WASHINGTON, DC – It is easy to see who is losing the most from the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Ukrainian civilians, victims of war crimes and missile terror, and the millions around the world for whom food is now more expensive, because Russia has until recently been blocking Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea (and launching strikes on Ukrainian ports even after agreeing to a ceasefire). But who exactly is winning from this dreadful conflict?

The Russian authorities are behaving as if things are going well for them. Their tone is arrogant, and they respond to entreaties with disdain. Their media proxies threaten to blow up Europe one day and, when rebuked, to destroy the world the next day. And now Russia is choking off the supply of natural gas to Europe – throwing its weight around as if victory is just around the corner.

But all of this is just a bizarre delusion. In fact, Russia is losing the war badly in both military and economic terms.

On the military front, the Russian position looks increasingly dire. After suffering a catastrophic defeat in its initial attempt to take Kyiv and Kharkiv, in recent months the Russians gained some territory in the Donbas region. But this advance was entirely due to massive artillery bombardment. Now that the Ukrainians have longer-range artillery, this Russian advantage is dwindling rapidly.

Kherson, in southern Ukraine, provides an instructive example. The Russians have positioned an army group on the western side of the Dnipro River, supplied primarily over a big bridge, which long-range Ukrainian missile strikes recently rendered unusable. No supplies, ammunition, or fresh troops can reach the stranded Russian forces. This looks like a turning point.

Another big defeat looms on the economic front. The pre-invasion Russian economy was based on energy exports – oil, gas, and coal, in that order of importance – supported by foreign direct investment and a flow of people and ideas that had deepened greatly over the past three decades. All of this is fading fast. Western companies are pulling out their skilled people and technology. Sanctions on coal exports are beginning to bite. And now the Russians are starting a self-destructive confrontation with Europe by weaponizing its exports of natural gas.

Perhaps the major Russian achievement since the end of the Cold War was to persuade Germany and other parts of Europe that it could be trusted as a long-term partner in the supply of gas. This trust is now destroyed. No one in Europe should want to rely on Russian energy supplies for decades, or perhaps for as long as the world uses fossil fuels.

Very soon, Russia will have just one major export: crude oil. For a renegade state, crude oil is an ideal resource. It can be loaded onto a tanker and sold anywhere in the world. Much of this market is already shady, and many customers, for example in India and China, prefer not to ask too many questions.

But Russia is a big oil exporter – attempting to move around four million barrels of crude per day by sea. A decent-sized tanker can carry about one million barrels, and it takes about 20 days to move it from Ust-Luga (an important Russian port in the Baltics) to the west coast of India. The Russians need to mobilize a vast fleet – hundreds of tankers – along with all the financial services needed to support these transactions. And they need this fleet to operate 24/7, without disruption.

To keep its economy functioning, Russia needs to organize something akin to the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift – except this time the task is lifting oil by sea out of Russia, and not for two years, but forever.

According to industry sources, around half of all suitable oil tankers are owned or controlled by European and other Western companies. Most of the trade finance and insurance used in these transactions is run out of the European Union, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan.

Instead of trying to cut off these transactions, the G7 has proposed a more robust approach: companies would be allowed to participate in moving Russian oil, but only if all involved agreed to pay no more than a capped price. Russia already accepts a substantial discount – the latest estimates for Urals crude are up to $20 per barrel below the price of the Brent benchmark. The pre-invasion discount was close to zero. Now the West is effectively pushing to increase this discount – creating a dial that can be turned to tighten the squeeze on Putin’s revenue.

When the price cap was first proposed, some commentators predicted it would drive up the world price of oil – but prices have subsequently fallen. Other observers suggested that the market would not cooperate – but oil traders and banks seem keen to continue doing business in an approved fashion. And some people fretted that not all the details were immediately in place – as if that ever happens with major policy breakthroughs.

The noose is tightening around Kherson – entirely the result of Russian aggression and over-confidence. And it is tightening around Russian oil revenues and the Russian economy for the same reasons.

