Reporter's Notebook: In Russia 'there is no such thing as support in a non-free society'

How is Vladimir Putin hanging connected to power, having dragged his group into specified a disastrous war? I inquire 1 of Russia’s astir well-known governmental scientists.

"That a good, straightforward American-style question," Ekaterina Schulmann, presently a chap astatine nan Robert Bosch Academy successful Berlin, replies, delving into explanation. Beyond pointing retired that dictators often outlive disastrous wars, she explains that nan Russian authorities whitethorn beryllium corrupt, but it is besides highly functional connected galore levels. 

"Right now nan system is still functioning because Russia is simply a partially marketplace economy, which makes it much adaptable and resilient than nan Soviet model. Administration, particularly civic administration, is moving nan state successful a much aliases little businesslike manner. There has not been a illness of nationalist transportation, nationalist services, wellness care, education, and equipment are supplied to shops."

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A personification is detained by constabulary during an anti-war protestation successful Moscow connected Feb. 24, 2022, aft Russia launched its penetration of Ukraine. (Reuters/Denis Kaminev)

What Russia is not, she adds, contempt each its manufactured patriotic fervor, yearly subject parades and paeans to nan hypersonic missiles successful its arsenal, is simply a "militarized society." By marching headlong into war, nan Kremlin is playing pinch fire, Schulmann says. 

"It has group itself a task it is not very good adapted to. It is not a subject dictatorship. It's a bureaucratic autocracy, a personalized autocracy, a kleptocracy successful economical terms," Schulmann posits, adding that nan state has been surviving good disconnected its assets distribution for nan past mates decades but now has "entered 1 of nan very fewer spheres of reality wherever you can’t dishonesty your measurement out, wherever hypocrisy, imitation and articulator work are not everything."

With immense battlefield losses racking up, well-documented shortcomings of nan military, and disapproval of really poorly Russia has prepared its men for war, location is still precocious support for Putin’s "Special Military Operation," arsenic he insists connected calling nan invasion of Ukraine.  

The latest somewhat reliable canvass puts support for nan warfare astatine 75%. But Schulmann argues that canvass numbers are not what they look since location is simply a precocious complaint of refusal to participate. She says thing for illustration 90% to 95% of Russians often garbage to return portion successful sentiment polls aliases bail retired erstwhile nan taxable becomes excessively political.  

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The Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and St. Basil's Cathedral successful Moscow. (Reuters/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo)

"There is nary specified point arsenic support successful a non-free society," she says, adding that galore Russians conscionable judge nan position quo because it’s easier. But she believes immoderate existent ideologically driven support for nan warfare would beryllium location astir 20% to 30% and nan biggest demographic successful that group would beryllium older men.

What astir dissent successful nan ranks of nan soul circle? "What we tin presume is that location is ongoing computation successful nan minds of nan elites arsenic to whether it’s amended to instrumentality to nan position quo aliases effort to alteration it," she said. Schulmann believes nan existent calculation is that it would beryllium much vulnerable for them to effort change. "We should not underestimate nan powerfulness of inertia," she says. "The ruling classes are not nan fastest thinkers."

But really has this bloody twelvemonth changed nan cloth of Russian society? Other than wide nervousness and a definite nonaccomplishment of spirit, Schulmann says, not much.

Ukrainian subject fires rockets astatine Russian positions adjacent Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, connected Nov. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Libkos, File)

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"Russia is not being turned into immoderate benignant of unified, fresh for action bloodthirsty fascist group of people," Schulmann concludes. "Those who talk loudest and pull astir attraction are not astir typical of nan temper of society. Unfree societies are mostly silent."