Jason Smart: The Russian military is struggling as casualties per square kilometer seized has surged. Incredibly, it increased over 8,700 percent between January and March. Yet for some in Russia the war has not been all so grim. Since the war began, Russian billionaire wealth has grown 97 percent. Those in Putin’s inner circle have gained $68.6 billion dollars – seven times more than oligarchs who are not connected to him. How does a nationalist, like Putin, justify these staggering human losses while his closest associates amass such massive profits?
David Satter: During the 1990s, people were starving and not receiving their salaries. The people considered oligarchs at that time were unrestrained in their stealing. They stole even the last sums of money that had been set aside to pay for basic needs of the workers because it was available to be stolen. What happened to ordinary people was of no interest to the oligarchs. The same thing is happening now. Putin and his associates don’t look at the soldiers who are dying as people. They view them as units, objects that can be used for their purposes.
The only thing that really matters to them is money and the exercise of power. This is a mafia but its mentality is different from the mentality of the Italian mafia which developed within the framework of a Catholic country. The Italian mobsters were not good Christians, but they were affected by the culture in which they grew up. The criminals in Russia were affected by the Soviet culture, which defined human beings as a matter of ideology, as raw material in the achievement of some greater social goal. For communists, it is clear that human beings can be used for any purpose, they have no independent importance. The personality counts for nothing.
It seems that the Kremlin leadership ignores massive casualties because they prioritize acquiring greater personal wealth and power over human life. Since the war began, over 90 percent of nationalized property has been handed to Putin’s inner circle, often through the seizure of assets from other, less Putin-aligned billionaires, to reward loyalists. If these elites are profiting from the war: Why would they ever want the war to stop?
It’s not as if they don’t understand that there’s a problem. But they are concerned about themselves, and that will dictate the ways in which they approach the problem. Normal human beings would try to end the war at all costs, turn to the West to renew ties and hopefully one day receive beneficial investment. But that’s not the way they think. They are afraid that such a turn of events would put them at risk by discrediting their previous policies. They would be exposed to demands for reparations. Western powers would raise questions about war crimes. They have no interest in any of that.
So, although they are looking at the same trend lines as everyone else, their thinking moves in a different direction, which is how to squeeze the population even further. And this is what makes this moment in time very ominous. I believe that the closing of the Telegram [social media] channel and the restrictions on money transfers could all be preparation for a massive crackdown on the population or even a wave of terror, forced mobilization and a drive to overwhelm the Ukrainian defenses with human bodies.
How far will they go? Will they provoke resistance? These are questions that only time can answer. But the mere fact that they’ve closed down popular and essential communication channels over the internet and that they’re taking tough measures in the economic sphere indicate that they’re not thinking in terms of ending the war, renewing ties with the West, trying to satisfy the demands of justice. Far from it.
We have to hope that Ukraine can prevail in this war as soon as possible. What was created in Russia was a horrifically degraded regime, which combines the worst qualities of organized crime and communist disregard for human life. It is a danger to the whole world, including in the first order to the Russian people. Because, in fact, the greatest number of victims in terms of people killed have been Russians.
We don’t know what will happen in the coming months, but Putin may face a situation in which either he accepts a settlement or he will drive the population into unending slaughter, which would be an echo of how he came to power after all, by bombing his own people.
Dominating others is also part of the Russian mentality.
Russia is running a manpower deficit it cannot hide. Moscow wants 1,200 recruits a day, but battlefield losses of up to 35,000 a month mean it needs closer to 1,400 just to hold the front. The gap is growing, and the question is no longer whether cracks appear on the frontlines. It is how long before one of them becomes a breakthrough.
Moscow’s strategy is further strained as Ukraine continues to strike irreplaceable factories and oil facilities. A war of attrition no longer favors the Russians, and they have no easy way out of this dilemma without a fundamental change in how the conflict is fought. What is the way out for Russia when there are no easy options left?