BRUSSELS – Russia’s war against Ukraine has entered a new phase. The Ukrainian army is making spectacular advances, liberating many towns and villages, and forcing Russian forces to retreat. While it remains to be seen how far the Ukrainian counteroffensive will go, it is already clear that the strategic balance on the ground is shifting.

Meanwhile, the European Union has fully mobilized to confront the energy crisis. We have filled our gas storage facilities to above 80% – well ahead of the November 1 target date – and agreed to clear targets to reduce gas consumption through the winter. To help vulnerable consumers and businesses manage price surges, we are moving forward with proposals such as a windfall tax on energy companies that have made excess profits.

Moreover, in coordination with the G7 and other likeminded partners, we are discussing plans to cap the price of Russian oil exports. And we are helping our partners in the Global South to handle the fallout from Russia’s brutal aggression and cynical weaponization of energy and food.

In short: the overall strategy is working. We must continue to support Ukraine, pressure Russia with sanctions, and help our global partners in a spirit of solidarity.

Those who question whether sanctions are working are on increasingly shaky ground. In general, sanctions have a double function: to signal and to compel. The signal expresses opposition to a state’s conduct – which in this case includes violations of international law and wanton attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. And while we are not at war with Russia, the compulsion aims both to force a change in its behavior and to erode the economic and technological means for its aggression.

In a very clear signal, the EU has made the historic decision to end its reliance on Russian energy. The Kremlin has broken its contracts by dramatically reducing gas export volumes, rattling markets in the process. The ability to engage in such blackmail may seem like a Russian strength; but it ultimately is a losing strategy. Contrary to popular belief, Russia cannot easily find sustainable substitutes for the European market, because much of its gas-export infrastructure (pipelines and LNG terminals) is geared toward Europe. Redirecting the flow of gas to countries like China will take years and cost billions of dollars.

True, Russia has benefited from the recent gas-price hikes. But that doesn’t mean the sanctions have failed. Rather, we must wait to see the full effects of Europe’s decision to cut its energy imports from Russia. So far, Europe has only banned Russian coal imports and reduced its purchases of Russian oil. Yet even here, the impact has been discernible.

Russia’s coal export volumes recently fell to their lowest level since the start of the invasion, reflecting the Kremlin’s failure to find other buyers. Similarly, since the EU announced that it would reduce its imports of Russian oil by 90% by the end of 2022, oil prices have come down. And the Kremlin will be reducing its revenues by even more if it makes still more cuts to its gas deliveries to Europe.

As German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has observed, Europe may have paid a low financial price for Russian gas in the past, but that was because it was paying in terms of its security. Russia attacked Ukraine because it was convinced that the EU would be too divided and dependent on Russian energy to act. But Russian President Vladimir Putin miscalculated.

By reducing its dependence on Russian energy, Europe is freeing itself from the old belief that economic interdependence automatically reduces political tensions. This might have made sense 40 years ago, but it certainly doesn’t now, when economic interdependence has become weaponized.

But the proper response is not to turn inward. We still need an open economy; but we must not permit interdependence without resilience and diversification. We need to account for the political identities of those with whom we trade and interact. Otherwise, we will fall into the same kind of trap that Putin has been setting for 20 years.

The sanctions have demonstrably also had a compelling effect. The loss of access to Western technology has begun to hit the Russian military, whose tanks, planes, telecommunication systems, and precision weapons also rely on imported components.

Moreover, a leaked internal Russian government report warns of prolonged damage to the Russian economy from the import restrictions. In agriculture, 99% of poultry production depends on imported inputs. In aviation, 95% of passengers in Russia travel on foreign-made planes; and now, a lack of spare parts is shrinking the Russian commercial aviation fleet. In pharmaceuticals, 80% of domestic production relies on imported raw materials. Finally, in communications and information technology, Russia could run short of SIM cards by 2025, and other parts of its telecommunications sector are being set back by many years. Remember, this bleak assessment came from official internal Russian sources.

