Should the Russians Be Held All Responsible for Putin’s War in Ukraine?
An attempt to answer a question on which the opinion of Ukrainians has completely changed over the months of the war.
Vladimir Putin's thunderous speech on Wednesday, September 21, 2022, put Yevgeny and Dmitri in shock. The first one, dejected, fears living “the third world war.” The second, determined, is preparing to join the front “for the motherland.”
These two Muscovites, both in their thirties, educated, multilingual, and used to traveling in Europe, belong to the new middle class, open and liberal, of the capital. They have never demonstrated for or against the Kremlin.
Until then, Yevgeny and Dmitri were part of the vast majority of rather well-off Russians who, apolitical, let themselves be carried away by the ambient apathy carefully orchestrated for almost a quarter of a century by Vladimir Putin's regime to establish its sacrosanct “stability.”
Today, it's like an awakening, but late.
Both Yevgeny and Dmitry watched the televised speech of their president Vladimir Putin, who looks more and more like a dictator: in a martial tone, Vladimir Putin supported the annexation referendum in the Eastern Ukrainian regions, announced his decree for “partial mobilization” and threatened the West with the use of “all means at its disposal,” including nuclear.
Russian society is more fractured than ever
“The Russian people are silent, but we are going to drag Europe into this nightmare,” mourns Evgeny, a teacher in Moscow. A young man who can be mobilized, but who is opposed to the offensive in Ukraine, he has joined the queues of frightened citizens looking for a plane ticket to leave Russia, a one-way ticket.
On the contrary, Dmitri, a communications executive in a large company, is ready to answer the Kremlin's call and go to the front. “At first I had doubts. Now we have to go all the way. The West, with its sanctions and anti-Russian media coverage, has proven that it hates us. They want to attack us. We have to defend ourselves,” he replied.
At the opposite ends of the spectrum, these two reactions reflect the fractures in Russian society. These opposite reactions also reveal the support, tacit or direct, given for a long time to the power of Vladimir Putin and thus, since February 24, 2022, to his “special military operation” in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin's understatement.
Apolitical for years, indifferent to the regime's authoritarian excesses in Russia itself and to the excesses of its diplomacy with imperialist overtones on the international scene, Russians such as Yevgeny regret not having seen the danger earlier and others such as Dmitri have ended up joining the hordes of Kremlin supporters.
Both of them got into the habit of turning a blind eye. Especially when Moscow's army is accused of war crimes, in Boutcha and Izioum with the discovery of hundreds of bodies buried in these cities taken by Ukraine. On the Internet, information contradicting the Kremlin's propaganda is available. But the vast majority of Russians do not seek to know - or do not want to know - the truth.
A dangerous mix
Consequently, in the eyes of Kyiv, all Russians are to blame. And to be punished. A large part of the Ukrainian elite insists on this notion of collective responsibility. At the beginning of the conflict, President Volodymyr Zelensky himself spoke of “Putin's war” and, in some of his videos, spoke in Russian to address the ordinary citizens on the other side of the front.
From now on, everything is in Ukrainian. President Zelensky denounces “the war of the Russians.”
He advocates that the European Union sanction the Kremlin regime and the entire nation. “We must target the leaders and those who have blood on their hands. But also the Russians, who by their silence are equally responsible for this war,” said Andriy Yermak, head of his administration. Favoring broad measures to ban European visas to Russians, he insisted, “They must all feel the price of this war!”
By placing the blame on the entire nation and not on targeted individuals, Kyiv and the most determined among its European allies are committing a dangerous amalgam.
In the long term, this risks damaging the future between these two sister nations, which will eventually have to renew their multiple cultural and historical relations. In the short term, it is also counterproductive. The collective sanctions against Russians, banning them from flying, making bank transfers, and obtaining visas, affect above all the middle class in Moscow and the big cities. Paradoxically, it is this population that is most opposed to the Kremlin.
The poorest Russians, the popular class dear to Vladimir Putin, will remain poor and loyal. The richest, dependent on the regime, will remain rich and loyal. Between the two, the middle class is stuck. Pointed at by Ukraine, and punished by Europe, it is not encouraged in its anti-Kremlin impulses. On the contrary: many of them find themselves obliged to support the regime when they could be the engine of change in Moscow.
A paradox poorly understood in Kyiv.
Some reading
Hackers Are Increasingly Targeting Central Banks and Their Treasury of Over $12,550B in Reserves. The Government Pension Fund of Norway suffers 100,000 attacks per year.
Make No Mistake, Our Real Enemy Is Inflation, Not Recession. Central banks even know that recession is the solution to the current problem with inflation.
Samarkand — Westminster: The Summary of the Geopolitical Evolution of the World. The values of freedom and democracy of the Western world have not said their last word.
The Nuclear Weapon Remains the Last Joker of Vladimir Putin Who Is More Weakened Than Ever. To brandish nuclear weapons indiscriminately is a terrible admission of weakness on the part of Putin.
Birds of a Feather Flock Together — Pariah of Global Finance, Afghanistan Turns to Russia. Not sure if Russia has enough to help the Taliban though.
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