I think it is also natural that the representatives of Ukraine over and over again voteagainst the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism.Marches and torchlit processions in honor of remaining war criminals from the SS unitstake place under the protection of the official authorities.

Our spiritual unity has also been attacked.

As a result of such a harsh and artificial divisionof Russians and Ukrainians, the Russian people in all may decrease by hundredsof thousands or even millions

But the fact is that the situation in Ukraine today is completely different because itinvolves a forced change of identity.

Especially sincethe determination of nationality, particularly in mixed families, is the right of everyindividual, free to make his or her own choice.

All the things that united us and bring us together so far came under attack. Firstand foremost, the Russian language.

Their slogans, ideology,and blatant aggressive Russophobia have to a large extent become defining elementsof state policy in Ukraine

Nor were the interests of the Ukrainian people thought of in February 2014.

And there is no need to deceive anyonethat this is being done in the interests of the people of Ukraine. The Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth never needed Ukrainian culture, much less Cossack autonomy.In Austria-Hungary, historical Russian lands were mercilessly exploited and remainedthe poorest. The Nazis, abetted by collaborators from the OUN-UPA, did not needUkraine, but a living space and slaves for Aryan overlord

Step by step, Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turningUkraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia.

I recall that long ago, well before 2014, the U.S. and EU countries systematicallyand consistently pushed Ukraine to curtail and limit economic cooperation with Russia.

Radicals and neo-Nazis were open and more and more insolent about their ambitions.They were indulged by both the official authorities and local oligarchs, who robbed

Ukraine's ruling circles decided to justify their country's independencethrough the denial of its past, however, except for border issues. They beganto mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and referto the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Unionas an occupation.

However, there was and is still no mutual will to do the same.Nevertheless, Russia is still one of Ukraine's top three trading partners, and hundredsof thousands of Ukrainians are coming to us to work, and they find a welcome receptionand support. So that what the ”aggressor state“ is.

Who is to blame for this? Is it the people of Ukraine's fault? Certainly not. It wasthe Ukrainian authorities who waisted and frittered away the achievements of manygenerations

Ukrainian leaders promised thatthe Ukrainian economy would be one of the leading ones and the standard of livingwould be among the best in Europe.Today, high-tech industrial giants that were once the pride of Ukraine and the entireUnion, are sinking

Ukraine and Russia have developed as a single economic system over decadesand centuries. The profound cooperation we had 30 years ago is an examplefor the European Union to look up to.

t. How should we treat that? There is only oneanswer: with respect!You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome! But what are the terms?I will recall the assessment given by one of the most prominent political figures of newRussia, first mayor of Saint Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak.

They do not miss a chance, however,both inside the country and abroad, to condemn ”the crimes of the Soviet regime,“ listingamong them events with which neither the CPSU, nor the USSR, let alone modernRussia, have anything to do.

afterthe liberation of Transcarpathia by Soviet troops the congress of the Orthodoxpopulation of the region voted for the inclusion of Carpathian Ruthenia in the RSFSR or,as a separate Carpathian republic, in the USSR proper. Yet the choice of people wasignored. In summer 1945, the historical act of the reunification of Carpathian Ukraine”with its ancient motherland, Ukraine“ –

At the same time,under the guise of combating the so-called Russian great-power chauvinism,Ukrainization was often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians.

the Crimean Region of the RSFSR was given to the Ukrainian SSR,in gross violation of legal norms that were in force at the time

Lenin's plan to form a union state as a federationof equal republics. The right for the republics to freely secede from the Union wasincluded in the text of the Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Soviet SocialistRepublics and, subsequently, in the 1924 USSR Constitution. By doing so, the authorsplanted in the foundation of our statehood the most dangerous time bomb,

Later,during World War II, radical groups of Ukrainian nationalists used this as a pretextfor terror not only against Polish, but also against Jewish and Russian populations.

The example of the UPR shows that different kinds of quasi-state formations thatemerged across the former Russian Empire at the time of the Civil War and turbulencewere inherently unstable

”Ukraine is to take the lead in the formation of an All-Russian Federation

The declared sovereignty did not last long.

