How Russia’s War In Ukraine Is Playing Out Inside Russia, w/ Prof. Boris Kagarlitsky

Hello everyone. I'm Rania Khalik, and this is Dispatches.

On February 24th, after weeks of tensions, ambiguity, and threats, the Russian military crossed into Ukraine, and the country's eight-year civil war became a war between two post-Soviet armies. Putin's goals are unclear. Our only clues are his ambiguous statements about denotification and demilitarization of Ukraine. Western countries have been supplying the Ukrainian military with weapons, have launched a brutal economic war on Russia, and will support a NATO-backed insurgency against the Russian military. Refugees are pouring into neighboring countries, and as Russian forces approach Ukrainian cities, there are conflicting reports about whether they're making progress at lightning speed against a defeated foe, or whether they're getting massacred and humiliated by Ukrainian forces.

We don't know how this will end, but we can be certain that once war starts, forces are unleashed which can't easily be contained. Dynamics emerge which were unpredicted, and the more outside players intervene, the longer and bloodier the battles will be. To understand how we got here and what to expect, I have the honor of welcoming Boris Kagarlitsky, a Russian Marxist theoretician and sociologist, professor of the Moscow Higher School for Social and Economic Sciences, and the editor of the YouTube channel and web journal Rapcor. Boris, welcome.

Hello. So, I'm really, thank you so much for joining me. I know the world seems crazy right now, and I think you're the perfect person for people to hear from. You're a Russian leftist, and I think the left around the world is quite confused right now. So, I guess let's start with something really basic, which is, you know, why did, why did Russia invade Ukraine? And let's go from there.

Well, of course, I think it's not about geopolitics. The major thing is that Russian society and economy is now in a very deep crisis, and, uh, the new liberal model of capitalism actually completely failed in Russia. Well, in fact, it is exhausted internationally, and, well, the current global crisis, which we are witnessing right now, uh, confirms, uh, that statement. So, it's not about, my or your ideological convictions. It's very much about, as people say in the United States, hard facts. And the hard fact is that the system is not working.

And then, of course, different countries experience different, uh, problems, and they, uh, have a different political and social setup, which also leads to different conclusions and different behaviors. So, we can, we have quite a few rebellions around the world, starting with Kazakhstan, and also in Canada, in Australia, New Zealand, everywhere there are rebellions. Everywhere there is enormous tension, so enormous social tension. In Russia, by the way, you can also see it when you look at the anti-war movement, which is surprisingly strong for a country which is just beginning its war. Because usually anti-war movements become strong and visible when, uh, the war continues for a while, and when people start understanding the consequences, and also when they start understanding that the victory is not any close, and it's not probably going to be achieved at all. Then usually you see the growth of anti-war protests and so on. While in Russia, you see it immediately. The very same day when the war started, we saw quite impressive protests, and given the way they were brutally repressed, one can see that it reflected also a lot of motivation for those people who went into the streets, and there were quite a lot of people. So, it's not only because of the war. The real background reason for that happening was that people were fed up with the current economic, social policies, and with the current government. So, and the war is just something which kind of, uh, catalyzing, uh, this unrest which was already emerging.

We saw the elections, uh, in September. Actually, now I'm in Yakutia, I'm speaking from Yakutia. Why I'm not speaking from Moscow? Yakutia is one of the places, one of the regions in Russia where the opposition Communist Party actually won elections against the background of electoral fraud. Election was massive around the country, and, uh, it seems that the opposition actually won the elections. You see, the point is that the opposition won the election, and then the elections were stolen, which, which is pretty expected. Nobody expected otherwise, but still, it was a very, important, uh, sign and a very important signal that the government party actually lost the election, and only with the help of massive fraud, they managed to keep themselves dominant in the State Duma.

Everybody knows that Putin, or anyone who is going to be appointed by Putin, is, uh, not going to be able to win any, any kind of free election, any kind of, uh, clean election at the same level as it used to be a few years ago. Because we had electoral fraud before, but not as much as this time. So, usually they added like 10% to maybe 20% to their, to the vote of the government candidates. Now, since they added like 70%, you see. So, it means that the level of unpopularity of every single governing figure in the country, of every single oligarch, of every single, uh, official, is absolutely incredible.

And then you see a very standard erection of the people in power. They remembered that in 2014, uh, there was a lot of, uh, a lot of patriotic enthusiasm about Crimea being retaken, uh, by Russia. And, by the way, honestly, I think it was, uh, the right thing to do, because people in, in the Crimean peninsula really wanted to be part of Russia. So, from my support of, for that, uh, action, it's not because I'm any kind of Russian imperialist or great Russian shamanist, but I, I respect democracy. I respect the, the will of the people. People did, uh, support massively their return of the peninsula to Russia. And that also provoked a lot of patriotic enthusiasm around the country. Also, it was combined with a lot of frustration and political crisis in the Ukrainian Republic.

