato-annexation-explained-1424682">annexed already by Russia</a> in 2014.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young woman and a girl stand together amid destroyed homes, looking sad." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479487/original/file-20220816-9595-6ekrue.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents look at damaged homes from a Russian rocket attack, Aug. 16, 2022, in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXRussiaUkraineWar/332b1ea4b75f49c48a1a4b05c886f0c1/photo?Query=war%20ukraine&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=26850&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reality bites back</h2>
<p>As a nation-state engaged in consolidating its <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-democracy-separating-fact-fiction-russia-1690505">identity as democratic and Western</a>, Ukraine faces an implacable foe whose current sense of self is embedded in its imperial past and its distinction from the West. </p>
<p>Torn for 30 years of independence <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/22/ukraine-east-west-war-narrows-divide/">between East and West</a>, thanks to Russia’s aggression Ukraine has decisively chosen the West. The imperialist war has given rise to an effective, if desperate, anti-colonial resistance. Ukrainians are more united than ever before. </p>
<p>For Ukrainians, compromise between independence and sovereignty on one hand and subjugation to imperialism <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/07/russias-war-ukraine-how-get-negotiations">on the other appears impossible</a>. Surrendering land to the aggressor, it is widely believed, will only feed his appetite.</p>
<p>Almost six months into the war, the Russians have their own cruel calculus. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has issued a dire warning: The <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/84c4beae-fbd6-4d1e-aeb5-5d147b9621a4">longer the war goes on, the more territory</a> will be seized by Russia and brought into the expanding Russian state. The West’s continued arming of Ukraine, he claims, only <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/sergey-lavrov-russia-expand-ukraine-war-goal/">prolongs the war</a>. </p>
<p>There is, at the moment, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/08/01/russia-ukraine-and-the-decision-to-negotiate/">little appetite on either side for a negotiated settlement</a>. </p>
<p>But in this war of attrition, time and the weight of geography and population <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/world/europe/ukraine-russia-weapons-war.html">are on the side of the aggressor</a>. Russia can <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d60ef086-a252-4d6d-8534-e39ccd541926">outlast its opponents and the West</a>. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-japan-asia-middle-east-14350d5bd6d036c68159d02c2db79698">Overshadowing everything is the nuclear threat</a>.</p>
<p>War is a failure of reason, diplomacy and compromise. The <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-middle-east-global-trade-a2c89d94a0f8473b40a1fcde5710bda8">negotiations that allowed Ukrainian grain exports to resume</a> demonstrate that some compromise, however fragile, might be reached. </p>
<p>As difficult and unsavory as it is to negotiate with Putin, some end must ultimately be discussed. This is a tragic choice. Yet even empires have their limits, and when faced with determined opposition, they learn the harsh lesson of imperial overreach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald Suny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democratic nation-states were supposed to be the legitimate successors of empires. It hasn’t quite worked out that way in the past century, and Russia’s war on Ukraine is a reflection of that.Ronald Suny, Professor of History and Political Science, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1869522022-07-17T13:26:49Z2022-07-17T13:26:49ZRussian propaganda is making inroads with right-wing Canadians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474328/original/file-20220715-24-cvf7lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5000%2C3330&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While attending the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced sanctions against Russia </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Stefani Reynolds/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/russian-propaganda-is-making-inroads-with-right-wing-canadians" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>On July 8, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-russia-new-sanctions-1.6514422">new sanctions</a> against Russia as a counter to the Kremlin’s disinformation activities aimed at Canada.</p>
<p>Ukraine and the West have long been a target of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has used a variety of information warfare tactics to destabilize the Ukrainian government and <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-10-02/how-russia-and-china-undermine-democracy">undermine the legitimacy of democratic governments around the world</a>.</p>
<p>In recent years, as part of its bid to shape public perception of their action on the world’s stage, Russia has deployed an army of <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/infamous-russian-troll-farm-appears-to-be-source-of-anti-ukraine-propaganda">bots, trolls, hackers</a> and other proxies across social media and the internet. These tactics are being used as a part of a concerted effort to curate a more favourable information environment for their agenda in Ukraine and other areas of geopolitical interest. </p>
