Russia is about to part from Europe

by Guy Mettan,* freelance journalist

(25 January 2023) In mid-December, I had the opportunity to make a short trip to Moscow and Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia located 4000 kilometres from the Ukrainian front. That gave me enough time to evaluate the public opinion of the Russian population after ten months of war.

The first thing that strikes foreign visitors, now rare since 24 February and much courted by Russians keen to know what the West thinks of them, is the near-normality of daily life.

When reading and listening to our media, one gets the impression that Russians are living under siege and spend their time trying to survive our ruthless economic sanctions, digesting their military defeats and burying the countless deaths that the victorious Ukrainians would inflict upon them. None of it is the case.

Normal daily life

In big cities, streets are full of lights and Christmas decorations, skating rinks and open-air markets are packed despite the cold and the snow, and avenues are always jammed with lines of 4x4s trying to make their way through traffic. An atmosphere which contrasts our cities without Christmas lights and dark shop windows and greatly reduced street lighting as a result of the “energy shortage”.

This normal daily life is confirmed by the economic statistics showing that the decline of the Russian GNP will be limited to 2.5–3% for the year 2022, less than the decline of 2020, the first year of the Covid crisis. Apart from a few luxury brands, there are hardly any closed shops. The only reminder of a war underway along one of the country’s large borders, are posters calling to support troops fighting in Ukraine.

Is the apparent normality a deception? Does it conceal a deep confusion within the population, a dull hostility towards the “regime”, a fear of voicing your opinion, as is so often implied in our country? I didn’t get that impression either. On the contrary, I felt that Russians have realised that the conflict in Ukraine will last for some time and that, willingly or not, they will have to live with it for a long time.

Initially, there was a sense of worry

Like everyone else, the Russians were initially surprised and dumbfounded by the “special military operation” in Ukraine. This was especially the case in the very many families, and we are talking about a number of double-digit millions of people, isolated or divided by this conflict because of their ties to Ukraine.

Then, after the first shock was overcome, people thought that the fighting was dragging on but would not last forever. The first setbacks, at the end of August, and especially the partial mobilisation in September, dashed such hopes. Several hundred thousand conscripts mobilised fled abroad – taking into account the progressive returns, their number is estimated at 300,000 or 400,000 people, this is equivalent to 0.3% of the population. The concern became palpable. Three months later, this worry has not disappeared, but it has diminished considerably.

Are the people fooled by the propaganda? I don’t think so either. A friend of mine working in the field of culture told me: “since the Soviet era, Russians know instinctively how to decode state propaganda and how to tell the difference. They don’t even pay any attention to it. Whereas you in the West trust your leaders and institutions so much that you are not even aware of their propaganda.” Some food for thoughts!

In any case, Vladimir Putin’s approval rate has not changed since the end of February and remains very high, at about 70%. The further away from the three largest cities, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, the higher the approval.

Increased support for soldiers on the front lines

As for the support for troops on the front, or even for the army, it has even increased. The Russians are not fooled by the incompetence of some operational commanders, as we have just seen in the Mareevka tragedy on New Year’s Eve, nor by the logistical mismanagement that marked the first weeks of the war and privately, they have not spared with criticism.

They know they must first rely upon themselves and expect nothing from the state. In any case, despite the bad news, their support for the military operation has not changed and they are now behind their soldiers, even if it means not considering the hierarchy.

It is worth noting that from the depths of Siberian villages, hundreds of civilians are mobilising to organise convoys and bring food, chocolate, warm clothes and parcels to the soldiers fighting against NATO forces in Ukraine. In addition, unlike the reluctant urban conscripts, the number of enlisting voluntaries has not decreased.

Since autumn, most Russians are realising that their country is not only fighting against the Ukrainian nationalists but against the entire West under the NATO banner. They know it is a vital, existential and long-term fight for the survival of their way of life and culture, even if it was started against their will.

Army’s strategy has been revised

This awareness that the war and the hostilities were going to last was first of all brought about by the army. The difficulties encountered on the ground forced an in depth restructuring. Thus, the strategy was completely revised.

