Why Russia is happy in the war: the event is in vain hopes that Putin's subjects will get tired

For the Russians, independence, which they are ordered to celebrate on June 12, is simply an oath of loyalty to the state, writes historian Anastasia Edel in a column for The Atlantic. In the end, Putin managed to achieve national unity, which fully corresponds to the Russian tradition on June 12, Russia will celebrate Independence Day.

This holiday was introduced by President Boris Yeltsin in 1992 under the collective shrugging: "From whom Russia proclaimed independence?" But in the early 2000s, President Vladimir Putin made this day a major national celebration, which was accompanied by flags.

In the last two years, the "Day of Russia", as it is called in the people, went beyond the reproduction of historical military victories and has become a celebration of Russia's invasion of Ukraine - with charitable auctions and auto ragages to support the army - and flash mobs that demonstrate national unity. Even if you reject propaganda, Russia really looks surprisingly only.

Despite the heavy losses in the war, which, according to the intelligence of the United Kingdom, reached 500,000 people, and almost complete isolation from the West, Russian society has not broken up. On the contrary, it seems that it functions better than before the war, and demonstrates clear signs of once elusive social cohesion.

One of the explanations of this paradox - national prosperity in the midst of a disaster - is that, unlike the Western powers, designed to protect the interests of its citizens, Russian society acts for one purpose: to serve the interests of their warring. In rigid autocracy, since the nation emerged from the Mongol rule in the 15th century (including seven decades of totalitarianism in the 20th century), the Russian government has never had an effective division of power.

For most of the history, the state has left little opportunities for true political debate or dissent, and the judicial system obeyed orders of its rulers. In my childhood, at the end of the Soviet years, at school we were killed in mind that personality and rights are not very important: "I am the last letter of the alphabet," we told us.

It is the conquest of the personality of the team embodied by the Russian state, the reason that the paths have been able to mobilize society for war so easily. Prior to the invasion of a quarter of the Russians, they already believed that the state had the right to defend its interests at the expense of personality rights. More than two years after the start of the mass support of the war in Ukraine reaches an average of 75 percent.

So who will stop the Russian autocrat? In peacetime, conformism, nepotism, poor rule of law and corruption do not inspire the innovations and initiative necessary for economic development. But when the war comes, Russia suddenly begins to come to life.

The same things that prevent Russia from remaining peaceful - the rigidity of its authoritarianism; its centralized system of government, which goes from top to bottom; its mechanism of repression; But its Kremlin economy - become the advantage of conflict, as they allow the government to quickly and mercilessly mobilize society and industry for their military efforts, compensating for technological backwardness and social atomization.

The war gives meaning to the existence of the state: the protection of Russians from enemies. In other words, Russia is created for war. The restored energy of Russia is obvious: in 2023 its GDP increased by 3. 6 percent due to the military spending of the government; It is expected that growth will continue in 2024. The outflow of capital from the economy has finally ended, allowing to promote grand infrastructure projects.

Instead of empty shelves provided by foreign commentators, the Russians continue to enjoy their favorite foods - rebranded for domestic names - thanks to the purchase of Kremlin insiders or the capture of assets of Western companies that left the Russian market after the invasion.

Doubtful schemes bypassing economic sanctions have also allowed Russia to obtain strategic technologies and components, including those needed for its weapons, and this, in turn, created profitable opportunities for Russian entrepreneurs. The country is bathed in money: revenues have increased in all directions. Payroll when entering military service is not less than eight times higher than the country's average.

One -time payment to the wounded or relatives of the victims is enough to buy previously inaccessible apartments, cars and consumer goods. Russian media, official and unofficial, are full of stories similar to the history of Alexei Voronin, who does not regret that he fought in Ukraine, despite the fact that he lost part of his leg there. 'Now I have everything', ”he says after the camera shows how he plays a computer game.

His mother agrees that her son was lucky - he "only came on a mine", while several of his unifferenties were killed. The situation on the front also improved last year. Volunteers continue to enroll in war, depriving Putin's need to declare another mobilization.

Compared to the prospects for soldiers at the beginning of the invasion, the chances of surviving are now much higher: the Russian military has the best weapons and supplies, partly due to the readiness of civilians in the field of ammunition production to work around the clock, produce artillery shells and drones, ahead of Ukrainian and Western production.

"For our guys" and "We will win!" - We read graffiti on Russian rockets and bombs that sow destruction in Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities and towns. Such confidence is not just Russian chauvinism. Changing the command and improving logistics, Moscow gained certain positions in Ukraine, neutralizing last year's Ukrainian counter-offensive. Russian communication units have also learned how to make Western satellite systems and high -precision weapons.