<p>In the lead up to the 2016 U.S. federal election, the Kremlin used the now infamous “Internet Research Agency” to <a href="https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/">sow discord online</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/mueller-report-internet-research-agency-detailed-2016">off-line</a>.</p>
<h2>Online warfare tactics</h2>
<p>Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the <a href="https://socialmedialab.ca/">Social Media Lab’s</a> <a href="https://conflictmisinfo.org/">Conflict Misinformation Dashboard</a> has tracked over 1,000 false, misleading and unproven claims. Some of these false and misleading claims were spread by Russian government officials and their proxies. For example, in the early months of the war, the Kremlin was actively spreading the unsubstantiated claim that <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/The-Kremlins-Chemical-Weapons-Disinformation-Campaigns_edit.pdf">chemical and biological weapons are being covertly developed in Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>And Canada’s Communications Security Establishment <a href="https://cse-cst.gc.ca/en/information-and-resources/announcements/cse-statement-malicious-russian-cyber-activity-targeting">has raised concerns about Russian online state-sponsored disinformation campaigns</a> aimed at distorting Canada’s effort to help Ukraine defend itself. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theorists-are-falsely-claiming-that-the-coronavirus-pandemic-is-an-elaborate-hoax-135985">Conspiracy theorists are falsely claiming that the coronavirus pandemic is an elaborate hoax</a>
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<p>As part of our ongoing research into how misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories spread online, we conducted a survey in May 2022 to examine the extent to which Canadians are exposed to, and might be influenced by, pro-Kremlin propaganda on social media. Among other questions, we asked participants about their social media use, news consumption about the war in Ukraine, political leanings as well as their exposure to and belief in common pro-Kremlin narratives.</p>
<p>The data we collected shows that <a href="https://figshare.com/articles/preprint/The_Reach_of_Russian_Propaganda_Disinformation_in_Canada/20277855">Canadians are being exposed to pro-Kremlin propaganda</a>. Slightly over half of Canadians (51 per cent) reported encountering at least one persistent, false claim about the Russia-Ukraine war on social media pushed by the Kremlin and pro-Kremlin accounts. </p>
<p>The most prevalent claim, encountered by 35 per cent of Canadians, was “Ukrainian nationalism is a neo-Nazi movement,” <a href="https://www.polygraph.info/a/fact-check-putin-ukraine-war/31721619.html">a false narrative that has long been debunked</a> by numerous fact-checkers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="table showing percentage of Canadians who have encountered particular Russian disinformation claims" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474013/original/file-20220714-17678-zvpd8i.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canadians are encountering various pro-Kremlin propaganda claims online.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Social Media Lab/Toronto Metropolitan University)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, it is the claim about NATO expansion that gained the most traction with the Canadian public. Specifically, nearly half of Canadians (49 per cent) believed at least to some extent that “since the end of the Cold War, NATO has surrounded Russia with military bases and broken their promise to not offer NATO membership to former U.S.S.R. republics, like Ukraine.”</p>
<h2>Pro-Kremlin propaganda</h2>
<p>Next, we looked for a connection between political ideology and people’s propensity to believe in pro-Kremlin propaganda. We used the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/appendix-a-the-ideological-consistency-scale/">Ideological Consistency Scale</a> developed by the Pew Research Center. The scale is designed to determine one’s political ideology on a scale between -10 (mostly liberal) to +10 (mostly conservative). It is based on 10 questions about social issues, military and homosexuality, which correlate with a traditional left/right political affinity.</p>
<p>Our analysis shows that left-leaning Canadians are consistently less likely to believe in pro-Kremlin propaganda overall, as compared to Canadians who hold mixed or right-leaning views. Conversely, those who hold right-leaning ideologies are more likely to believe in pro-Kremlin propaganda overall, as compared to Canadians who hold mixed or left-leaning views.</p>
<h2>Reliance on social media</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A table showing how Canadians' political ideology correlates with the likelihood of believing Russian propaganda." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474014/original/file-20220714-24-6nsf7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A table showing how political ideology correlates with the likelihood of believing Russian propaganda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Social Media Lab/Toronto Metropolitan University)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another important factor that we found to be associated with belief in pro-Kremlin disinformation was a preferred source for getting news about the Russia-Ukraine war. Particularly concerning is the fact that those who believe in one or more of the pro-Kremlin claims are more likely to rely on social media for news about the war than those who do not believe in any. </p>