The offensive mode was changed from an improvised offensive to an organised defensive mode, on more secure lines of defence, with a unified and integrated command, under the orders of an experienced general, Sergei Surovikin, with the goal of sparing human resources and equipment as much as possible. The disorderly retreat from the Kharkov region was followed by an orderly and successful withdrawal of troops and equipment from the Kherson region. From now on drones and small mobile units were implemented.

Logistical lines have been revised and reserve divisions reorganised to respond to emergencies. The bulk of the army is retrenching and delegating its offensive capabilities to Wagner forces, drone pilots and missile launchers against Ukrainian neuralgic targets, in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets: e.g. sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, attack on the Crimean bridge, bombing of hospitals, schools and supermarkets in the Donbass, with civilians killed every day but never reported in our media.

Russia has taken note of NATO’s and the United States’ strategy, as expressed by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin last spring, namely to weaken the country to the maximum, and is working to turn it around in its favour.

By means of concentrating and sparing its troops, it is at the same time compelling the Ukrainians and NATO mercenaries to completely exhaust their forces and equipment. So, the Russian army is now betting on Generals “Time” and “Territory” more than on General “Winter”. Like Suvorov and Bagration in their time, it has learned the hard way that if you want to win in the long run, patience is better than strength and rage.

Positive effects on the Russian economy

The business community was also quick to realise that the entire production and trade system had to be completely overhauled after the closure of borders imposed by Europe, their natural partner.

Many a joke was cracked in Europe about the oligarchs and their supposed opposition to Putin. They got it completely wrong in the West. Although the oligarchs deplored the outbreak of hostilities, they quickly understood that the confiscation of their property and bank assets in Europe and the United States, the yachts, luxury residences, suites in Courchevel and Saint-Moritz, and the personal sanctions imposed on them made them pariahs for the West and that they would be doomed to lose everything if they ever had the whim to defect.

The sanctions and Russia’s expulsion from the SWIFT payment system and from Western banking relations even had a positive impact on the Russian economy because, for the first time, capital flight was stopped – about $100 billion a year – which had been bleeding the economy for 30 years. From now on, people will have to think twice before depositing their money in a Swiss, European or American bank.

For several months now, the Russian economy has been adapting to the new circumstances. The distribution channels for oil, gas, minerals, wheat and fertilisers are being reorganised towards Asia, China, India, Iran, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia (because of OPEC+ and banking facilities). The same happens with the import channels.

Parallel imports are established to supply the industry with spare parts, superconductors and chips, and the population with household appliances, clothing, luxury goods, furniture and other everyday goods the Russian economy cannot produce in large quantities.

Belarus, which is used to sanctions and has nevertheless recorded the best performance in Europe in its Covid management thanks to its health care system and pharmaceutical resources, shows that the Russian industry is perfectly capable of meeting this challenge, providing it redirects its investments towards industrial conversion and stops relying lazily on oil and gas revenues.

The stunning successes recorded in the areas of agriculture, food industry, aerospace, and the weapons industries, following the sanctions against them in 2014, also support this.

This conversion will take a few years and experts anticipate two or three years of contraction and lean times before growth will pick up again. There is no need to panic, especially since the country can count on inexhaustible and very cheap energy resources, unlike Europe, which will have to pay a high price for its energy imports.

Massive attacks on Russia’s people and culture

What about the public opinion among the population? How is it adapting to this new situation? To sum it up in one sentence, I would say they are taking their fate into their own hands. It is important to know that most Russians found it very hard to endure the measures taken against them and their culture in the West.

They felt deeply humiliated by the censorship of artists, musicians, athletes and scientists, by the cancellation of academic colloquia, by the abrupt suspension of exchange programs despite long-standing personal ties, by the rewriting of history concerning the Russian contribution to the victory against Nazism, by the “cancel culture” and even the destruction of monuments carried out not only in the Ukraine but also in the Baltic countries and in Poland. For a country that lost 26 million people in the fight against Nazism, it is intolerable to learn that it was the Normandy landing (50,000 dead) that is considered to be the major event of the Second World War.

