The tanks ended Grigori Sverdlin's career, but not in the way he had thought might happen. In 2017, Sverdlin, who until recently ran one of Russia's oldest and largest charities, Nochlezhka (Shelter), had a conversation with a local St. Petersburg official about the city's housing shortage. It was clear that the activism of groups like his, and that of civil society in general, alarmed the authorities. "If you don't shut up, we're going to run over you with a tank," the bureaucrat warned him.
In reality, Sverdlin was allowed to continue his work as long as he did not denounce the failures of Vladimir Putin's government too much. “We try to heat the cold air outside our comfortable flats. We tried to create a country where the people were independent of the state.” He felt that his efforts were paying off: “Russian [civil] society was growing rapidly. People began to think not only of themselves, but of their neighbors and what was happening on their streets."
"Then that bastard started this war and the temperature suddenly dropped 300 degrees and maybe more than ever, at least in the last 70 years." After several days of protests on Nevsky Avenue, the largest boulevard in Saint Petersburg, Sverdlin received the tip that they were preparing to arrest him and fled the country "For years I have talked about what it means to be homeless, and suddenly, overnight, I was homeless," he says.
Sverdlin is not the only one who has lost his place in Russian society. At least 500,000 people have left the country to escape conscription, because their jobs have disappeared or, like Sverdlin, to avoid arrest. The fear is justified: some 20,000 Russians have been detained since the start of the war for protesting against it. Police have even arrested people for laying flowers before statues of historical figures of Ukrainian origin, a gesture perceived (rightly) as an implied rebuke. Alexéi Navalni, a jailed opposition leader, is in solitary confinement. Prosecutors are preparing a new rigged impeachment trial for him.
For the same reason, the few institutions that criticize the government or advocate a more liberal society have disappeared. Legal restrictions imposed by the Putin regime on discussing the war (or even calling it that) have forced the shutdown of all independent media outlets, including the Echo of Moscow radio station and the TV Rain television channel. (both now broadcast from outside Russia). The Moscow Helsinki Group, which fights for human rights, has been shut down. Another similar group, the Andrei Sakharov Center, has received an official notice evicting it from its premises.
Daniel Treisman, of the University of California, argues that these people and institutions are not accidental victims of the war, but one of its main targets. After all, Ukraine posed no military threat to Russia. And it is hardly possible to argue the need for more territory in the case of a huge, sparsely populated country that spans 11 time zones. What Putin saw as a threat was rather the gradual emergence in Ukraine of a thriving civil society successfully demanding state reform, and signs of a similar process in Russia.
Before the tanks rolled into the Ukraine, Treisman notes, liberal values were spreading rapidly in Russia. The percentage of people who responded in surveys who consider freedom of expression important increased from 34% in 2017 to 61% in 2021. Unpublished numbers of viewers watched Navalni's YouTube channel. At the same time, the television audience, the main tool of the government to shape the point of view of the population, fell drastically.
The change was due to generational replacement. People born during Russia's liberalization of the 1990s tend to be more entrepreneurial than their elders, less likely to trust the state, and more tolerant on issues like gay rights. In 2020, around 70% of older Russians told the Levada Center, a survey group, that they could not survive without state aid, while only 27% of those under 35 thought the same. And in 2018, despite the Kremlin's propaganda, around 60% of young Russians responded to Levada that they had a positive view of the United States.
"Putin and his people understood that time was playing against them, because the young generation is not interested in their television propaganda and does not believe that Russia is a besieged fortress surrounded by enemies, nor that the United States wants to conquer us," says Sverdlin. Navalni has echoed this sentiment this week in a statement transmitted by his lawyers. Alexander Gabuev, who worked in Moscow for a think tank forced to close last year, laments: "This is a war against Russia's future... And now, regardless of its outcome, Russia's future will be very different from what it might have been if February 24 had not taken place.
On the one hand, the 500,000 people who have fled are among the most dynamic and well-educated in Russia. They may not have had influence in politics before the war, but their voices were audible. It's not like that. The political debate, to the extent that any now exists in Russia, is not between those who oppose the war and those who support it, but between "patriots" and "turbopatriots", who criticize Russian military leaders for not be brutal and aggressive enough. The appearance of a chorus of tremendously warmongering commentators has unleashed a rhetorical arms race, in which all pundits and politicians who want to make their mark must stand out for their bloodthirsty bellicosity.
By amplifying pro-war voices and silencing common sense, Putin has achieved the illusion of full support for the war. It is possible to suppose that the population feels reservations at the time of issuing some type of criticism, but even so, 20% of Russians have answered that they are against it in different surveys. It is reasonable to assume that the concern is much more widespread. "Putin has managed to convince the minority that he represents the majority, and the majority that he is a minority," said Leonid Volkov, Navalni's chief of staff.
Polls conducted by Navalny's team, which operates out of Russia, indicate that even among war supporters confidence in Putin's good judgment is rapidly evaporating. Since the summer, the percentage of people who believe that the "special military operation" is proceeding as planned has fallen from 40% to about 15%. Not surprising, given the rising death toll. In October, 6% of Russians said they knew someone who had died in the war; by January, that number had doubled. Two-thirds of Russians know someone who has been called up or is fighting in the war.