So, in fact, I think in the Kremlin, they wanted to do a remake of 2014, but as a cinema. You know, in cinema, you really get remakes as good as, as the original. Remakes usually are much poorer, much worse than the original movie. Yeah, right. And this was exactly the case, because they, uh, completely miscalculated, uh, in many ways. They miscalculated, not only in terms of military balance of forces, not in only in terms of how Ukrainian society would react, uh, to these events, to these actions, but also they miscalculated about Russian society. Because the incline of popularity of Putin and others is irreversible, and it has nothing to do with politics. It's mainly because of the social policies, and the turning point was the pension reform, which was devastating. It was really devastating for, for millions of Russians, and it was opposed by 90% of the population. And Putin, uh, actually accepted personal responsibility for the reform. So, that was the turning point. So, the society became totally hostile to the existing institutions of power.

And then you see this, this group of people in the presidential administration and Putin's entourage, who completely miscalculated, because they thought, okay, we are going to have a short and successful war, a little war, just to improve our rating. And of course, yes, there are also some other considerations. And again, by the way, some considerations, uh, were quite acceptable, because, uh, really, there is a problem with Western expansion. There is a problem with the policies of the United States of America and Europe. There is a problem with, with the way, uh, European Union handles the Ukrainian crisis, because, yes, they kept expanding their military bases, they kept expanding their kind of military political presence in East Central Europe, and of course, that led to Russians feeling that they are kind of uncircled, that there are, uh, real reasons for, uh, security concerns, which were expressed by the Russian, uh, government and Russian diplomats. So, so this is true, but it explains very little. You see, why? And there are two reasons. First, you should understand that all these problems exist for years and years and years and years, and Russian government and Russian diplomacy did just nothing. They just did nothing when they had, uh, possibilities. We don't exist now, which existed before. So, they, they, they had a much better, uh, situation in terms of having more allies, having more resources, and so on. They had, they had more opportunities to do something about it for quite a few years. They did nothing. On the contrary, in many ways, they just surrendered one position after another unilaterally. So, it means that in reality, uh, these concerns, these security concerns, didn't seem so serious from that point.

More to say on the Ukrainian crisis. Again, these two republics, Lugansk and Donetsk Republic. Again, I should express my position. I supported their independence because I support the self-determination of people. And yes, they wanted to be independent. They should be independent, or at least they should have the right to negotiate their status with the Ukrainian government, which refused to negotiate. Because there could have been a settlement, there could have been a settlement, uh, through federation, for example, turning Ukraine into a federation, giving Lugansk and a few other regions the same powers and the same status as Quebec has in Canada, for example. Canada didn't disintegrate because of that, even though there were plenty of problems. However, Canada managed to stay in one piece. So, there were plenty of ways to solve the problem. On the contrary, Russian government for eight years did nothing. They did nothing. They supported the republics, but they didn't use diplomacy properly. They, uh, they actually used the influence on the republics to stop, uh, them advancing when they were trying to take over, uh, Mariupol, which was actually left by Ukrainian forces in 2014. Ukrainian forces withdrew from Mariupol, so the next militia was actually entering the city, and then Russian, uh, government official forced them to leave. Why? Because they didn't want Donetsk to have its own port, to have access to the sea, and have some kind of independent economy which wouldn't be totally dependent on Russia. So, uh, of course, yes, they now, they now say that, uh, Donetsk was shelled and Lugansk, they were both cities, but I mean the, uh, the areas, the, the territories of Donetsk and Lugansk were shelled by Ukrainian, uh, troops. True. By the way, Lugansk and militia also shelled Ukrainian territory. So, what was going on? Every day, I insisted, what's going on? Every day, every single day for eight years, there were people wounded and killed on both sides. For eight years, Russian government did nothing. For eight years, you see, they did nothing to stop it. They did nothing to use diplomacy or, or even military force to stop it. Then just of a sudden, they said, now we are very much concerned about what's happening on the, on the border or on the front line between, uh, Lugansk and Donetsk militias and and Ukrainian forces, right? All of a sudden, you know, without any explanation. What changed? Nothing changed. So, it was very much the domestic reasons for that, for the crisis. It was a domestic crisis which is actually accelerating, uh, very rapidly inside our country, which allowed them to do that. And it's, in a certain sense, it's just an attempt to avoid reforms, the revolution, through some kind of, well, presenting military success as an excuse for not doing anything domestically, or presenting military threats also as an excuse for for keeping themselves in power in a very autocratic and undemocratic way. And, and that was an adventure because they were 100% certain that the war would continue for about 96 hours. All propaganda sources predicted that. They all played the same tune. They all said that actually there was a, a curious thing that the official, uh, news agency, RIA Novosti, actually published an article which was written before the actual hostilities started, which was describing the war as it actually, uh, was planned to happen, also using the past tense. So, like, destroying where Ukraine was defeated within 96 hours. So, the article was pre-written, uh, before the war, and they, they put it online by mistake and kept it there for about a day, when it was, of course, erased. But as you know, on the internet, it's very easy to, yeah, yeah, that's a good thing. Scope it, copy it. So, now everybody read this text. It was a very, although it was already all written as it, as if it happened already, you see. So, so they miscalculated completely.