Because the regime is not as stable as many believe, serious shifts are likely as the leadership attempts to prevent a breakdown. The Kremlin recognizes that these military and economic trends are unsustainable, which raises questions about the actual dynamics driving their daily decisions. As living standards fall and the domestic situation becomes increasingly unstable, we will find out whether the government can survive or if the mounting pressure will finally force a total collapse. How do you see it?
Well, maybe 15 days, maybe 15 weeks. And also, we won’t necessarily see the mobilization when it begins. It may already be taking place.
Russia’s a big country; they can mobilize people in remote areas relatively easily without that being known. And as we know, they’re concentrating on the poorest and most remote areas to provide recruits for this war. And it’s reasonable to assume that mobilization would be concentrated, at least initially, in those areas, for the same reason that they were singled out from the beginning, which was to maintain stability in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
But in fact, no amount of mobilization will solve the problem. Here’s the problem. If you pay someone an enormous amount of money to go and fight, his first concern is to save his own life. Because otherwise, what’s the point of the money? He’s not going to live to spend it.
Russian recruits are receiving more money than they ever dreamed of in return for a one-way ticket to the front, and a life expectancy of a couple of weeks. This is not a military that is going to be effective on the offense, and even in defensive positions is not going to be motivated by anything but a desire to survive.
If the Russian army had the spirit of a victorious army, we wouldn’t see the atrocities that are being committed by Russian commanders against Russian soldiers, who refuse to advance or hesitate to storm kill zones where there’s a zero chance of survival. If Russia now starts mobilizing people from civilian life and starts to flood the front with people who don’t want to be there, and who face absolutely horrific conditions and incompetent leadership, it can’t change the military balance on the front. The system shows signs of cracking.
Russia suffers from the lack of any type of moral orientation in society. There are Russians who understand what’s going on, but they’re a minority, and a great many of them left the country when the war began. What exists now is a population that has been thoroughly propagandized and soon may be terrorized.
Will they have the wherewithal to resist? That’s the question. And if they don’t resist, are there forces in the military and the security services themselves, who, for purely patriotic reasons, see that the country is being destroyed and will act to stop the war before it’s too late? We don’t know.
It could be that the only alternative is for Ukraine to inflict such massive defeats on Russia, that even the Putin regime will find it impossible to continue to funnel people and soldiers into the meat grinder, which is the front. Our attention in the world has been diverted to a degree by the war in Iran, and that’s understandable. But the real issue for the future of the world is the future of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
There is a lot that the US could do to put pressure on Russia, making it impossible for them to impose the kind of terror that may be coming, including sending new waves of unprepared and increasingly unwilling troops into a meat grinder which is also a form of terror. We see now the consequences of the criminality that swept Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Everyone thought it was a big joke that everything that was created by the combined efforts of the entire population could be stolen by well-connected insiders. But the deformed system that was created as a result ultimately had to rely on terror in order to maintain itself, as well as massive and continual lying in the state media.
Russia is not a normal country. It’s a country with the mentality of a movement. To justify itself, it has to be proceeding to create something great.
Russia’s current path appears to lead toward eventual destruction. In addition to its alliance with Iran, Russia is active throughout Africa in nations like Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Since Russia has operated in Africa and Latin America for decades, what is the grand purpose of this global strategy?
Why is it important to them to have an Africa legion, to intervene in Syria? Doesn’t Russia have enough problems of its own? Why is it that after the Soviet Union fell, so-called democratic Russia became, in very short order, an enemy of the West? How do we explain all these things? The reality is that Russia is not a normal country. It’s a country with the mentality of a movement. And in order to justify itself, it has to be proceeding to create something great, which of course Russia will dominate. But in the eyes of ordinary Russians, hardship is worth it. If the result is that Russia is a great power, if Russia can determine the fate of the world, if the rest of the world is afraid of Russia.
I remember once standing in a line for potatoes in the Soviet Union, and one of the men in the line started shouting, “How long can we tolerate these queues?” An old woman turned to him and said, “Never you mind, the whole world is afraid of us.”