Ukrainian delegation read out a note proclaiming the independence of Ukraine.Subsequently, the Central Rada proclaimed Ukraine independent in its Fourth Universal.

After the February Revolution, in March 1917, the Central Rada was established in Kiev,intended to become the organ of supreme power. In November 1917, in its ThirdUniversal, it declared the creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) as partof Russia.

Since the late 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian authorities had latched onto thisnarrative, using it as a counterbalance to the Polish national movement and pro-Muscovite sentiments in Galicia. During World War I, Vienna played a rolein the formation of the so-called Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen.

At the same time, the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russiansstarted to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussianintelligentsia. Since there was no historical basis

I should add thatworks of fiction, books of Ukrainian poetry and folk songs continued to be published.There is objective evidence that the Russian Empire was witnessing an active processof development of the Malorussian cultural identity within the greater Russian nation,which united the Velikorussians, the Malorussians and the Belorussians

Malorussian

I am not going to idealise anything.

The south-western lands of the Russian Empire, Malorussia and Novorossiya,and the Crimea developed as ethnically and religiously diverse entities.

Many centuries of fragmentation and living within different states naturally brought aboutregional language peculiarities, resulting in the emergence of dialects. The vernacularenriched the literary language. Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Grigory Skovoroda, and TarasShevchenko played a huge role here. Their works are our common literary and culturalheritage.

The incorporation of the western Russian lands into the single state was not merelythe result of political and diplomatic decisions. It was underlain by the common faith,shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – languagesimilarity.

In the second half of the 18th century, following the wars with the Ottoman Empire,Russia incorporated Crimea and the lands of the Black Sea region, which becameknown as Novorossiya

Incidentally,during the Soviet period, natives of Ukraine held major, including the highest, postsin the leadership of the unified state.

Cossack senior officers belonging to the nobility would reach the heights of political,diplomatic, and military careers in Russia. Graduates of Kiev-Mohyla Academy playeda leading role in church life.

Only a small portion of the Cossacks supportedMazepa's rebellion. People of all orders and degrees considered themselves Russianand Orthodox

The name ”Ukraine“ was used more often in the meaning of the Old Russian word”okraina“ (periphery), which is found in written sources from the 12th century, referringto various border territories

he Russian state incorporated the city of Kiev and the lands on the left bankof the Dnieper River, including Poltava region, Chernigov region, and Zaporozhye. Theirinhabitants were reunited with the main part of the Russian Orthodox people.

It means that, in their appeals to both the Polishking and the Russian tsar, the Cossacks referred to and defined themselves as RussianOrthodox people.

Subsequently, the ambassadors of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Moscow visited dozensof cities, including Kiev, whose populations swore allegiance to the Russian tsar

thatthe voivode of Kiev be Russian and of Greek faith, and that the persecutionof the churches of God be stopped. But the Cossacks were not heard

t so happened that Moscow became the center of reunification, continuing the traditionof ancient Russian statehood.

Most importantly, people both in the western and eastern Russian lands spoke the samelanguage. Their faith was Orthodox. Up to the middle of the 15th century, the unifiedchurch government remained in place

It was this experience that came to mind for many observers when it was revealed that Abramovich and several other members of the Ukrainian delegation were experiencing symptoms of poisoning after one of their first meetings. My source, who is familiar with the details of the negotiation process, said that Abramovich did experience symptoms of poisoning after his first trip to Kyiv.

The businessman had all the resources necessary for a mediator, my sources knowing him noted: access to the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, their approval of his mediation, the means and ability to travel between Moscow and Kyiv (he flew back and forth via Poland twice),

Since it is no longer useful to have fundamental conversations with Putin about who is right and who is wrong, as my sources say, Abramovich focuses on simply offering various options for resolving the conflict. His position differs from that of the President’s subordinate civil servants and dependent businessmen, and allows him to be a compromise unofficial truce envoy.