And because the, uh, their Russian, even in military terms, Russia doesn't have resources for a long-term war. Russian military don't have, among other things, enough fuel and ammunition, uh, to fight for more than 10 or maybe 15 days properly. Look at the operation because it just didn't have enough resources. A Russian economy is totally dependent on the West. Just to give some examples. So, so the microchips which are used by Russian military, military equipment, Russian military, military, they use Taiwanese microchips. Without flying microchips to Russia, much of Russian, uh, military equipment will not work. I mean, simply will not produce. They cannot replace the equipment which is destroyed in the war with the new equipment unless Taiwanese supply them with, uh, with, uh, with microchips, or South Koreans sometimes supply them with some spare parts and so on. Even Kalashnikovs, the famous, they use Chinese, Chinese parts, Chinese elements in, for the production of Kalashnikovs. Chinese will, of course, continue to supply, but the Chinese are very special people. They will simply increase their, the costs. So, they will again, right prices, they will increase the prices. They will make, uh, Russian, uh, Russian factories pay, provides maybe three times the price. So, so in that sense, economically, even militarily, we don't have other resources.

And, uh, if Ukrainians were really happy with the Russian invasion, it would have been completely different. Because, yes, if they were really meeting the troops with flowers, okay. But they were not. Within 96 hours, it became clear. And I have a lot of contacts in Ukraine. And, uh, ten days ago, many of these people kept saying, okay, maybe it's not so bad if, if we are going to be conquered, because at least your government is going to pay our pensions or something. Why then Ukrainian pensions and so on? So, if your government is going to pay our debts, it's also not so bad to be conquered. About that. Well, uh, no, that's very Ukrainian. It's very, it's very, I should say, Koreans are famous for. Russians have lots of jokes about practical Ukrainians, you know. And it's very, it's really true. Ukrainians make jokes about that themselves. They're charming but very practical people, you know. So, you see, I, I've got messages from practical Ukrainian, uh, friends saying, okay, if you're going to pay your debts, and then by all means, yeah, maybe it's better for us to be conquered. But these were jokes which were typical for the peacetime. Once the war started, once there were people killed, once there were cities being shelled and bombed by Russian forces, of course, the mood changed completely.

And then also another point that Ukrainian troops became surprisingly effective in fighting back, and that also changed the mood of Ukrainian population. Because, you see, when your troops are winning, or at least when your troops are doing well, uh, this is a good stimulus to to join them, to support them, and so on. So, it generates some kind of national or patriotic, whatever you say, enthusiasm and so on. So, in that sense, the mood changed completely. Ukrainian troops happened to become a much tougher, uh, adversary for, for the Russian army. And on the contrary, the Russian army happened to be much weaker than expected, because they didn't have enough professionals. So, they sent, uh, draftees. They sent draftees and, uh, poorly, poorly prepared, poorly trained, totally demotivated, because it was absolutely unclear for them why should they go and fight against Ukrainians who speak the same language, by the way, who look exactly like us, who behave exactly like us. And who they were just absolutely crazy cases when, uh, Ukrainians just, uh, stopped Russian tanks, uh, uh, Ukraine, without shooting. You know, there was an actual case when Ukrainian police stopped a Russian tank. It was just traffic police which stopped a Russian tank, and the tank stopped when police told them to stop. They stopped because they had been, it was executive. They would have done exactly the same in Russia, right? Going on the road, there was a traffic police, police, stop. When they stop, and so, so, so it's, uh, and, uh, many of these guys, they just thought they were going to have maneuvers. So, they have some kind of training. They didn't know they were going to war. So, we were totally unprepared. So, the moral, uh, situation of these troops, the morals, is very, the moral is very low. Yeah. And, and, uh, so the people are very demotivated. Also, they were expected, they were told some more professional guys who were real military. They were told that, okay, Ukrainians love us, and there are just a few Nazis who hate us. By the way, Nazis are the people who have exactly the same ideologies as the Russian Nazis, who are very much welcome in Russia. Just instead of speaking, like Russian Nazis say, "Glorious Russia," and these guys say, "Glorious Ukraine." "Glorious Russia" is okay. "Glorious Ukraine" is not okay. No, it's the same thing. And, well, but they, but okay, some military professionals were told, okay, you have to liberate Ukrainians from from a bunch of cruel Nazis who who have taken them hostages. So, people will meet you with flowers. There were no flowers. There were bullets. Yeah.