Will sanctions alone be sufficient to defeat the invader? No, but that is why we are also providing massive economic and military support to Ukraine and working to deploy an EU military training mission to strengthen the Ukrainian armed forces further. The war is not over, and Putin’s regime still holds some cards. But with the current Western strategy in place, the Kremlin will find it virtually impossible to turn the tide. Time and history are on the Ukrainians’ side – as long we stick with our strategy.

KYIV – Russia’s war against Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin began in 2014 and expanded in February, has taken a dramatic turn following Ukrainian forces’ liberation, in less than a week, of some 3,400 square miles (8,800 square kilometers) of territory in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv district. Russian strategists, apparently focused on the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country’s south, were unprepared for the attacks, and Russia’s poorly trained and poorly led troops were no match for their highly competent and motivated Ukrainian counterparts.

What happened was a turn, but not yet a turning point, in the war. It is too soon to extrapolate from Ukraine’s gains in one area, much less conclude that what happened in Kharkiv is a harbinger for the entire country. Russia still occupies the vast majority of the territory it seized in 2014 and subsequently, and many Russians regard Crimea in particular as being theirs. This suggests that taking it back would prove extremely difficult, especially as more military force is required to conduct offensive operations than to defend.

Still, what Ukraine has accomplished is significant by any measure and has led to a major shift in thinking within the Ukrainian government, as I learned firsthand in Kyiv. Months ago, the goal for many Ukrainians was the survival of an independent, viable Ukraine – even if the state was not in possession of all its territory. But the government’s war aims – the definition of what constitutes victory – are becoming more ambitious, owing to Russian brutality and Ukrainian forces’ recent territorial gains. In response to my question, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov called for the return of all the country’s land, including what Russia took in 2014. To this he added a call for economic reparations to finance a reconstruction bill estimated at $350 billion. And he insisted that those in Russia responsible for this act of aggression and associated war crimes be held legally accountable.

Recent military developments will also influence the politics of European countries, where surging energy prices have kindled opposition to providing Ukraine with arms and money. But the argument that Russian military superiority made support for Ukraine useless has now been proven wrong. With Russia cutting off gas supplies, Ukraine’s recent military success will make it easier for European governments to justify economic and personal sacrifice during what promises to be a difficult winter.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is having a powerful impact on Russian politics as well. Putin, facing growing criticism from conservative, nationalist forces at home, will have to decide whether to double down on the war effort and, if so, how to go about it. Doing more and asking more of the Russian people is not without domestic political risks, but arguably it could be less risky for him than a course of action that leads to additional, cascading military defeats.

For now, there is the prospect of several more months of intense fighting in the northeast and south of the country. Eventually, though, the scale will diminish as a result of frigid weather and the inability of either side to sustain large military operations.

This reduction in the fighting will provide time for reflection. Ukraine’s leaders will need to consider their expanding war aims and whether they are of equal priority. Here, a major consideration will be the war’s growing economic costs: loss of an estimated one-third of output, double-digit inflation, a sinking currency, skyrocketing debt, and ever-greater dependence on foreign aid. Economic reconstruction will be slowed by uncertainty over whether the conflict will continue.

Then there are the human costs. Ukraine has suffered a high number of casualties among its armed forces and civilian population, while nearly 13 million Ukrainians are internally displaced or living as refugees across Europe. Ukraine will press for a complete military victory, but hanging over this objective is the question of whether some compromise on goals, perhaps on an interim basis, might need to be explored.

Russia also faces choices. Putin retains many options that would make it more difficult for Ukraine to regain more Russian-occupied territory. Up to now, Putin has refused to acknowledge that Russia is in a war that requires widespread conscription and mobilization, either because he underestimated his foe or worried about domestic political reactions. This could change at any time, as could the Kremlin’s avoidance of attacking a NATO country or using chemical or even nuclear weapons. What Putin has to weigh is the likely military and economic response from the West and whether it would leave him better or worse off at home.