The incomparably more powerful billionaire Roman Abramovich suddenly expressed his supposedly anti-war stance by serving as people’s diplomat without making any public statements. From the first days of the military conflict, Abramovich, who usually keeps a very low profile, participated in the organisation of peace negotations at the Ukrainian side’s request.

It’s worth noting that there is probably no more unpopular statesman in Russia than Chubais. Officials and propagandists have greeted his departure with schadenfreude, so Chubais’ stunt is unlikely to inspire anyone to do the same again.

So far, only one member of Putin's elite appears to have resigned precisely because he disagreed with the decision to invade Ukraine. Anatoly Chubais,

Former Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich voiced his opposition to the war in mid-March. This came as his position as president of the International Chess Federation

Individual dissenters’ march

Nabiullina’s

Since the military operation began, Gref himself and Sberbank, which he has run since 2007, have been put under heavy US and EU sanctions. However, according to my sources, this has not prompted Gref to talk to Putin about the need to stop the bloodshed. Moreover, Sberbank has taken a tough stance on its employees who left the country when the war started and wanted to work remotely. They are being asked to return to Russia or resign

Over the past month, there has been no publicly reported one-on-one meeting between Putin and anyone in the Russian elite who might, for ideological reasons, say anything against the war.

“No one can demand anything. They can have a chat, but it's no use. He has a clear picture in his head that he is rubbing in everyone’s head. “We wanted to be friends, they declared us their enemies, they surrounded us from all sides, they were ready to accept Ukraine into NATO and deploy missiles.

It's useless and pointless – roughly is the answer of all the people I spoke to, when asked if the part of the Russian elite that disagrees with Putin's actions against Ukraine is trying to unite and influence him.

Those who manage to talk to Putin complain that he himself speaks earnestly, but does not particularly listen to what he is told, says a person who has spoken to the President within the past month.

The imposition of personal sanctions and the severing of ties with the outside world have led to another consequence for Russian elites. Because of the loss of their financial position and the enormous political consequences, different interest groups and clans have, as one of my sources put it, “squeezed together.”

Middle-aged people of about 45-50 years old, who caught the end of the Soviet era in their youth, are also continuing their affairs — without any special enthusiasm, but with understanding and acceptance of the situation

According to several people on different levels of power, the personal sanctions have done Putin a big favor, having helped him accomplish what he had failed to do for many years:  to turn the Russian elites into a near monolith.

"When I saw what they were doing to those poor Paralympians, that was it for me... I don't care about iPhones, I can use a Chinese phone. I have a German car — let me drive a Chinese or Russian one instead. Now I understand that the boss is right, that this whole thing had to happen one way or another. They would have imposed these sanctions anyway,"

The people I interviewed said in one voice that, for many ordinary citizens — at least until there is a big increase in unemployment — the sanctions and other economic and political consequences of the war have had the opposite effect from what Western countries may have intended.

Gubernatorial elections are to be held in that region this year, which means that the authorities are constantly measuring public sentiment. According to this source, the position of “let’s end this” no longer exists — people want to end it, “but on our terms.”

. But then all the [state media] got together and started releasing decent content. And then, when they [in the West] began to say that all Russians are bad, to boycott artists and athletes, everything changed. Now about 75 percent support the military operation. That is, there’s a social consolidation happening.

All this followed a wave of public discontent with the war. In the first days people took to the streets and signed open letters and petitions, while nationally renowned artists, directors, writers, and public figures spoke out against the war on social networks. This didn’t last long. Within a week, the authorities had blocked and shut down almost all independent media outlets, intimidated citizens with new laws on military censorship,

Putin said on March 16. In his opinion, the collective West is trying to split Russian society. In order to convince everyone that Russians support his decisions, Putin holds meetings and rallies with citizens who are dependent on the state.

The population is being brainwashed into believing that Russia is fighting Nazis who themselves had prepared an attack on the Donbass. To cause even more fear, stories are being told about Ukrainian biolaboratories,

In short, it can be said that, over the past month, Putin’s dream of a consolidation among the Russian elite has come true. These people understand that their lives are now tied only to Russia, and that that’s where they’ll need to build them.