And, and then, what happened is that now we're facing really demotivated, a demotivated army against very motivated Ukrainian forces. And, so far, no major cities were, uh, taken over by the, by the troops from Russia. It seems that the, uh, quantities of resources which become available to the Ukrainian side, the quantity of resources is increasing massively because the West is, the army is demoralized, and the society is very angry. And it's not that I think it's not that the Ukrainian side is so much winning, but the Russian side is very much losing. And it's losing morally, psychologically, and it's losing politically. And, you see that, for example, the popularity of Zelensky is, uh, increasing. It's, uh, just skyrocketing. Though was a very weak and unsuccessful and incompetent president, but once the war started, uh, well, now he's a hero. And Putin is exactly the opposite. Putin's popularity was already, uh, going down there, and now it's, uh, it's going down even faster. Though, of course, you should say that, you should understand that just coming back to one important point, that all I'm saying is not, uh, is not, uh, about, uh, the, okay, let me say, formulate it. So, you should just note one thing that while I'm saying about the responsibility of Putin and his entourage for the war and the failure of Russian military machine in this war, it doesn't mean that there is any excuse for the policies carried out by the West in Ukraine. Because the West shares its part of responsibility, shares the responsibility for the conflict. The West shares the responsibility for the conflict. The West shares the responsibility for the current mass policies of the European Union, the policies of the United States, as well as the policies of Russia, and as well as the policies of the current Ukrainian government. They were all totally irresponsible. You see, all sides were totally irresponsible. All sides, uh, completely neglected the dangers of escalating the conflict. So, it's a bit like the, the beginning of the First World War in that sense. It's a, uh, it's a situation when, uh, you should say, who are the victims? Ukrainian people are the victim, sure. Yeah. But, uh, there are plenty of other players to be blamed, and all major powers are to be blamed for this current disaster. So, that says there is no way I, we should appraise the West for what it was doing in Ukraine. We should blame the Russian government for what it is doing now, but we shouldn't praise the West for what it was doing for years, uh, in Ukraine.

And, and I do, I want to get to, I want to get to the West and its escalatory rhetoric and actual actions. But first, I just, you mentioned this a little bit, but I'm curious if you could talk a bit more about the support, or lack of support, for the war in Ukraine, both among the Russian elites and then as well as on the popular level. You were talking, I mean, I know that most Russians supported annexing Crimea many, many years ago, ago, some years ago. Well, some years ago. But now, you know, now with this war, I, I'm, you know, there, before the invasion, I think there was a poll done that showed like a little over half of the Russian population would have supported some sort of military intervention. And I know you haven't gone around and polled the country, but just given the feeling among people around you, at least, or who you've spoken to, do you think most Russians support their military's intervention in Ukraine, or do you think it's the opposite?

Well, I think the society is divided. Because, uh, for the last few days, I've been to three different parts of Russia. I've been at home in Moscow, but then I left for Irkutsk, and now I'm in Yakutia. So, these are very different parts of the country with very different people, with very different social structures. And, well, first of all, I think there is a very small minority which is totally in favor of the war. There is another minority, which is much bigger, which is anti-war. And there is a great majority of people who are confused. And they would have supported the war, maybe if it were a success. Like in every country, by the way. In every country, if your government succeeds in the war, then for good or bad reasons, you're kind of happy, because at least you're happy that it didn't last for too long, at least you're happy that the outcome was not too bad. So, if it were a successful adventure, it would have been, uh, seen more positively among the people. But now, even those people who are saying that, well, the West is, uh, to be blamed for what happened, they kind of provoked us into this operation. Even these people are very, very worried. They're really very worried. And, you know, just give one example, just for you to listen. The sanctions are really destroying Russian economy. This time, they kept saying sanctions didn't influence our Russian economy before. Actually, it's not true. They did, but they didn't damage too much. Uh, actually, ironically, Russian government inflicted more damage on the economy systematically, systematically. That says sanctions are not too serious, used not to be too serious, not used not to be too bad until now, because the main problem, the main source of damage was our own government with its own decisions. And so the damage caused by the sanctions was totally incomparable with what they did to us, you know, totally incomparable. But now it's another story, because these sanctions are totally different. These sanctions are consciously oriented towards destroying or disorienting the economy. And unfortunately for us, they do work extremely effectively.

Just give one example. I'm now in Yakutsk. Here, there is no way you can get here unless you fly in on an aircraft. You need to fly in. There is, well, much of the territory of Yakutia, it's not just covered even by railways. There are sometimes there are not even roads, or there are roads, but these roads, well, these are very special Russian roads, so they are not totally passable. Yeah. So, well, if you like extreme travel, travels, I'll keep that in mind. But so, so the only way you really can can get here, the only way you can communicate is using their, uh, their aviation, using the air. And then you discover that most of the aircraft in Russia are at least from the West, at least from Western companies. So, now they're calling for these aircraft to be grounded because they just break, lease agreements. The lease agreements are, are expiring, and you have to be extremely competent not to know that. But Russian government didn't know that most of the lease agreements for Russian aviation are expiring in March or early April. Wow. Western, uh, Western counterparts are not extending these agreements anymore. Without the agreement, even if you keep the aircraft technically, you will not be able to service it, and it's not going to be able to fly. So, it seems that it's about 80% of the, uh, of the aircraft which are already, and now in, in, in Russia operating in Russia, you see. So, that means the people here are really worried. People in Yakutia are really worried because they're afraid of being completely disconnected from the rest of the country, and even within, there would be problems of getting from one part of the of the republic to another, and so on.