In a recent interview, Oscar Kuchera, an actor and TV presenter, perfectly captured the unspoken views on Ukraine that are typical of many Russians. He displayed at once confusion about the purpose of the war, misgivings about its progress, and fervent support for Putin and "our guys" at the front. The idea of annexing Ukrainian territory is particularly disconcerting to him: "Aren't we facing enough problems without having to feed others?" he wondered. However, he insisted that Putin must have good reasons for the territorial annexation, for more than a simple man like him fails to fully understand them. He receives with disbelief the idea that Putin can start a war for evil or selfish reasons. "Do you think he's crazy?", he asks his interviewer.
The idea that things are under control is reinforced by the stability of the economy. At first glance, Moscow looks the same as it did before the war. Some popular western brands (McDonald's, Ikea) have disappeared and some military symbols have emerged. On Gogol Boulevard, a street gallery pays tribute to fallen “Russian heroes”. Hardly anyone stops to look.
The economy contracted just over 2% last year; and the damage inflicted by sanctions was largely offset by the benefit of huge export revenues earned from high oil and gas prices. Those revenues amounted to about $230 billion (10% of GDP), according to the Re:Russia research network, nearly offsetting the $275 billion in capital fled the country. The government has been able to increase its spending by a quarter and has pumped an additional 5.5 trillion rubles ($74 billion) into the economy.
Monthly production in some import-dependent and consumer-oriented sectors, such as automobiles and pharmaceuticals, was 50% lower at the end of 2022 than at the beginning of the year. However, the manufacture of weapons, of course, has experienced a great boom. In Tatarstan, a joint venture that made Ford cars in the city of Elabuga has closed, but a factory to make military drones is being set up in the same town in collaboration with Iran.
The fall in the price of oil and the sharp reduction in gas sales are likely to cause a budget crisis this year. In the long run, the exodus of skilled workers will hurt the economy. It is estimated that since the start of the war, Russia has lost at least 100,000 information technology specialists. However, the bureaucracy has managed to maneuver well to adapt to the new circumstances and has cushioned the immediate impact of the brain drain and sanctions. “They perceive it as a mission,” says Mikhail Komin, a political scientist who has surveyed mid-level technocrats. “They feel as sought after as the military itself.”
In reality, the war has raised the status of technocrats, and even more so of the army and security services. The government wants to expand the army from the current one million soldiers to 1.5 million. That's 4% of the working-age male population, a higher proportion than any other country except North Korea. A third of the national budget is allocated to the uniformed. Spending on the military has been revised up by 40% this year compared to pre-war plans. Spending on internal security (ie Putin's repressive machinery) has increased by 50%. Meanwhile, healthcare spending has fallen by 9%. The government also intends to underline the growing status of the military with a commitment to reserve some seats in the Duma, the already docile Russian parliament, for "military patriots." "This is a class that depends on the state and is extremely loyal to it," says university professor Natalia Zubarevich.
Culture and education have also been "mobilised". Actors and artists who have demonstrated against the war have been thrown out of state-funded theatres, and the names of unpatriotic playwrights have been removed from billboards even though their plays continue to be performed. The latest victim was Lía Ajedzhákova, a famous Russian actress expelled from the Sovremennik Theater after 45 years on her stage. Zelfira Tregulova, director of the Tretyakov Gallery, which houses the largest collection of Russian art, was ousted for deviating from the Kremlin's "spiritual and moral values," after a visitor complained he was overwhelmed by the gallery's contemporary work. with a feeling of "pessimism". Her replacement is the daughter of a senior official in the security services.
In short, although the material impact of the war is slight in much of Russia, conflict is inevitable. "Putin's purpose in this war is to achieve a radical break with the West and thus maintain control over Russian society by bringing it to a state of permanent struggle and mobilization," says Kirill Rogov, founder of Re: Russia. "There is no going back for Putin," says a former senior official. The lack of progress on the battlefield is likely to be offset by increasing repression and purges; especially if the successes become more elusive and the casualties increase. The security services have 2.5 million members, more than twice the number of the armed forces.
Russians who used to look to Europe for modernization have found themselves turned away from it, as when Stalin tightened his grip in the 1920s. Some have turned to China. Many detractors of Putin and his war see a Ukrainian victory as Russia's best hope. Sverdlin, who ran the NGO for the homeless in Saint Petersburg, is now trying to oppose Putin from outside the country. His new group of volunteers help Russian soldiers defect and escape, often crossing Russia's borders illegally. Since the fall, his organization has helped 4,000 soldiers flee. “For me, and many volunteers, this is not a charity, it is our way of hitting back.” Few have as much interest in a Ukrainian victory as the Russians who want their country to be peaceful, independent and prosperous. Now, for Ukraine to feel secure, Russia would have to change radically. Just as it started in Russia, the war can only end there.
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Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