The West, for its part, should continue to provide Ukraine with the quality and quantity of military and economic support it requires. There are strong strategic reasons for doing so, including to deter future aggression by Russia, China, or anyone else. In addition, Putin and others in Russia should be made to understand the price they would pay for expanding the war geographically or by introducing weapons of mass destruction. Plans to implement such responses need to be readied if deterrence fails.

We are thus facing a winter not only of discontent (as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described it at a meeting in Kyiv last week) but also of decision. What seems certain is that the war will go on for the foreseeable future. It is inconceivable that Putin will agree to Ukrainian demands, just as it is impossible to see Ukraine settling for much (if anything) less. What remains to be seen is how decisions made away from the battlefield this winter affect the course of the war come spring.

LJUBLJANA – I once asked my younger son if he could pass the salt, only to be met with the response, “Of course I can!” When I repeated my request, he snapped back: “You asked me if I could do it, and I answered you. You didn’t tell me that I should do it.”

Who was freer in this situation – me or my son? If we understand freedom as freedom of choice, my son was freer, because he had an additional choice about how to interpret my question. He could take it literally, or he could interpret it in the usual sense, as a request that was formulated as a question out of politeness. By contrast, I effectively renounced this choice and automatically relied on the conventional sense.

Now, imagine a world where many more people acted in everyday life the way my son did when he was teasing me. We would never know for sure what our partners in conversation wanted to say, and we would lose an immense amount of time pursuing pointless interpretations. Is this not an apt description of political life over the last decade? Donald Trump and other alt-right populists have capitalized on the fact that democratic politics relies on certain unwritten rules and customs, which they have violated when it suits them, while avoiding accountability by not always explicitly breaking the law.

In the United States, Trump’s Republican Party lackeys are pursuing such a strategy ahead of the next presidential election. According to a fringe legal theory that they have embraced, a loophole in federal election law would permit a state’s legislature to appoint its own presidential electors if the secretary of state decides that he or she cannot certify the result of an election. Republican election deniers are now running for the offices that they will need to override the will of the voters in 2024. The GOP thus is attempting to destroy one of the basic conditions of democracy: that all political participants speak the same language and follow the same rules. Otherwise, a country will find itself on the verge of civil war – an outcome that almost one-half of Americans now expect.

The same conditions apply to global politics. For international relations to work, all parties must at least speak the same language when they talk about concepts like freedom and occupation. Russia obviously is undermining this condition by describing its war of aggression in Ukraine as a “special operation” to “liberate” the country. But Ukraine’s government has also fallen into this trap. Addressing the Israeli Knesset on March 20, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “We are in different countries and in completely different conditions. But the threat is the same: for both us and you – the total destruction of the people, state, culture. And even of the names: Ukraine, Israel.”

Palestinian political scientist Asad Ghanem described Zelensky’s speech as “a disgrace when it comes to global struggles for freedom and liberation, particularly of the Palestinian people.” Zelensky “reversed the roles of occupier and occupied.” I agree. And I also agree with Ghanem that, “every possible support must be given to Ukrainians as they resist [Russia’s] barbaric aggression.” Without Western military support, most of Ukraine would now be under Russian occupation, destroying a pillar of international peace and order: the integrity of borders.

Unfortunately, Zelensky’s Knesset speech was not a singular event. Ukraine regularly takes public positions in support of the Israeli occupation. In 2020, it quit the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; and just last month, its ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, declared that: “As a Ukrainian whose country is under a very brutal attack by its neighbor, I feel great sympathy towards the Israeli public.”