So, just give, giving one example, another example. So, try, Taiwanese, uh, they stopped selling microchips, right? Microchip is something with which, without which you, without it, you can hardly have anything working these days. But then Russian said, the Russian official said, don't worry, we produce our own microchip, which is called Elbrus, which is not bad, by the way. It's less productive than some of the Western analogical models, but it's, it's not so bad. It's, it's a good replacement. But there is one problem. It's produced in Taiwan. So, it's called, it's Russian design, but the production is in Taiwan. And Russia doesn't have the technical capacity to produce enough microchips of its own on its own territory. So, most of its own microchips are produced abroad. So, Russian economy is extremely dependent on foreign supplies. And to make things worse, even though of course much is, connect, much is, uh, imported from China, but what you import from China, import, I don't know, hammers, or I don't know, you import tactical tools and so on. Even sometimes cars. But equipment and technologies are imported from the West. And Western companies have to serve them, to organize the service for, for their, service, for, for these technologies and equipment and so on. So, so it means that, well, much of the economy is just, uh, going to be put on a hold. And, well, the ruble collapsed. The ruble collapsed. We used to have, uh, used to have about 70 rubles per dollar, and now it's 110 within days. Disaster. Yeah. Long queues are now the long, there are long queues at the bank and the cash machines, trying to take money away, because people do not trust the banks. And especially they're trying to get, if they have, if they have dollars, because quite a lot of Russians didn't trust rubles anyhow, so they kept theirs in dollars, but their savings. But the problem is that, there are physically no dollars, right? So, they cannot get the dollars out of cash machines because there is not, there is no money in the cash machines. So, for example, I didn't try, I didn't even try. I said, okay, I just give up. Yeah. I don't even, I don't know. Just some, some of my friends said, what, what are we going to do? I said, if, if we are going to collapse, we're going to collapse. And with a few dollars at home, it's not good. Yeah.

No, I can, I, I'm talking to you from Lebanon right now, which has had an economic collapse for the last two years. And it's like what took several months to happen in Lebanon seems to be happening overnight, um, in Russia right now because of those sanctions. Yeah. Yeah.

But okay, but now let's see the good side of things. Is that, usually the usual standard, for historic developments in Russia is that, uh, progressive changes, uh, here, usually happened after a war being lost. Okay. We'll lose the war, we start rebuilding the country. And, well, Russia didn't lose many, uh, didn't lose many wars. Russia is famous for being quite militarily successful. But every time there is a, a war being lost, uh, there is a kind of identity crisis, which at the same time leads to reforms and revolutions. So, as you know, we had, uh, we had, uh, the Crimean War, which, uh, when Russia was defeated by British and French, and, and, and even by the Turks, usually though mostly Russians defeated Turks once and again. And then, with the help of the British and, and French, Turks are kind of retaliated, and, in the 1850s. And this was a tremendous moral crisis. And then we, what we, what we got, we abolished serfdom. Russia, Russian ruling class had to start reforms. The, for the first time, Russia got real courts, uh, with, was, was really the institution of justice, which were more or less, more or less kind of modern for that period. Uh, we, Russia got the abolition of, there was, I shouldn't say free press, but kind of semi-free press and so on and so on. So, the reforms started. They were so-called Great Reforms, and they started after the war being being lost. Uh, then after the defeat of the, Russia, Russian-Japanese War, there was the first Russian Revolution. And after the defeat in the First World War, there was the second Russian Revolution. Okay.

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Uh, so, and once, Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan, well, that's not a, that's not the good, that's not the guess, things didn't get better after that. But, yeah, I see, I see. But no, at least that, no, but actually, nevertheless, it did lead to democratization. It didn't lead to democratization, but it was kind of hijacked by, by new liberals. I should say that it was not, it's not the democracy to be blamed. It's the, the new liberal economics and new liberal policies to be blamed for what happened next. But however, anyhow, it led to change. Let's, let's to change. And so, so we're coming close, very close to the moment of change. It's going to be very dramatic and very, very impressive changing. And then I hope we'll come out stronger. And I also hope we'll come out being friends with the creators again.

I appreciate your optimism. I appreciate your optimism. I think a lot of people around the world right now, and a lot of people obviously inside Russia, are a bit confused because we're, you know, we always look at, we always look at Russia, whether people hate Russia or love Russia, they always look at the Russian government, at least for the past couple of decades, as being very calculated and strategic in how they interact on the global stage. That's the perception. But that's, that's kind of the perception. So, this is, this seems like such a massive miscalculation to the point of like, wow, you really got this so wrong that people are so shocked. So, I want to ask you a little bit about that. But first, I want to kind of go to the Western side of things, because you mentioned that a little bit too, and I'm curious, you know, from your perspective, if we wanted to date the beginning of this particular crisis with Ukraine, outside of the domestic issues, which we can go back to, if we wanted to date the talk about the beginning of this crisis, would you start it at 2014? Would you start it at 2008? Or would you start it at 1990? Where would you start the clock on the sort of collision course, uh, that we're seeing take place now between Russia and the Western Ukraine?