First of all, to understand the mood among the Russian elites and people close to them after the imposition of unprecedented sanctions on Russia. Secondly, to find out whether anyone is trying to convince President Putin to stop the bloodshed — and why Roman Abramovich ended up playing the role of mediator/diplomat.

​​However, during the past month, there has been no mass exodus of officials or state managers. Big business is either staying silent or limiting itself to neutral phrases in favor of peace

He wasn’t the only one. There are no “disloyal” people left in power in Russia. But civil servants, employees and heads of state companies, legislators, business elites close to the government — all were expressing, in private conversations, at least bewilderment at the invasion of Ukraine.

“Since they adopted sanctions against us, we’re going to f*ck them. Now they’ll have to buy rubles on the Moscow Exchange to buy gas from us. But that's just the beginning. Now we're going to f*ck them all.”

Vyacheslav Markhaev

Another Communist, Mikhail Matveev, deputy chairman of the committee on regional policy, wrote that "the war must be stopped immediately.”

Billionaire Oleg Tinkov spoke out against the war on the fourth day. “Innocent people are dying in Ukraine, every day, it is unthinkable and unacceptable

The president of state bank VTB, Andrey Kostin, is also rumored to be extremely disapproving of military action in Ukraine because of the heavy sanctions. “He is in mourning,” says an acquaintance of his. “He says he's been building the bank for 20 years, and now it's all down the drain because of some stupidity.”

So far, none of the officials have dared to object to what’s happening in the slightest public way, much less to resign. Among the richest Russian businessmen, only Mikhail Fridman, the founder of Alfa Group, who is now threatened with sanctions, has spoken out in a critical manner.

"On the one hand, there’s a really unfair state of affairs, where we are constantly being harmed year after year on various scales, and declared  as enemies long before Ukraine,” he said. “On the other hand, there’s our inability to build and execute our policies intelligently, including publicly. And the third thing is Putin’s degradation from being in power for too long.”

Another source— let's call him a good acquaintance of Putin's — puts it this way: The Russian president has it in his head that the rules of the game were broken and destroyed not by Russia. And if this is a fight without rules, then it’s a fight without rules — the new reality in which we live.

If Russia considers itself an empire, why not become attractive to its neighbors by developing the country instead of by forcing their loyalty? Let's build good roads, quality health care and education, and eventually come up with the kind of technology that would allow us to be the first to colonize Mars. That would be quite empire-like," a high-ranking official said brokenly when I asked him what he thought of Putin's motives for starting the war.

However, the Russian economy is unlikely to quickly recover from the severe sanctions that were actually imposed — and no one was prepared for this, my interlocutors say.

The government and the Central Bank have been preparing for sanctions, and for some time the financial infrastructure will withstand the pressure. The Bell has reported that, shortly before the war, First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov had held several meetings to prepare for possible challenges, including disconnection from SWIFT and a ban on high-tech imports

The session itself was an attempt at improvisation, to present the image of a real discussion."That's why everyone there was fidgeting so much,” the source said. “If they had been told to firmly say ‘Yes, we support it,’ they would have done so.”

Most likely, my sources say, only the narrowest circle had been informed:

Did anyone expect Putin to decide to go to war? Everyone assures me they didn't.

Some officials aren’t associating themselves with what’s happening at all, viewing Putin's decision as a historical choice over which they have no influence, and the meaning of which no one will understand for a some time to come.

I see that officials, deputies, and even journalists at government outlets who have left their posts are relieved that they no longer have anything to do with this, and are speaking out against the war.

In reality, the attitude toward the war within the corridors of power is ambiguous. I came to this conclusion after speaking with several members of parliament and officials at various levels. Many of them are discouraged, frightened, and are making apocalyptic forecasts.

In the depths of their souls, officials and legilsators may disagree with the decisions of their leaders — but only in the depths of their souls. There are very few left who can contradict him out loud, directly to his face.