This ostracism and injustice have left bitter traces in the living memory of Russians. This has been further aggravated by the closure of borders and the de facto ban on travel to the West as a result of cancelling all direct flights.

They can understand that Europe criticizes the military intervention in Ukraine, but they do not see any reason why Europe, which claims to be civilized, attacks Tchaikovsky, Chekov, several conductors and the population in general, in a banishing campaign unheard of in history. In the same way, the censorship of all Russian media in a Europe, priding itself on defending its democratic “values” in Ukraine, is tantamount to two-facedness.

For us, all this seems to be a minor matter, which we have been quick to forget. However, not for the Russians, who had finally felt to be part of the great European family since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Since last February, this rejection of Russia and Russians as human beings is sorely felt.

The country, especially in the cities, is in the process of painfully learning that it must part from Europe because the latter has decided to do so on the basis of a war, which certainly is unfortunate and regrettable, but which is miles away from the extent of the devastation caused by the Western armed aggressions in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Syria, Libya, Yemen or in the eastern Congo (6 million victims totally ignored by the Western media). This hypocrisy is perceived as very negative.

The first rifts emerged at the Munich conference in 2007 and during the war carelessly unleashed by Saakhashvili in Georgia in 2008, and then in 2014, with the Maidan putsch overthrowing the democratically elected president Yanukovych, the banishment of the Russian speaking population from the Donbass and the wave of sanctions taken in response to the annexation of Crimea. However, these differences remained political and geopolitical in nature and had not yet turned into a cultural, human and civilizational war. From now on, the cut is clear, deep and radical.

The ideological gap between Europe and Russia seems almost unbridgeable

Until now, Russia’s ruling elites had played both sides of the fence, adopting the principles of neoliberal capitalism, its cult of material progress and its democratic institutions from the West, while at the same time cultivating the idea of an independent, sovereign Russia free to develop its own values, inspired by conservative tradition, and to choose its partners. The war has made this dual path obsolete. It calls for clear choices.

From a Russian perspective, NATO’s growing involvement beyond Ukraine and the words of former Ukrainian President Poroshenko and former Chancellor Angela Merkel, confirmed by François Hollande that neither Ukraine nor NATO had any intention of fulfilling the Minsk agreements and that these were only a ploy to give Ukraine time to rearm, made any prospect of negotiation impossible as it became clear that neither the word given nor the treaties signed by the West had any value.

On the other hand, the ideological gap between Europe and Russia has widened to the point of becoming almost impassable. The Russians, like the rest of the Arab-Muslim, Asian and African world, understand less
and less the Western societal development. The liberalism propagated by the West seems more and more like a subterfuge intended to mask its permanent interference in the affairs of others.

The gaffe of identity based on sex and gender, anti-racism pushed to the point of racism, the dictatorship of ever smaller and more extremist minorities over the majority, the historical revisionism imposed by the “cancel culture”, the multiplication of sexes even advocated to start at an early age, wokism and the rejection of traditional humanist culture, all this is increasingly alien to Russian culture and to the global South in general.

Since last summer, the change in tone of Putin’s speeches in this regard is very significant. For the first time, the Russian president has made direct references to traditional values, criticising the Western fashion for sex changes, surrogate mothers, parent 1 and parent 2 to designate father and mother. In the face of our modern transhumanist temptation, he spoke for a return to traditional humanist values, and advocated for a multipolar world in which each country and each culture would have equal rights to preserve their values without any fear of being bombarded or invaded because their choices displease the West.

For a majority of Russians, this parting is experienced as a tragedy because it puts an end to their dream of being recognised as full-fledged Europeans. They sorely mourn the loss of Europe, but are resigned to carrying the burden no matter how heavy it is.

* Guy Mettan is a political scientist and journalist. He started his journalistic career with Tribune de Genève in 1980 and was its director and editor-in-chief in 1992–1998. From 1997 to 2020, he was director of “Club Suisse de la Presse” in Geneva. Nowadays he is a freelance journalist and author.

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)