<p>For instance, 57 per cent of Canadians who believe the claim that “Ukrainian nationalism is a neo-Nazi movement” reported preferring social media as a source of news about the Russia-Ukraine war. In contrast, only 23 per cent of those who do not believe in this claim favour social media when accessing news on this topic. </p>
<p>This stark difference in social media consumption between those who believe versus those who don’t believe in this and other persistent claims stresses the importance of doubling down on efforts to combat misinformation in online spaces, especially misinformation seeded by foreign adversaries.</p>
<p>The perils of pro-Kremlin propaganda are real, and we should not underestimate its potential to shape public perception in Canada. The aim of an information operation is not necessarily to make everyone believe. It is often sufficient to sow doubt and confusion, as well as to delay or derail consensus amongst one’s adversaries, their allies and bystanders. </p>
<p>Our research provides evidence that the Kremlin’s disinformation is reaching more Canadians than one would expect. Left unchallenged, state-sponsored information operations can stoke tensions and undermine democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anatoliy Gruzd's research is supported in part by funding from the Canada Research Chairs program and the Tri-Council funding agencies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alyssa N. Saiphoo, Felipe Bonow Soares, and Philip Mai do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows that at least half of Canadians have encountered pro-Kremlin propaganda online and that those who hold left-leaning views are less susceptible to the Kremlin’s disinformation.Philip Mai, Co-director and Senior Researcher, Ryerson Social Media Lab, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityAlyssa N. Saiphoo, Postdoctoral research fellow, Social Media Lab, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityAnatoliy Gruzd, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Privacy Preserving Digital Technologies, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityFelipe Bonow Soares, Postdoctoral Fellow, Social Media Lab, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1820282022-05-10T12:05:05Z2022-05-10T12:05:05ZRussia is being made a pariah state – just like it and the Soviet Union were for most of the last 105 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462088/original/file-20220509-15-nixqyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C19%2C6437%2C4224&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smoke rises on April 15, 2022, above 400 new graves in the town of Severodonetsk, Ukraine. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bulldozer-excaves-new-graves-in-yalovshchina-cemetery-for-news-photo/1240267875?adppopup=true">Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. and its European allies recently said they planned to take a new approach in their relations with Russia: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/16/us-nato-isolate-russia/">They would isolate and contain the country</a> in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine. Doing so would keep Russia out of international organizations, restrict imports and exports, and prevent further military moves, ultimately <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/briefing/russia-ukraine-war-us.html">weakening it</a>. </p>
<p>This treatment of Russia is nothing new for Western countries. While Russia is more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/09/ukraine-russia-iron-curtain/">economically and politically isolated</a> now than it has ever been, it is no stranger to isolation and containment.</p>
<p>Looking back over the last 100 years, it’s clear that the period <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/06/20/thirty-years-of-u.s.-policy-toward-russia-can-vicious-circle-be-broken-pub-79323">between 1992 and 2001, when Russia embraced the West and was largely embraced by it</a>, is the exception. For most of the <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-russia/#:%7E:text=U.S.%2DRUSSIA%20RELATIONS,following%20the%201917%20Bolshevik%20Revolution.">20th century and the early 21st century</a>, Russia has been a fearsome power that the West has wanted to hobble. </p>
<p>The West is now returning to a strategy that was effective before in containing Russia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five men in dark suits standing and talking in front of a flag display." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NATO leaders during a break at a NATO summit on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the alliance’s headquarters, on March 24, 2022, in Brussels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/italys-prime-minister-mario-draghi-nato-secretary-general-news-photo/1239466016?adppopup=true">Photo by Henry Nicholls - Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Russia stands alone – mostly</h2>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution">Russian Revolution in 1917</a>, Russia, as part of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/The-Russian-Revolution">newly formed Soviet Union</a>, found itself isolated from other nations. A revolutionary state that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution">espoused an ideology of worldwide revolution</a> threatened other powers.</p>