As a former chekist [security official], he always wants to catch everyone off-guard, in order to frighten them and to impress on them that he can do whatever he wants. We witnessed this once again during the emergency meeting of the Security Council three days before the war

The most influential people in Russia sat before Putin like schoolchildren before a teacher who had suddenly announced an exam

Results yield significant coefficients for powder cocaine (2002 = 47.87 months; 2017 = 43.20 months; percent change = −9.8%), crack cocaine (2002 = 48.41 months; 2017 = 39.33 months; percent change = 18.8%), heroin (2002 = 48.09 months

While average marijuana sentences decreased by 75.63 months in 2002 to 58.23 months in 2017 (percent change = −23.1%), there were smaller reductions in the average sentence length for heroin (2002 = 69.14 months; 2017 = 64.42

Empire's story divides subjects from objects. As thephilosopher Frantz Farron argued, colonizers seethemselves as actors with purpose, and the colonized asinstruments to realize the imperial vision.

I had to write a request to DNR officials for the release of personal information, collect all the documents that show I really am Stas’s sister. I did all that and I’m waiting for a response from the DNR’s justice ministry.”

the outlet once published a fake news story using a photo of an actor on the set of the Russian filmWe are from the Future pretending to eat a severed hand. The article was given the headline, “‘Uke eats Rusky’s hand’ — fiendish humor from Banderite blogs.”

Russian tactical narratives targeting the Global South are curious in that they are focusing predominantly on the West, rather than Ukraine, because for many in the Global South, especially in Africa, Latin America, and Southern and Western Asia, there is little difference in perceptions of Russia and Ukraine.

Finally, the Kremlin is pushing three strategic narratives for the Global South:

“Nuclear threat: the West should not oppose Russia because it has nuclear weapons; or is making a ‘dirty bomb’”

For the Western audience, Russia has the following major strategic narratives:

One can easily notice that strategic and tactical narratives targeting the Ukrainian audience are less aggressive towards Ukraine in comparison to those directed as the Russian domestic audience.

With the Ukrainian audience, the main strategic narratives are as follows:

However, some messages will only work in Russia.

But there are many more tactical narratives that the Russian leadership uses to support their strategic narratives:

The Ukrainian nation does not exist, while so-called ‘Ukrainians’ are simply confused or manipulated Russians”

Moscow directs strategic and tactical narratives at different audiences

Tactical narratives serve as individual steps that aim to strengthen the validity of strategic narratives.

Strategic narratives reflect the long-term vision of Russian political and kinetic warfare. More often than not, they reflect genuine, deep-seated beliefs of the Russian leadership linked to Ukraine or the broader context of the aggression.

Authorities responded with mass detentions, intimidation, and police brutality. Despite this, daily protests have persisted, with protesters holding anti-war placards and chanting anti-war slogans.

aw enforcement and courts have interpreted it to include significant financial loss and bodily harm or death. What might constitute a grave consequence of disseminating alleged false information, is therefore essentially at the discretion of the prosecution.

People in Need, was subsequently blacklisted as “undesirable” in 2019, two years after Kalyapin’s organization posted the article.

There is also a threat that the law could be applied retroactively.

strict censorship on all discussion of Russia’s war with Ukraine, with Russian authorities banning the description of it as “war” or “an invasion

Pozhalov says Kiriyenko hasn’t yet developed a core intellectual concept, and the Kremlin’s proposed program to develop the country by implementing a series of costly national projects “so far looks more like a bureaucratic model for managing change than an ideology the public can grasp.”

This is why the administration's domestic-policy bloc turned to a tried-and-tested gimmick: recruit famous but harmless rivals for Putin. The most colorful individuals retained for this role were Lenin State Farm director Pavel Grudinin and television socialite Ksenia Sobchak. 