Russians like the idea that they are great, that the world is afraid of them. They may not live the way people in the West live, and there’s some awareness of that. But they are part of a great enterprise. Before it consisted of spreading the benefits of communism to other countries. Putin tried to replace communism with the benefits of the Russian world. And finally, that could be dropped in favor of the benefits of Russian domination. But the world doesn’t want the benefits of Russian domination.
And until that mindset is ended, Russia is going to continue to be a threat, because any criminal group that comes to power in Russia can use that mindset for its own purposes, including purposes that have nothing to do with the welfare of the people who share that mentality. The unwillingness of Russians to think of themselves as individuals, and their readiness to think of themselves as part of a movement in which the individual counts for nothing creates a situation in which there’s a desperate struggle for power, because those in power can do anything they want with such a population.
In Russia, when there’s a struggle for power, the first thing that the factions want to do is seize the television tower, because once they’ve got the television tower, they can propagandize the whole population. In 1993, when Yeltsin shelled the Russian parliament, he and his allies used Russian television to defame the forces of the parliament, who, by the way, were dreaming of seizing the television tower so they could defame Yeltsin.
It never occurred to anyone that the purpose of state television was to inform people objectively. That thought would not have even crossed their minds. Television exists in order to manipulate, what else is it good for?
It is the mentality of a country which sees itself not as a nation, but as a movement. This is what makes it so vulnerable to the Putin type of leadership. And this leadership coming to power in a situation in which they can control the population can slaughter the population if that is what serves their interest.
Of course, all of this is greatly exacerbated by the fact that people in the West don’t understand it. We constantly react to the Russians as if they had a mentality, which is not the mentality of a movement, but the mentality of a free society, composed of free individuals with moral judgment and principles, which of course is not the reality. As they say, because they look like us does not mean that they think like us.
Now the US has a leadership that actually prides itself on its ignorance.
So, let me ask you a question that is seemingly simple, but perhaps more complex than what first meets the eye: For the average Russian, what is “Russianness?” What does it really mean to “be Russian?” What does that encompass or embody?
There’s a common ethnicity, although Russians actually are a fairly mixed population. There is a sense of being part of a country that has played a major role in the world. And that’s one of the reasons, of course, for the constant harping on the victory in the Second World War. This is a way of emphasizing the glory of the nation and, in the process, getting people to identify with the regime. It is one of the things that justify the authorities, even after the fall of communism.
And it’s also a tendency to defer to power, to glorify those in power, or at least excuse them. It’s political passivity, brutality toward anyone who resists domination. Dominating others is also part of the Russian mentality.
In 1839, the Marquis de Cousteau said that Russia’s goal is to dominate the countries that are nearby and terrorize the rest. And it hasn’t changed.
What was destroyed in Russia was the balance between the prerogatives of the state and the rights of the individual. In a country where people are unaccustomed to the idea that the individual has rights, there is only the rule of force. What does it mean when we say rights? We’re talking about a certain area that’s inviolable, where the government cannot interfere. Rights limit the power of the government. That’s why Russia has never had rights. Russians today have no rights, because there’s nothing the government cannot do. There are formal laws, but the government can violate them anytime it likes. And when people live without rights, they’re reduced to a herd, an uncritical herd. And it’s very easy to mobilize that herd. And by the way, there’s emotional satisfaction in being part of a herd, in Russia and in the West.
We see how mindless many so-called activists and their followers are in the West in their support of various causes. They pride themselves on being part of a movement. But they agitate within the framework of a government based on law. In Russia and in the Soviet Union, the government was itself a movement.