<p>That isolation took many forms. The country was not a signatory to the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/paris-peace">Treaty of Versailles</a>, the most important of several treaties that ended World War I. It was not a member of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/league">League of Nations</a>, the organization founded after World War I to resolve disputes between nations, until 1934. Russia had no <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/trade-pacts-with-the-west/">foreign trade agreements before 1921</a> and was <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1924-12-15/britains-recognition-soviet-government">not fully recognized in diplomacy by non-Russian powers before 1924</a>.</p>
<p>As a revolutionary pariah state that saw itself <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390701343490">encircled by enemies</a>, the Soviet Union hardened its view of the world. While the so-called <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/big-three">Grand Alliance of the U.S., Great Britain and Soviet Union</a> found common cause against Nazi Germany during World War II, the relationship was never comfortable. <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/yalta-conference-foreshadows-the-cold-war">It crumbled swiftly after the war</a> as the three powers focused on their respective spheres of vital interest and expressed differing views for the postwar world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in long, dark coats during the winter in front of the ruins of a multi-story building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People crowd the street in front of the ruins of the Nikitsky Gate to the Imperial Palace in Petrograd (St. Petersburg and Leningrad) shortly after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in February 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SovietRevolution1917/fa6a4781bb9141738999e75c8711608d/photo?Query=Russian%20Revolution&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=794&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Containment’s beginnings</h2>
<p>After World War II, the U.S. wanted to ensure that democratic governments were established in Europe. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-communism-took-over-eastern-europe-after-world-war-ii/263938/">The Soviets were intent on establishing communist regimes</a> in Eastern Europe. </p>
<p>To frustrate Russia’s ambitions, what was called “the doctrine of containment” became postwar policy. It was most famously articulated by U.S. diplomat George Kennan in <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct">a cable in 1946, later published in Foreign Affairs in 1947</a>. </p>
<p>“It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies,” wrote Kennan. </p>
<p>“The United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate … to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Kennan wrote that the West would not find a way to live with the Soviet Union and that Soviet power could not be controlled by logic or reason, but could be influenced by the logic of force. He argued that political and economic means could be used to contain Soviet power and potentially force it to retreat in its ambitions.</p>
<h2>Iron Curtain entrenches</h2>
<p>Kennan’s calls for containment of the Soviet Union were followed by concrete actions by the U.S. government. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/truman-doctrine">Truman Doctrine</a> in 1947 advocated for the U.S. to help rebuild shattered postwar economies in Europe so communism would not become an attractive proposition. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/marshall-plan">Marshall Plan</a> implemented this approach and extended economic assistance to postwar Europe. It helped reinvigorate European industry and laid a pathway for European integration. Marshall Plan assistance, which ultimately totaled US$155 billion in current dollars, was offered to all European countries, including the Soviet Union. But the Soviets rejected the offer and forced Eastern European countries under their influence to do the same. </p>
<p>The Soviets answered these Western moves with the <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1947-2/cominform-and-the-soviet-bloc/">creation in 1947 of the Cominform</a>, a Soviet-led bloc of Communist parties aimed at defeating what it saw as U.S.-led Western imperialism and cementing party rule in member countries. Further moves came in 1949 with the creation of the economic organization of Communist countries <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095626480">known as COMECON</a>. </p>
<p>The result was the clear division of Europe into two economic and political spheres, isolating the Soviet bloc from the West. The “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iron-Curtain">Iron Curtain</a>” – the ideological, military and economic divide between democratic Western countries and the Soviet Union, along with the communist countries in its orbit – had solidified.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in academic robe and cap introduces a chubby man wearing a bow tie as he approaches a lectern." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Harry Truman, right, introduces Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, before Churchill’s speech on March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, in which he coined the phrase ‘Iron Curtain.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-harry-truman-introduces-winston-churchill-who-a-news-photo/515578388?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Containment’s militarization</h2>