1990, I think. I think it was 1990 when the Soviet Union disintegrated. At of course, well, with all the privatization policies, with the industrialization, with, uh, um, the establishment of corrupt oligarchies, both in Russia and in Ukraine. Well, the kind of political, social, and military genes which were established, uh, they actually all continued deteriorating. I see, because, well, Ukraine can be presented as, could have been presented for a period, as a kind of corrupt democracy, which later collapsed. It collapsed through all the, all these Maidan protests into a sort of chaotic, [Music] chaotic state. And, to some extent, I, I keep saying it used to be, maybe up to recently, it used to be a failed state. It is interesting now that maybe, maybe it's really interesting and very impossible that it is exactly because of this disaster and because of the, Russian invasion, that Ukraine overcomes the situation. So, Russian invasion turned Ukraine, uh, into a real state. After, among other things, it's very interesting that Ukrainian oligarchs fled the country. So, all of them ran away. They all ran away. Once, even before Russian troops appeared, they all ran away. They they have taken their their private jets and ran away, leaving the country. Maybe it would be very good for the country if they don't return. They would do much better if they stay out, right? What is also very interesting is that once the conflict started, some of the Russian oligarchs also left the country, going to the same destinations as the Ukrainian counterparts. Where there is no, it's not the big difference, you know. Right. And, um, so, so we, we have to look at the social composition of, of, of these societies. And you have to look at the economy and how these economies were de-developed. They were de-developed and they were turned into kind of, um, resource-extracting economies. They lost much of their industry. They lost much of the education and cultural institutions and science, and much of the healthcare systems. It was all robbed and privatized and commercialized. And in many ways, the societies themselves decayed and degenerated. So, because when we say, well, wow, there are so many Nazis in Ukraine, it's an exaggeration. But yes, there are, uh, some groups of the far right which are influential. The question is, why are they influential? And the answer is that, especially in Western Ukraine, there are no, uh, so many unemployed youth. So many young people have no, no employment, no, no jobs, no perspective, except joining the far-right groups, which at least give them some kind of social provision, some kind of, some kind of meaning in their lives. Because, so, well, but here in the Arab countries, you probably know similar things happened with the Islamic fundamentalists. Of course. So, you can easily understand what, what was happening. So, it's something I said, all these people, they have very bad ideology. Yes, of course, they have very bad ideology. Why is this ideology becoming so attractive to people? And the answer is that the social situation, uh, makes it happen. And, and very, very similar in Russia, actually. In many ways, Ukraine degenerated, the, declined, decades, sorry, in many ways, Ukraine decayed faster than Russia. It's true. It created, decayed, and degenerated faster than Russia. Not, but it's very much the same tendency, the same process. So, so we have to blame the, uh, the economic policies of neoliberalism. That's, uh, that's the very beginning. And the rest, uh, well, then you face the consequences. These are consequences of these policies and these strategies. And then you have the elites, which are also totally irresponsible. And speaking about the Russian, Russian government being so reasonable and rational, it's not true. They are reasonable and rational only in one sense. They, they're very reasonable about how to get as much money stolen from their, from the way, you know, you know, for example, if you want to start a project here, first thing you have to do is you have to calculate it in such a way that there is, uh, there should be a kickback big enough for, without which we, we just cannot, cannot do a project. Even, even you have a, if you're doing a research project, for example, uh, when I used to be the head of, head of the East of an institute, we tried to get research projects. Sometimes we did get research projects, but the problem is that, you're good to the ministry, so to some foundation, they openly tell you that, well, we'll pocket 30%, uh, and then if, if it's okay with you, then then you go on, then you do it. The bribes, it's like legalized bribery. It's called kickbacks here. Yeah. Yes. But, you see, the point is that we're often, I said, no, because for one reason, if you take away 30% of the project, there is no money for me to do the project, right? Okay. Project's not going to be done, period. So, uh, and then I asked Ukrainian colleagues, say, wow, Russians are very, very kind of decent. They only take 30%. Your bureaucrats are so honest. I said, how much do you guys, uh, do your guys take? They will usually take everything. They legislate. Wow. Okay. Well, that, yeah, that's a difference, I guess. Wow. Okay. So, it's not such a joke, actually. It's for us, it's very serious, horrible. I'm telling you this story, it's kind of funny, but if you face it every day, I'm very often, I'm very often criticized for laughing at everything, but it's my, it's my name, my Jewishness, but it's pretty serious. It's pretty serious.