This parallel between Israel and Ukraine is totally misplaced. If anything, the Ukrainians’ situation is closest to that of the West Bank Palestinians’. Yes, Israelis and Palestinians at least acknowledge their adversaries’ otherness, whereas Russia claims that Ukrainians are really just Russians. But not only does Israel deny that the Palestinians are a nation (as Russia does with Ukraine); the Palestinians also have been denied a place in the Arab world (like Ukrainians vis-à-vis Europe before the war). Moreover, like Russia, Israel is a nuclear-armed military superpower that is de facto colonizing a smaller, much weaker entity. And like Russia in the occupied parts of Ukraine, Israel is practicing a politics of apartheid.

While Israel’s leaders welcome Ukraine’s support, they have not returned the favor. Instead, they have oscillated between Russia and Ukraine, because Israel needs Russia’s continuing toleration of its own military strikes on targets in Syria. But Ukraine’s full support for Israel mainly reflects its leaders’ ideological interest in presenting their struggle as a defense of Europe and European civilization against a barbaric, totalitarian East.

This framing of the fight is untenable, because it requires glossing over Europe’s own roles in slavery, colonialism, fascism, and so forth. It is crucial that Ukraine’s cause be defended in universal terms, around shared concepts and interpretations of words like “occupation” and “freedom.” To reduce Ukraine’s war to a struggle for Europe is to use the same framing as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “court philosopher” Aleksandr Dugin, who draws a line between “Russian truth” and “European truth.” Confining the conflict to Europe reinforces Russia’s own global propaganda, which presents the invasion of Ukraine as an act of decolonization – part of the struggle against Western neoliberal domination and a necessary step toward a multipolar world.

By treating Israel’s colonization of the West Bank as a defensive struggle for freedom, Ukraine is validating another power’s aggression and thus compromising its own fully justified struggle for freedom. Sooner or later, it will have to make a choice. Will it be truly European, by participating in the universal emancipatory project that defines Europe? Or will it become a part of the new right’s populist wave?

When Ukraine asked the West, “Can you pass the howitzers?” the West did not cynically quip, “Yes, we can!” and then do nothing. Western countries replied reasonably by sending weapons to fight the occupiers. Yet when Palestinians ask for support of any kind, they receive nothing but empty statements, often accompanied by declarations of solidarity with their oppressor. When they ask for the salt, it is handed to their opponent.

ATLANTA – In early August, the Russian occupiers of the port of Mariupol demolished a monument to the city’s Ukrainian defenders. Soon after, plans were announced to replace it with a statue of Alexander Nevsky, a thirteenth-century medieval Russian warlord known for his military exploits against the Swedes and the Teutonic knights.

Not long before, the Russian nationalist website Regnum had published an article entitled “New Assault on Rus: What Unites the Battle of the Neva and the Special Operation in Ukraine,” which favorably compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Nevsky. Depicting Putin’s “special operation in Ukraine” as part of a war that the West has waged against Russia since the Middle Ages, the article warned that “the Fatherland is in danger,” and described both Nevsky and Putin as “national leaders” around whom the Russian people should rally.

Such medieval analogies are nowadays all too typical in Putin’s Russia. In another recent article, published by FederalPress, Putin’s brutalization of Ukraine is likened to Russia’s tenth-century conversion to Christianity under another medieval Russian warlord, Vladimir the Saint. Again, the West – and Ukraine especially – is said to represent “pagans” and “Satanists” who are threatening Russian traditional values.

And not to be left out, the Russian government’s official newspaper, Gazeta.Ru, recently published an article entitled “What Do the Baptism of Rus and the Special Operation in Ukraine Have in Common?” Parroting Putin’s claim that the adoption of Christianity established the foundations of the Russian state, the article presents the “special military operation” as a kind of second baptism, implying that it is just as important as the original for fostering the Orthodox faith and Russia’s nationhood. The article then goes on to slander the Ukrainian people:

“The Ukronazis have no morality, they do not reason in moral terms and are not afraid of God’s punishment for their atrocities. Many of the Ukronazis are open Satanists and followers of misanthropic cults, who make sacrifices and commit ritual murders.”