The newspaper RBC wrote about one of these training sessions in October 2017, citing video footage from a mobile phone showing future governors leaping from a cliff into a mountain river somewhere outside Sochi. “I

According to Meduza’s source, Yarin’s peculiar appointment happened despite Kiriyenko’s efforts to give this important job to an ally named Alexander

Slowly but surely, Kiriyenko managed to wrest power from Volodin and gain influence outside the State Duma. Within a year of his appointment, Kiriyenko had weakened Volodin’s position inside United Russia, managing it with surprising sophistication.

“They started trying to introduce everything important through the Federation Council

Despite Volodin’s direct attacks, Kiriyenko ordered even the most belligerent members of his team not to respond. Though they were itching to do it!” recalls a source close to Kiriyenko

Volodin and Surkov had grown so strong that they started to threaten the system of authority.

Kiriyenko could immediately bring in people who knew how to handle elections,”

But another “methodologist,” Kiriyenko’s former advisor Sergey Gradirovsky, understood the concept of the “Russian world” differently: namely, as Russia’s “integration with the countries of the former USSR,” which still have Russian-speaking populations

the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 began with Putin repeating claims about the need to defend the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas

I’ll be honest with you, even though others might throw stones at me for this: I don’t see a difference between totalitarianism and non-totalitarianism. Is that clear? I don’t see it. And I think that totalitarian organization is the only form of organization for any human society.

The person was, in turn, understood as a kind of programmable computer.

“Ukro-Nazism contains a greater, not lesser danger to the world and to Russia than Hitler’s German Nazism,”

“The Ukraine We Don’t Need.” The article attempted to justify the need for the “denazification” of Ukraine

In that context, one important concept is sovereignty interpreted as autarky and as boundless political and repressive rule within the country; sovereignty as a target for adversaries who want to weaken, dismember, and destroy Russia

This state-civilization has its own pantheon of heroes, which is unchanged from the Soviet

Within this history

In just a few years, the regime has evolved from a cult of the victory of 1945 to a cult of war itself, and Putin has managed to persuade a large section of Russians that the “special operation” of 2022 is a natural continuation of the Great Patriotic War

Imperialism and colonialism are key components of Putinism and key factors in the war. There is nothing new about this ideology; it comes almost verbatim from Stalinism

the modernization that Russia has experienced conflicts with this traditionalism verging on fundamentalism, as did the pragmatic interests of a Russian society that had adapted to a market economy

However, Scientific Putinism lacks key components: development goals and a corresponding vision for the future.

uring the Soviet era, and was known as “Scientific Communism.” 

There is a belief that the Russian elite under President Vladimir Putin has only ever been interested in money. Yet Putin’s militant, anti-liberal, anti-Western, isolationist

istorians can be wrong, butpeople cannot

because theyrebelled against the government

) by presenting the zapodentsy (“Westerners”) as anti-Russian andpro-fascist nationalists.

During Putin’s two first presidential terms and the first two years of Dmitry Medvedev’spresidency (2008–09), the Kremlin’s increasingly aggressive anti-Western memory politicswas nonetheless partly counterbalanced by its unwillingness to burn bridges with theWest

Several consecutive versions of the Foreign Policy Concept of theRussian Federation claim that one of its main tasks is to counter the attempts to under-mine the post-Yalta international order by “falsifying” history and substituting theoutcome of the Cold War (in which Russia has been defeated) to that of the SecondWorld War (which it won).

Following a cliché of Soviet propaganda, the West is also presented as deeplyfascist: everyone who is against Russia is fascist because Russia has saved the worldfrom the “brown plague.”

In Moscow’s interpretation, the “historic West” and its East European allies bear fullresponsibility for these wars.

Memory Wars

In the West, the Holocaust came to be seen as the war’s most horribletragedy since the 1970s and 1980s. 24 In contrast, the Soviet/Russian myth of the war mar-ginalizes the memory of the Holocaust and presents the Russian people as the primaryvictim and hero of the war.