So, and then, the good, what they really know how to do, what what really they they know how to do good, how to do well, is, uh, what they know how to do well is, uh, PR, public relations. So, you see, if you go to any Russian region, see what is the biggest, uh, section, a segment of the, of the public spending, usually it's public relations of the governor, or public relations of the, of, uh, of, uh, the political institution. For example, for example, in, in Moscow, in Moscow region, recently, a few years ago, we had a big garbage crisis. And they, why didn't they fail to, uh, kind of get rid of the garbage? And the answer was very well, it was, it was a big scandal. The money which was originally designed to clean up the garbage was spent on public relations. Oh my god. You're kidding. Wow. Why? That's why they didn't have enough money for the government. And now there is a, in Saint Petersburg, there is a similar crisis, right? Just just recently, they, they don't clean up the snow. I said, it was incredible that the governor's office, when they asked why the snow is not being cleaned, uh, the governor's office said, well, by April, we'll get rid of the problem anyhow. Oh my god. Because of the weather. That's well, it is true, but yeah, no, that's not true. Well, uh, so, uh, and, uh, but then they discovered that there is a lot of public relations, which, a lot of money, the public relations. Then there was a very popular, uh, singer, uh, uh, who, uh, who issued a clip, a video clip, a song about garbage and snow not being cleaned in Saint Petersburg, which was extremely popular. Then, uh, the governor, uh, Ogloblin's office accused him of not being a proper citizen of Saint Petersburg, not patriotic enough. Then, uh, Shnurov issued another song, which was called "Pardon Me," which was actually even worse. The way he asked him, "Excuse me, pardon me," about the song was even more, more pressing. So, it was like, okay, pardon me that I considered such an idiot. Please pardon me that I consider to be so corrupt. Please. Okay. All right. Then it's more polite. It's like a more polite. "Pardon me." And sooner or later, I'll, I'll write another song praising how, how good you are. And so, so, and after the second song, all of a sudden, within five hours after the song was released, all the necessary equipment needed to clean up the snow and garbage appeared in the streets. Oh. So, it worked. It was all there. They just didn't want to earn money on it. So, this, so basically, this is an example of like the neoliberal rot that like hollowed out Ukraine and Russia throughout the 90s. And then you, of course, have the role that the Western countries and NATO have played and constantly, like you mentioned earlier, expanding around Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. And then this continues to escalate, obviously. Um, and then I guess the question on everyone's mind is like, why now? Because you mentioned, you mentioned that that Russia could have invaded like Russia could have done something five years ago, three years ago, two years ago. And I'm curious, you know, Putin said, "Oh, I had no choice. We have no choice. We have to do this." And I guess my question is, what, like, how does decision-making work in the Russian government? Because it did also seem like a lot of people around the government or in the government were totally confused and actually shocked by this invasion. So, is it Putin alone making these decisions, or is it many different agencies and actors? And I guess I already know your answer to this, but do you think it's true that Russia had no choice?

Putin had no choice but not because of the West. Putin had no choice because of the law of the domestic crisis, which was, uh, increasing. Yeah. Although I was here in Yakutia and in Siberia during the elections, I saw how people reacted. I saw how people wanted to get rid of the of the corrupt politicians. They failed because the level of fraud was absolutely appalling. And it's very clear that next time it wouldn't be about balance, it would be more about public unrest and street violence. So, and it was very clear for everyone. So, something had to be done about it. So, after losing the elections and, uh, at the same time imposing on us the, uh, the Duma, the parliament, which was, which is totally fake, they had to do something about it. They had to do something to re-mobilize the public support. So, in that sense, they really did have no choice. The rest is, because I said, yes, there, there is Western pressure, and there, it's all true, but it's a constant, uh, problem. It's a constant problem. There are real security concerns, I insist. But, uh, there is nothing special that happened, uh, this, uh, January or February. There is nothing new, uh, this January or February, except for the elections which were lost and, uh, and fabricated, uh, in September, and, uh, the protests which were suppressed also in September, October, with the, also with the, with a total understanding that it's going to come back in spring, massively. It's going to. So, they were really, we, we all expected that in spring there would be a lot of unrest. People expected that once it gets warmer, it's very hard to go to go and protest in the streets of Russia, especially here with minus 40 degrees in the streets. It's not very good for, for public demonstration, for street demonstrations and so on. Once it gets warmer, everybody knew what was going to happen. So, they had to, uh, to do something to prevent that happening. So, they miscalculated.

But how the decisions are made? Uh, yes, you see, Russia of today, Russian government, Russian state system of today, is not the same as it used to be like in 10 years or even three years. Because during the COVID crisis, there was also a very dramatic change. Our constitution has changed. So, Putin's powers are expanded. Relaxation of his personal power is enormous. Putin's powers were kind of limited in the first two terms of his, of his rule, and he, I mean, he was never a democrat, but he actually operated within certain limits and within certain rules, for the first two terms. Then he extended his powers, and then he extended his powers even more. So, so it's a constant process of Putin's powers being extended and extended and extended, which led also to illustration that the the institutional, the institutional side of the state are getting getting weaker and weakened, weaker. Because, uh, once you extend the powers of the of the president, you diminish the powers of every other institution in the country. Right? So, the decision-making process became totally deregulated. That one person started getting enough power to make decisions unilaterally, while it was not possible even a few years ago. Then the COVID. Then the COVID, because the COVID led to the isolation of Putin. That, because he was hiding in his bunker, and it became very difficult for anyone to get access to him. Because I know politicians who used to be able to reach Putin, they used to be technically able to reach Putin to get an appointment with him, and all of them complained that since COVID, it became impossible. So, the number of people who could actually technically speak to Putin, uh, became very small. It's like maybe five to ten people who really have access to the president. So, they can manipulate, uh, his opinion the way they want, or not challenge it, or not challenge it too. There's also the right, like you just hear from people. Yeah, like it's.

