The Cross The Weekly : The Russian invasion of Ukraine surprised many observers. Did you think Putin capable of such a war?
Anna Colin Lebedev : I didn’t want to believe in an invasion of this magnitude, an attack that seemed to me from another century. I reasoned by listing the cost of such an invasion for the Russian power, both inside and outside the country, and the hypothesis seemed to me improbable. From now on, it is necessary to re-evaluate this notion of cost-benefit when analyzing Vladimir Putin’s policy. We are faced with a rationality that relies on something else.
You have said several times that the Russian president is not crazy. How to qualify this rationality?
A. C. L. : The latest events show us that the final objective (the bringing to heel of Ukraine, editor’s note) justifies all the sacrifices that can be made, even if they seem disproportionate. It is the defended value that counts, not the cost. Vladimir Putin is often thought of in terms of Soviet heritage. The former spy was immersed in the culture of self-sacrifice and human lives in the name of a supreme interest, an idea that was very present both in ideology and in this professional universe of the army and the services. secrets. He is not driven by money or his desire to retain power but by an ultimate goal that revolves around the greatness of Russia. A greatness that is defined by power rather than prosperity. All efforts are directed towards maintaining superiority by force, failing to have an attractive ideology.
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Vladimir Putin defends aggression in Ukraine in the name of the idea of a Russia surrounded by enemies, NATO in this case…
A. C. L. : This notion, very present during the Soviet Union, became the main framework for interpreting geopolitical developments in Russia from 2014. Western sanctions and counter-sanctions from Moscow have contributed to the decline in the standard of living of Russians, which have lost 10% of their purchasing power between 2010 and 2020. This decline justifies the discourse of a Russia surrounded by enemies who seek to annihilate them by all means, economic and military. It is understood that it is normal that life becomes more and more difficult, and we must show solidarity in the face of the West, whose figure has evolved from adversary to enemy. It is now the battle of good once morest evil.
We have forgotten it, but Vladimir Putin built his stature through a war, that of Chechnya.
A. C. L. : The first Putin is a man in a gray suit, not a fatigues. at the time, we think that as a member of the special services, not from the business clans, he will have the skills and the network to stop what the Russians consider to be two major scourges: the war in Chechnya and the seizure of state institutions by economic actors often close to the criminal world. In 2001, the military is not a trusted institution, and military action is not valued in Russian society. The key date for me is the bloody hostage-taking at the Moscow theater in 2002 by a group of Chechens. In front of his television, the Russian citizen says to himself: “We must kill them all, there is nothing to understand. » Society is shifting towards a greater acceptance of violence in the name of security.
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How does the militarization of minds operate under the Putin regime?
A. C. L. : This remains very superficial. We overplay this dimension by taking up the Russian discourse on the subject. Rather than militarization, I would speak of brutalization of minds with a level of symbolic violence and acceptable violence that will rise from year to year. The wars in Chechnya play a big role in this brutalization. Veterans who are not supported by the military institution will carry their violence and their trauma into society.
Under Vladimir Putin, military parades celebrating the end of the Second World War regained importance. How does the Kremlin renew the discourse on the Great Patriotic War?
A. C. L. : In the 1990s, there was much discussion regarding certain unnecessary sacrifices of soldiers on the front line, the consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Stalin’s conduct of operations. The Great Patriotic War is then perceived as a tragedy, and collective glorification, as less significant. Vladimir Putin will return to a story identical to that of the Soviet era, emphasizing the glory of the soldier of the USSR. From 2014, the discourse will also take a more belligerent turn: stickers “1939-1945, we can do it once more” appear, we celebrate the fear inspired by the Soviet soldier and his military capacity.
→ READ. World War II, Vladimir Putin’s obsession
In 2014, the annexation of Crimea made Russian society euphoric. How do you explain this Russian pride?
A. C. L. : The annexation of Crimea was a gift given to the Russians without them having to pay the military price. The Kremlin skillfully stages a special operation that highlights the performance of Russian state services, which flatters the pride of the population. Everyone is happy, well beyond the usual circles of power supporters, because Russia is believed to have righted a historic injustice without incurring a high cost. For the Russians, the fact that no drop of blood was shed is an important factor.
Does this mean that the culture of sacrifice that permeates the mentality of Vladimir Putin is not shared by the population?
A. C. L. : One of the big mistakes would be to perceive Russia as a collectivist society. For a Russian, it is not natural to sacrifice his life for his country, even if one gladly proclaims the contrary. In Soviet times, theHomo sovieticus already suffered from a split personality: he supported the actions of power while being very cynical and multiplying the strategies of circumventing the State. Today, the citizen declares that the army is the institution he trusts the most and, at the same time, he makes sure that his child will not do compulsory military service.
In reality, the most common strategy when faced with the state is that of flight or dodging. It seems unlikely that the Russian population will mobilize in favor of the war in Ukraine, especially since the framework given to this armed intervention is not sufficiently mobilizing. The dimension of information warfare and the construction of the narrative were botched. References to Nazism in Kiev, for example, are not supported by any facts. Today, the power does not seek to convince anyone, just to block information in a systematic way.
Why this particular attention of the Russian authorities to hide the military losses?
A. C. L. : Any information that might appear to be criticism of the Russian military is kept secret, and casualties are part of that. The Soviet then Russian military culture does not suppose a very great attention to the human losses. We are not in an accounting logic or in a logic of responsibility. Counting how many people have been killed, identifying them, honoring them is not part of the army’s usual practices. Committees of soldiers’ mothers often repeat the phrase of a general in the 1990s: “Soldiers are dust. The more he dies of it, the more women will do it once more. »
That said, the power does not want images of bodies abandoned in the fields: heavy human losses would contradict the official discourse on the absence of war in Ukraine, described as a simple military operation. But the protests are unlikely to come from the families themselves. The soldiers come from rural backgrounds and small, underprivileged towns. It is an army of workers and peasants whose relatives are in a situation of vulnerability which makes them easily intimidated. But discontent will rise, especially among social categories who have a lot to lose from sanctions.
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The expert
Anna Colin Lebedev is a lecturer in political science at the University of Nanterre. The researcher is the author of The Political Heart of Mothers, a very beautiful
book dedicated to the movement of soldiers’ mothers in Russia, one of the oldest and most respected non-governmental organizations in post-Soviet Russia.
The challenge
As a worthy heir to Sovietism, Vladimir Putin shapes his regime around patriotism, militarism and the great power superiority complex. He built his rhetoric around the idea of the besieged citadel: a Russia surrounded by enemies who want to contain it, weaken it and take over Ukraine. His hammered speech over the years has served as a pretext for the invasion of Ukrainian territory, an escalation in violence which does not seem to mobilize his fellow citizens.