Putin’s war cult includes, as one of its main components, the notion of the Yaltapostwar political order, which legitimizes the Kremlin’s neo-imperial ambitions

the revelations of perestroika made it impossible to silence the dark side of the war.The renewed war narrative has become much more tragic and realistic. However, it stillexcludes a few things, such as the Kremlin’s complicity in unleashing the war

Stalin, who could be integrated into the new Russian narrative not as a commu-nist but as a national leader

However, the Putin regimeembraced the Soviet legacy very selectively. Its communist component was rejected asfirmly as under Yeltsin. The new elites had no intention to revert the development ofstate capitalism in Russia. To be integrated into the longue durée of Russian history, theSoviet period had to be purified from its specifically communist

Boris Yeltsin’s emphasis on Russia’s cultural achievements had a better chance toensure such support.

However, the regime did not dare tomake Stalin one of its symbols openly, not only because this was even less compatiblewith the notion of democracy. T

The new Russian ruling class, which consisted of the corrupt bureaucracy,secret services, and the big business put under their tutelage, enthusiastically supportedthis cult,

The creation of his authoritarian regime was accompanied by sustainedefforts to promote a cult of the state, including the notion of its continuity from thepre-revolutionary period through the Soviet epoch to Putin’s attempts to “make Russiagreat again.

All this made the Great Patriotic War look much less heroic in the eyes of post-Soviet subjects.

The cult of the war was significantly compromised by the revelations of the perestroikaperiod (that is, facts commonly known in the West but recognized in Russia only after theend of the CPSU ideological monopoly

He regained popularity in the 1990s when Boris Yeltsin’s market reforms turned muchmore painful than most Russians had expected.

In contrast, the Soviet pantheon survived the fall of the USSR without major troubles.Some communist leaders (such as Mikhail Kalinin, Stalin’s chairperson of the SupremeSoviet) fell out of it. In contrast, some “anti-heroes” of the Soviet times (such as Pyotr Sto-lypin, prime minister in 1907–11, known for progressive economic reforms and ruthlesssuppression of the 1905 Revolution) joined it

The fall of communism was accompanied (and in part prepared) by the decompositionof this ideology. However, its different parts suffered to a different degree. The “theoreti-cal” clichés of Marxist philosophy went entirely out of style: in the 1980s and even more soin the 1990s, few people believed in the notions of basis and superstructure, classstruggle, the liberating mission of the working class,

The 1993 Russian Constitution forbade any “State or obligatory” ideology.1 The 2020 con-stitutional reform has left this provision unchanged, although many pro-Kremlin politicianshad called for amending it.2 Putin, however, has not supported them. In 2019, he claimedthat “patriotism [was] the only possible ideology in the modern democratic society.

Around 2021, many people stopped answering phone calls from journalists.

All these tales about him — that he doesn’t eat or sleep, working like a galley slave — it’s so far from the truth.

In a more recent story, Farida reported that, right after announcing the mobilization in Russia, Putin left for a vacation

Responsible socio-political forces

What is more, it would be a mistake not to understand its historic futility. Communism and thepower of the Soviets did not make Russia a prosperous country with a dynamically developingsociety and free peopl

For most of the twentieth century, Russia lived under the communist doctrine. It would be amistake not to recognize the unquestionable achievements of those times. But it would be an evenbigger mistake not to realize the outrageous price our country and its people had to pay for thatsocial experiment

The monarchdoesn't have to worry about whether or not he will be elected, or about petty political interests,or about how to influence the electorate.

The law has to be observed, but if it becomes outdated, it must be altered. One of the postulatesof legal theory is that the law always lags behind life.

I think that we have to preserve both local self-government and a system of election forgovernors. But all of these connections have to be more balanced. While preserving the systemof electing governors, for instance, we should consider applying sanctions against them. Toremove them from office, for example. That is, elect some and remove others. We can developsystems to link them more closely to the center. They cannot have complete independence.

