Transcription
The natural tendency by many Western politicians is to find common ground to negotiate, to see how we can avoid what they call this magic word: escalation. The best way to escalate is to show weakness. When you face a predator, you have to look it in the eyes; you have to take a stand. If you show your back, you're dead.
As a cultural reporter, I'm always thinking about this war in cultural terms, especially about these centuries-old ideas about the Russian soul or not provoking the Russian bear. The West has popularized these ideas over the centuries. Have these ideas culturally inhibited the West when it comes to how they face Russia during the war?
There was an imperial mindset that never went away. I think there was a mysticism about the Russian soul that was popular in Russia. A lot of people who read Dostoevsky, especially, were kind of mesmerized by the idea. But, you know, I think it's like looking for black cats in a dark room, and simply, it's not there. So that's a problem.
I remember when I was much younger, one of my older friends, a great thinker, Yuri Aasv, if you probably remember the name, kept repeating that great Russian literature was one of the most fertile sources of Russian nationalism. It's imperial; the setting of this is an imperial mentality. Instinctively, I opposed it, but tragically, this imperial matrix is still very much inside.
When we celebrated the end of communism, we failed to understand that communism was just a cover-up of this matrix, which was still imperial. It could be Yeltsin, it could be Putin, but at the end of the day, it always appears on the surface.
You go back to the early days of communism: Stalin beat Trotsky because Trotsky dreamed about this global revolution, using Russia as the locomotive to destroy the world of oppression of capitalism. Meanwhile, Stalin recognized that it was just about building a power base in Russia and very quickly adopted nationalism as one of the most important elements of his power grab.
As long as this idea survives that Russia has this kind of messianic mission, nothing will change. You have to kill it by visual shock. The best, and probably only, way to offer Russia a chance to be reformed into a normal national state is to confront this mindset.
One might say that living abroad for a long time from one's home country can either deepen or distance their understanding of where they come from. How would you say it's been for you?
Seeing from a distance, you can be more objective. My first warning about Vladimir Putin and potential dangers was dated January 4th, 2001, in the Wall Street Journal. When he launched his attacks on free media, on NTV, I immediately picked up on his phrases about restoring the KGB. I saw the signs on the wall and he just kept moving in this direction.
What's tragic is that even today, after so much blood has been spilled, we still have people in the free world trying to find a kind of compromise middle ground, how to come back. This is not recognizing that you can't negotiate with this kind of evil for a simple reason: he knows this is a war for destruction. This is not a war for territorial gains.
Giving a piece of Ukrainian territory to Putin doesn't change anything in his calculations; it will only increase his appetite. The goal for Putin includes the destruction of Ukrainian statehood because this statehood is one of the elements of the world order that he wants to destroy.
Poles understand it, Baltic nations understand it, the Finns understand it for obvious reasons. But you still see the natural tendency by many Western politicians to find common ground to negotiate, to see how we can avoid this magic word: escalation.
It's absolutely ridiculous because the best way to escalate is to show weakness. Everybody knows that when you face a predator, you have to look it in the eyes; you have to take a stand. If you show your back, you're dead.
Do you think there's any legitimate fear that a lack of decisive Russian military defeat could further radicalize pro-war sentiments in Russia?
I don't think there is a very powerful pro-war sentiment in Russia. I think it's more about accepting the war as something inevitable. There's very little opposition to the war, and a lot of people just go along. I don't think there's the same fanatical belief in an idea like there was in Nazi Germany or in Stalin's Soviet Union because there's no real future there. But you have to comply.
Recently, you made an interesting thread calling out dual-language commentary about the fall of Assad. In Alexei Navalny's posthumous memoir, he attributes the start of the invasion to corruption and economics, saying this is why Putin wanted to hang on to power, not about cultural reasons and the destruction of Ukraine.
Idia Yashin has also talked about the war in economic terms. Why do you think they address the Russian public condemning Russian aggression in almost purely economic terms and not moral?
Oh, because they live in this paradigm: good Putin, bad Putin, good Tsar, bad Tsar. They have no interest in eliminating the imperial nature of the Russian state. This is a fundamental difference. When you say Russian opposition, opposition against what?
It's trying to reduce everything to Putin and his entourage. It's wrong historically because the real foundation of Russian aggression is the Russian Empire. It's again this imperial mindset.
You can definitely talk about corruption. By the way, corruption actually helped Ukraine because if not for this corruption, the Russian army could be much stronger. Thanks to Russian generals being so corrupt, probably half of the military budget has been wasted. That's why Ukraine could survive.
Do you think this lack of ability to disengage from this imperialist mindset is why they insist on calling it Putin's war and not Russia's war?
Absolutely. It's Putin, not the Russian people. I don't know if Putin personally killed someone; probably he did early on, but he gives orders. He keeps giving orders, and those orders are being executed.
I have not heard about mass distortion, some distortion, but not mass distortion. These orders are being executed, and many acts of cruelty show that it's not just Putin; it's a mentality.
What would you say was the biggest failure of the Russian opposition leading up to 2022?
I think the last moment where the Russian opposition had a historical chance to change things was back in 2011-2012 after Putin returned to power. We couldn't generate enough momentum. The protests on the streets of Moscow were over, and they began political persecution of the opposition.
Putin was in power, and the opposition activities had no clear stated goals and couldn't change anything inside the country. They created the wrong image in the free world. You still have these people pretending they're operating in Russia.
It's obviously about funding. You still have millions and millions of dollars being wasted on these fake activities in Russia because the same organizations that never did anything useful in Russia are now in exile, still pretending.
In the demonstrations, they try to say, "We are against the war." But we must support Ukraine winning the war. You never hear them say Ukraine must win; it's all about stopping the war. Maybe Putin also wants to stop the war at this point.
There's no common ground between us. It's not good because it's bad optics, but still, the majority of the Russian opposition or people who believe they are in opposition are anti-Putin. They still believe in the idea of a good Putin, basically replacing bad Putin with good Putin.
Russia must be defeated, and then we'll see what comes next.
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