<p>Concern grew among the Western countries about potential military confrontation with the Soviet Union. That led in 1949 to the formation of the <a href="https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html">North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a>, or NATO, as part of the move to contain the Soviet Union militarily.</p>
<p>Following NATO’s creation, in 1950 the U.S. State Department <a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116191.pdf">proposed a new policy</a> – <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68#:%7E:text=National%20Security%20Council%20Paper%20NSC,Staff%20on%20April%207%2C%201950.">a top-secret report referred to as “NSC-68”</a> – that emphasized the use of military force over diplomacy in dealing with Soviet power. As the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68#:%7E:text=National%20Security%20Council%20Paper%20NSC,Staff%20on%20April%207%2C%201950.">State Department Historian writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Its authors argued that one of the most pressing threats confronting the United States was the ‘hostile design’ of the Soviet Union. The authors concluded that the Soviet threat would soon be greatly augmented by the addition of more weapons, including nuclear weapons, to the Soviet arsenal. They argued that the best course of action was to respond in kind with a massive build-up of the U.S. military and its weaponry.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More aggressive than Kennan’s ideas of containment, <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68">this policy called for a massive buildup of U.S. conventional and nuclear arsenals</a>. Soviet ambition would thus be restricted because its leaders would not likely seek a hot war with the West. </p>
<p>President Harry Truman signed off on NSC-68 in September 1950. It remained U.S. policy until the end of the Cold War in 1991. </p>
<h2>Containment’s effects</h2>
<p>By the early 1950s, The Soviet Union was isolated and contained by economic, political and military means in Europe. Yet Soviet leaders <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-communism-took-over-eastern-europe-after-world-war-ii/263938/">sought to consolidate and maintain power over Eastern Europe</a>, using force at times. The Soviets also exercised cautious ambitions in other regions, provoking Western fears of a spread of Soviet power to the Far East, the developing world and Latin America. </p>
<p>The U.S. and its partners worked to isolate Soviet power beyond Europe with the creation of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/seato">Southeast Asia Treaty Organization</a> in 1954 and through attempts to support noncommunist regimes in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and the developing world during the ensuing decades.</p>
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<p>The effects of the isolation of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era became clear as Soviet and Eastern Bloc economies <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/russia-and-its-former-satellites-lag-behind-rest-of-europe-on-per-capita-gdp">lagged behind those of the West</a>, particularly in the production of consumer goods, as early as the 1950s. The <a href="https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-19-1-a-life-under-communism-in-eastern-europe">democratic freedoms of the West were largely absent</a>. </p>
<p>Isolation also led to the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intn.html">Soviet closed state</a>, with propaganda, the stifling of dissent, censorship, a state-controlled media, suspicion of foreigners and a society that was intended to be impervious to foreign influence. </p>
<p>Additionally, the West’s militarized containment of the Soviet Union drove <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control">a costly arms race</a>, both nuclear and conventional, which had damaging effects on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3131928">Soviet economy by the late 1970s</a>. That contributed to other societal challenges to Soviet power, such as rising nationalism and disillusionment with the Soviet project, which became clear <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB298/Document%204.pdf">in the 1980s as Soviet society faced food and consumer good shortages</a><a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/97th%20Congress/Soviet%20Economy%20in%20the%201980s%20-%20Problems%20and%20Prospects%20Part%20I%20%281185%29.pdf">and dissent rose</a>. All served as contributing factors to the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union#:%7E:text=Gorbachev's%20decision%20to%20loosen%20the,Communist%20rule%20throughout%20Eastern%20Europe.">fall of the Soviet Union</a> in 1991.</p>
<p>In 2022, the West is responding to Russian aggression as it has done so before – through implementing policies of isolation and containment to curb and weaken Russian power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair Kocho-Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The West’s new approach to Russia – bar it from international organizations, restrict international trade, prevent further military moves – looks just like how it treated Russia in the 20th century.Alastair Kocho-Williams, Professor of History, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.