To this day, people think that judges are not important, and that they shouldn't be paid more thanthe average civil servant

: We began talking about Russia's relationship with Europe, and we have narrowed it downto our relations with NATO. Even with the North Atlantic orientation of today's European policy,we cannot forget that NATO and Europe are not one and the same thing. And I've already said thatRussia is a country of European culture not NATO culture

You forget that we used force in Germany in 1953, too. In my view, these were major mistakes.And the Russophobia that we see in Eastern Europe today is the fruit of those mistakes

He lifted otherideas on how to achieve national or societal unity—as we will discussin the next chapter—directly from Russian history, including from an

Vladimir Putin set out tocreate a slogan for a new Russia, a splav to unify the disparate forcesof society.

For Russia . . . the highest priority task is not rebirth but the con-struction of a new state

Next to KGB leaderYury Andropov, Bobkov was the key official in the creation of the “NewKGB” that recruited Putin’s cohort of young officers into the institution.In 1995, Bobkov produced a memoir,

tribute suggested that as Russianpresident, Putin had been nothing less than a savior. Putin had fulfilled amission to reunify and restore the state

The idea of a united state that Pavlovsky cites is a key one for Putin.

Fears of the collapse, raspad, and disintegration or break-up, razval,of the Russian state dominated debates among the Russian elite duringthe 1990s.

Putin’s manifesto called for Russia to overcome its crisis and recreate thestate—by rediscovering and taking back its fundamental values, reener-gizing its historical traditions, and abandoning the desire to blindly copyabstract Western models.

Putin’s Millennium Message was also an emotional appeal. In additionto evoking the almost mystical, historically rooted conception of Rus-sian gosudarstvennichestvo, it was loaded with references to the Russianstate (gosudarstvo) and the idea of Russia as a great power (derzhava)

Putin was explicit in his assertionthat he did this to ensure the constitutional security of the gosudarstvo.“I will not change the constitution and in line with the constitution, youcannot run for president three times in a row,”

The constitution enshrines the president as the guarantor of the consti-tution. The president is elected by the entire Russian people and standsabove the system of separated executive, legislative, and judicial powers

Like Zorkin, Putin has underscored the intimate connection betweenthe Russian presidency and the Russian constitution. The constitution isthe embodiment of the concept of gosudarstvennichestvo that Putin firstrolled out in the Millennium Message. It strengthens and unifies the Rus-sian state. It is the primary building block of the pravovoye gosudarstvo.

In his speech, Putin under-scored the influence of his legal training at the university, noting, “Forpeople like me who are now engaged in the construction of a new Russianstate, we know that this project must be founded on the principles thathave for decades developed within the walls of the Faculty of Law ofthe University of St. Petersburg.”

Although Sobchak was seen as a leading Rus-sian democrat in the 1990s, his legal views were much less liberal thanhis political reputation might have suggested

The reference to the law (pravo) in the poslaniye is another importantelement. Anatoly Chubais and his team wanted the law to set the newrules of the market economy and provide the means to enforce them.They wanted to get everything back on the right track of reform again(their track). Putin, after becoming acting president in 2000, would alsoemphasize the importance of the law.

The poslaniye also claimed (as Putin would later in his MillenniumMessage) that Russian society was crying out for order.

It was a very unusual addressto the nation. It contained nothing about the government’s accomplish-ments. Nor did it offer a broader vision for the state in spite of all themachinations on this topic and the official creation of the Satarov group.It did not say much about foreign and defense policy, apart from a fewshort final paragraphs mostly condemning the expansion of NATO. Theposlaniye was a nuts-and-bolts speech that honed in on the importanceof restoring government control over the country’s political disarray

The main obstacle to establishing a new economic order and a newpolitical system is the low effectiveness of the government authori-ties [vlasti] .

although Putin gives a much moreconservative spin to the concepts in the poslaniye on the role of law andorder in contributing to the development of a strong state

The poslaniye was written by the second Chubais—Igor’s brotherAnatoly

“I am against the creation in Russia of a state, officialideology in any form.”

ladi-mir Putin explicitly talked about a Rossiyskaya ideya, not a Russkayaideya in his manifesto.

Putin, however, has consistently proved more circumspect on the issueof russkost’ and russkiy than General Leonov and the other profes-sional patriots in Russian nationalist circles.