The striking similarities between these analyses are not surprising. According to Meduza, an independent Russian news agency based in Latvia, state-connected media outlets are simply cribbing directly (without attribution) from propaganda booklets by leading Kremlin ideologists. Particularly since the invasion of Ukraine, the entire Russian propaganda machine has been cranked into high gear to justify the war on neomedieval grounds.

To those outside Russia, it might seem strange that the Kremlin expects Russians to believe such historically absurd and politically preposterous claims. But the glorification of Russia’s medieval past has been a long-running domestic project under Putin. For two decades, the Kremlin has been carrying out a “special operation” on Russians’ historical memory, aggressively reshaping their self-perception and understanding of the past. By doubling down on this rhetoric now, Russia’s leaders are betting that their strategy will succeed.

The Medieval Looking Glass

While the cult of Nevsky has long played an important role in this multifaceted memory politics, Nevsky’s historical legacy is ambivalent. The Prince of Novgorod did indeed win several military victories against the Swedes and the Germans. But he ruled on behalf of the Mongols, whose brutal conquest is still remembered for the atrocities committed in what is now Russia. As a loyal vassal, Nevsky not only paid tribute to the Mongols but also suppressed his own compatriots’ attempts to revolt against them.

Obviously, Nevsky’s submission to the Mongols complicates the Kremlin’s efforts to depict him as a model patriot. That is why even mentioning the prince’s “collaboration with the Mongols” can get you a summons to the prosecutor’s office, as happened last year to Sergei Chernyshov, a college administrator in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, who dared to share that historical fact on Facebook.

Putin is not the first Russian despot to use Nevsky in his propaganda. Nevsky was canonized in 1547 under Ivan the Terrible (1533-84), who relied on the cult of Nevsky to legitimize his rule. Two centuries later, Peter the Great celebrated his own victory over Sweden in the Northern War (1700-21) by transferring Nevsky’s ashes to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in his new capital, Saint Petersburg.

In the twentieth century, the Soviet historical memory of Nevsky was heavily influenced by Sergei Eisenstein’s 1938 film, Alexander Nevsky, which focuses on the prince’s successful campaigns against Russia’s enemies in the West. When Stalin addressed Russian troops in November 1941, five months after the Nazi invasion, he invoked Nevsky to inspire patriotism and courage in the ranks.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Nevsky’s name languished in obscurity until December 2008. That year, viewers of the TV show Name of Russia voted Stalin “the most important state leader of the past,” apparently demonstrating the success of a re-Stalinization campaign that Putin’s Kremlin propaganda machine had been carrying out through media proxies. But because the Kremlin did not want to go too far, it intervened to revise the ranking, replacing Stalin as Russia’s main national hero with Nevsky, who seemed a more neutral symbol of military glory.

Then, in June 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, Putin announced plans to celebrate Nevsky’s 800th birthday in 2021. And in 2017, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, did his own part to boost the prince’s image in the minds of the faithful. According to Kirill:

“Those who tried to control Russia from the East were interested in our purses, while those who tried to control us from the West were interested in our souls. [...] Russia did not lose its identity in the aftermath of captivity by the Horde [the Mongols], it did not lose its faith, it didn’t even lose its state structure.”

In contrast, Kirill continued, if the crusaders or Westerners had succeeded in conquering it, “Rus as a historical, cultural, spiritual phenomenon would have ceased to exist.”

When 2021 rolled around, the Kremlin held an exhibition featuring the prince’s ashes, organized several conferences, and sponsored performances honoring him in Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Novgorod, Vladimir, and other cities. Addressing attendees at one of the major Nevsky conferences, Putin called him “a great son of our Fatherland.”

Today, two churches dedicated to Nevsky are currently under construction, and a 50-foot monument now stands on the banks of Chudskoe Lake, located on the border with Estonia, where Nevsky won his battle against the crusaders. This installation is especially belligerent, because it is visible in Estonia and clearly meant to be interpreted not only as a reminder of past military confrontations, but of Estonia’s long subjugation within the Russian and Soviet empires.