Meanwhile, Russia has expanded the theater of war in its favor. She staged successful sabotage operations in Europe. It increased its influence in Africa: by absorbing Wagner PEC into its official army, Moscow strengthened its relations with various governments and local warlords.

As a self -proclaimed leader in the global struggle against American hegemony, Russia has successfully cared for the regimes hostile to the United States, including Iran and North Korea, as well as more allegedly neutral countries such as China, India, Hungary and Brazil. Russia is far from diplomatic isolation. Putin's approval ratings remain high.

As the Kremlin propaganda calls it the president of wartime, which protects Russia from NATO and the West, Putin has increased the number of supporters. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny died; Other dissidents were expelled, imprisoned or killed, so no alternative views or narratives can break into the Russians.

Instead of protesting against a war, which for many literally kills their relatives (about 11 million Russians had relatives in Ukraine at the beginning of the invasion), young Russians are lineting today to stare their eyes at NATO captured tanks and gather for patriotic singers concerts where, almost in religious uplift, "Russia" is scanning. At least some of this passion looks real. More than half of the Russians are confident that their country is moving in the right direction.

Of course, Russia is hardly unique that it uses a powerful movement for national unity in the fight against imaginary external threat. The Russian feature is that its autocratic leaders always position their aggression as protection, and the Russian people invariably agrees with them. Princes of medieval Muscovy under the guise of "collection of Russian lands" were captured by neighboring territories.

The kings of the 18th and 19th centuries expanded this alleged protection of the Mother-Russia, annexing Crimea, the Baltic countries, Finland, Poland and the Caucasus. In the 20th century, the Bolsheviks "defended the achievements of the revolution" in the provinces of the Russian Empire, which proclaimed their independence, forcing them to return to the communist yoke.

The Kremlin mythology of the offensive as defense was facilitated by two major invasions: Napoleononovsk in the early 1800's and the Nazi in the 1940s. These national resistance lessons cost millions of lives, but the official pieth is ordered that this victim has made Russia great. Putin continued his tradition under his new leadership, conducting imperialist wars in Chechnya, Georgia, and now in Ukraine.

For decades, his propaganda machine has used a real injury to the Nazi invasion to support the fiction that all evil has come to Russia from the West, which envy the greatness and resources of Russia, and therefore the duty of every Russian is to rise and fight it. The Putin War in Ukraine causes more harm than Russia has suffered for many decades. Putin sacrifices the future of Russia and its people to wage his colonial war.

A third of the Russian state budget is now allocated to these efforts, a large part of which consists of a simple fire rain in the battles in Ukraine. This money will not be spent on schools, hospitals or social services. Half a million young people lie dead in zinc coffins or sit in wheelchairs. Civil people pay for their compassion the complete suppression of civil society, the lack of freedom of speech and strict restrictions on movement.

However, any expectations that the Russians at some point will be responsible for all this on their government is false. In Russia, suffering is part of the agreement. Everyone stands in benches. Soviet tanks are taken from repositories and sent to the front, the bakery is transferred to the production of drones, the kindergartens are weaving camouflage nets.

Businessmen who have lost their Italian real estate are experiencing this trouble and buying new palaces in Dubai for expense from state military contracts. The denunciation and persecution of saboteurs is not just a summer camp game. All on the armored train! This wicked symbiosis of war and the obedient people is bad news for the free world.

This means that Putin has managed to mobilize Russia to realize his dreams of dominance, and Russia can endlessly indulge in its expansionist mania, especially because the response of the West is restrained by the fear of escalation. But Putin has already resorted to escalation, expanding the geography of the conflict with his hybrid warfare, psychological operations and interventions in Africa. This threat should be taken seriously and answer.

And here you can give another lesson from Russian history. As Napoleon and Hitler found, the transfer of conflict to Russian land can have a devastating price. But the defeat in the war beyond can be fatal for Moscow authorities.

Only by faced with such military disaster and humiliation, the Russian autocracy shakes and collapses: it was affected by failures in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, which accelerated the abolition of serfdom, and in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904 Parliament and Constitution; The Romanov dynasty did not stand the collapse of the First World War; And the humiliation of the mighty Red Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s was one of the nails in the USSR coffin.

A year ago, at the height of the Russian campaign in Ukraine, Putin survived the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigogine; Since then, the Russian army has resumed its positions, and Putin's reign has stabilized. But if Ukraine is able to win, Putin's narrative as a great defender of Russia will no longer be convincing, and changing the regime will become possible again. And by that time, the safety of the world will always be threatened with the "nation of the winners" as Russia likes to call itself.