And the opinion of someone who is part of a movement has no importance. Instead of taking satisfaction from the expression of their own individuality, they take satisfaction from the fact that they’re part of something great, something massive, something that exists beyond themselves, something that can determine the fate of the world, something that gives their life meaning. They aren’t just living an ordinary existence, worrying about making ends meet, providing for their family. They are part of a great movement to save humanity, if not save humanity, then okay, dominate humanity, whatever you like. And this is reinforced very artfully, by state television in Russia. And the people who are doing this, the most prominent anti-Ukrainian, anti-Western commentators are saying things they don’t believe. This is how they make money.
It’s a grim situation and ultimately this is what Ukraine is trying to break away from. I know that Ukrainians, of course, will say they’re fighting for their nation. They’re fighting for their separate culture. They’re fighting for the right to determine their future. All that’s true.
But at the most fundamental level, given the fact that many Ukrainians and Russians have a common history or had a common history, they are breaking away from a destructive mentality and becoming normal people, not allowing Ukraine to be subjected anymore to the horrors that the country experienced as a result of being under Russian domination. Of course, the greatest example was the Holodomor. But that’s not the only example.
Many things that happened in Ukraine, including the Great Terror, the Gulag, even the milder repression of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, would have never happened if Ukraine had successfully wrested its independence in 1917. I’m not saying that everything would necessarily have been perfect in Ukraine. We can’t say how it would have been, but we can be reasonably sure that it would not have been so murderous and catastrophic. Ukrainians would not have faced the kind of horrors that they faced as part of the Soviet Union. I think that at some subliminal level, people in Ukraine understand this.
Ultimately, Ukrainians want to be normal people with normal opinions and normal rights and freedoms and the ability to make their own choices and to be part of Western civilization, which guarantees those things.
You point out that there is a common history for years, generations, very close relations. But for the average Russian today, who now hates Ukraine?
This all developed in the past few years. I asked a Russian recently why Russians feel that they have to destroy Ukrainians. He said it’s because Russians feel that Ukrainians betrayed them by thinking they could get away from being part of what we were. They’ve betrayed Russians by not being subordinated to them and dominated by them. It sounds almost like the attitude of an abusive spouse.
There are many people in Russia who have Ukrainian roots and vice versa. If the Ukrainians can become normal, that means there’s nothing left for the Russians to justify themselves. And that’s why they became enemies of the Ukrainians’ freedom.
But this is all artificial, incidentally. In a post-war situation, after a Ukrainian victory, Russians will go back to a relatively friendly attitude toward Ukraine.
You observe that they have a lot of shared history. But what does the future look like – after the divorce? They have built up years of hatred.
That’s what the regime tries to play on. But this is all sustained through the combination of war and state television. And it may soon be perpetuated with the help of terror.
But it’s artificial. What’s necessary to break Russia’s imperialistic ambitions, to break the chauvinism that Russia has? They have to lose this war. They have to lose this war because if it can’t dominate Ukraine, it’s absurd for Russia to think of itself as an empire that exerts influence in other parts of the world and over other peoples.
What Russia needs more than anything else is a truth commission which will reveal to Russian people all of the crimes, beginning with the 1999 apartment bombings that brought Putin to power and including Beslan, Nord-Ost, the Malaysian airline, the murders of opposition figures.
It is necessary to discredit once and for all the mentality that has dominated Russia to create the conditions for a different kind of historical development. And Ukraine, for all of the suffering that the Ukrainians have endured, could be the catalyst for what is actually, once they are victorious, as we hope and pray they will be, for a process that ultimately will actually be good for Russia.
We’re at a critical point, and it’s disappointing and terribly worrying that what we have in the United States is a leadership whose knowledge of this area is so non-existent. Before we had specialists on Russia who didn’t really understand Russia very well. Nonetheless, they could distinguish certain very basic things and had some sort of commitment to internationally accepted moral standards.
Now we have a leadership that actually prides itself on its ignorance. It doesn’t consider that knowledge is even necessary and operates on instincts that are taken from the world of crooked business and applies them to a situation defined by fundamental moral issues. This is a tragedy for Russia and Ukraine. It’s also a tragedy for the United States and our standing in the world.