There's that asp too. Yeah, that's the way it operated. That's the way it operated. And, uh, well, the rest, you know, the medical rest, you know, it's, uh, it's how most dictatorships collapse. Or, or how do they degenerate? Quite a few dictators actually started, um, started their careers as, as good people with, with good intentions and, and even achieved something. Unless they were able to achieve something, they wouldn't have been able to become dictators. By the way, usually they would have done something at least to attract some support. But then, once the, uh, you have more and more power concentrated and less and less institutionalized, then things get worse. And then at some point, you become irrational. Yeah.

I'm afraid I have to do some other work. Can I, can I ask you, can I ask you just, um, one more question? I'm sorry, one phone, one final question. So now that you know, um, right now, it seems like everything is sort of on a road to further escalation. You have the European countries openly boasting about providing weapons to the Ukrainians and talking about funding, yes, volunteers also, well, and funding an insurgency, sending foreign fighters, right? Uh, you have even some crazy, some of the most hawkish voices in the West talking about a no-fly zone. I don't think that'll happen. But then you, of course, have this like sort of nuclear button pushed on the Russian economy. The Russian government obviously responded by putting their nuclear special forces on alert. So do you think this conflict has the risk of spilling outside of Ukraine, especially if you have an insurgency that's training or receiving weapons from nearby NATO countries, um, and just the risk of flooding more weapons into a country like it just causes all kinds of opportunities for things to spiral further out of control? How dangerous is this?

Well, it is quite dangerous. But starting with the weapons, you know, that Zelensky allowed Ukraine people, uh, to actually take as, uh, as many weapons as they wanted. Uh, so like, like now, now every Ukrainian family has at least one Kalashnikov. So Ukraine is also very, as I told you, they are very nice and practical people. Having a Kalashnikov at home is a very practical thing. Actually, I live in Lebanon. I live in Lebanon. I know. So that's one thing. So, so it's, it's a long, long-term thing, you know. If you have every family having possessing at least one Kalashnikov, it means that you, you end up in a totally different society. But, um, there were also, there were some funny pictures like a guy riding a bicycle with, with like five Kalashnikovs. [Laughter] So, uh, okay.

No, but being serious, uh, first, uh, yes, the conflict is escalating, but it's now in the, uh, format of, uh, Russia against everyone, to some extent, including even China. Because although China officially didn't join the sanctions, particularly Chinese companies which operate in the United States did join the sanctions, which is extremely damaging. So the economic consequences are going to be disastrous. And the good thing is probably that after the collapse, we would have to rebuild the economy in, which is probably going to be not so bad if we change the political and social setup. So it means that Russia has no other choice but to go through very dramatic social and political reforms, or maybe some kind of revolution. There is, there is no other way. Unless, unless Putin really pushes there, presses the the nuclear button, and then, then much of the of the northern hemisphere is is out of out of out of place, so to speak.

Um, which is because Putin keeps speaking about, uh, winning the nuclear, nuclear war being now. So it's a winning nuclear war is possible. It's not so bad. Nuclear war is not so bad. It's such a, it's not such a bad thing. It can be won. That's what Putin and his entourage keep saying. And that's what you get on the television, or almost daily. And then, and then, uh, there is an idea that at least if we kill every, if we say everyone, we will go to paradise. And, uh, and foreigners will go to hell. So even if all of us get exterminated, that's not so bad because at least we'll get to paradise. Uh, so that's what you get on the television. Jesus. Yeah. That's, that's unfortunately what you get on television. And that's, that's not something which Russian people like, actually. That's one of the reasons why people, Putin is not, uh, very popular with these ideas because everybody knows that there is no such a big difference in paradise and hell once you get killed. Yeah. Right.

So, um, well, that's about it. Uh, but as long as, but if, if, if, if it didn't, if, if, if it doesn't happen, then, then we have to to start reforming the country. And it's not so bad because then, then, of course, you see, there is a social, there, there are social movements, there are, uh, there's a peace movement. There, interestingly enough, most of the official opposition parties are now under control of the government. They're not opposition anymore. They're totally manipulated and controlled by the government. But now we see the rebellion in the ranks of the Communist Party, for example, like at least four Communist Party MPs spoke out against the war, uh, in different terms because some of them are very cautious in formulating the opposition. But at least four people, and these are the people who will be leading the country, most probably. You see, oh, there, every time when anybody speaks, uh, up against the war, uh, it is, he's becoming a hero now here. And, um, I think it's, um, well, uh, we have to go through it. We have to go through it. And we have to overcome it. And we, we have to become friends with Ukrainians again. It's not so, it's not going to be very easy, but it has to be rebuilt.

Well, Boris, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. And I hope we can have you back on again soon with hopefully, uh, better updates on what's happening with the situation. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much.