Czarry-Eyed History

Putin’s exaltation of Nevsky emerged from his earlier efforts to rehabilitate the historical memory of Ivan the Terrible. In the 2010s, the Kremlin launched a massive campaign celebrating this most vicious of Russian czars, but it soon ran into resistance.

As his name suggests, Ivan established a regime of brutal state terror, known as “the Oprichnina” (1565-72), and, until recently, his legacy was rightly damned. But in 2016, the first (in Russian history) equestrian monument to Ivan the Terrible was erected in the city of Orel, and others have since appeared in Alexandrov (the capital of the Oprichnina), Moscow, and Cheboksary. Through government-financed films and TV series, state-sponsored historical conferences, and exhibitions, Ivan is now commended as a great state leader and empire builder. Even his use of terror is now extolled as the most effective means of governing Russia.

But this campaign to glorify Ivan met with pushback in Russia’s then-surviving liberal media and in Tatarstan, an autonomous republic with a large Muslim population, whose capital, Kazan, Ivan conquered in 1552. In seeking a broader base for its neomedieval politics, the Kremlin thus shifted its focus to Nevsky. As a saint who fought against the abhorrent West and not against the ancestors of the Kremlin’s current subjects, he is far less controversial in today’s domestic context.

Moreover, Nevsky is an ideal avatar for the Kremlin’s antidemocratic values. A return to a society of estates, theocratic monarchy, and empire have been propagated most aggressively by the Kremlin’s proxies – Aleksandr Dugin’s neofascist International Eurasia Movement and the Izborsky Club, the main forum of the Russian far right.

In addition to Ivan the Terrible and Nevsky, Putin has also sought to glorify Prince Vladimir, the tenth-century ruler of Kievan Rus’ best known for his adoption of Orthodox Christianity in 988. In November 2016, a 57-foot monument to Vladimir was placed in front of the Kremlin in Moscow, most likely in celebration of the annexation of Crimea. Both Russia and Ukraine claim the prince as their own, and the Moscow monument was clearly designed to compete with the 1853 Prince Vladimir Monument in Kyiv. At the dedication ceremony, Putin said:

“Prince Vladimir will forever be remembered as a gatherer and defender of the Russian lands – a farsighted politician who laid the foundations of a strong, unitary, centralized state that unified mutually equal peoples, languages, cultures, and religions into one large family.”

Andrei Kravchuk’s 2016 neomedieval propaganda film Viking throws additional light on the agenda behind the monument. The film – which the Kremlin now touts as a paramount achievement of post-Soviet cinema – tells the story of the Viking prince Vladimir and his conquest of Korsun (the Slavic name for Chersonesus, an ancient Greek city in Crimea). Kravchuk depicts Vladimir as a noble, fearless warrior and a wise, pleasantly engaging leader. The film’s militant tagline, “To Korsun we go!,” evokes the infamous 2014 “Crimea is ours!” campaign. Kravchuk thus echoes Putin’s own justification for annexing Crimea. Both speak of “Korsun,” the place “where Prince Vladimir was baptized prior to baptizing Rus’,” as Putin put it in his December 2014 address to the Federal Assembly. 

Relegislating the Past

Russian state officials consider any criticism of Russia’s medieval history and its rulers to be part of an eternal “information war” that the West is waging against Russia to advance its eternal goal: the dissolution of the Russian state. Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s minister of culture between 2012 and 2020, actively promoted this conspiracy theory – along with the veneration of Ivan and Nevsky.

Putin’s neomedieval memory politics are not limited to propaganda and cultural exhibitions. In 2004, Putin did away with the Soviet tradition of commemorating the October Revolution on November 7. Instead, Russians would mark a new state holiday, National Unity Day, on November 4, in memory of Russia’s “liberation from the Polish occupation of 1612,” which ended the catastrophic period known as the Time of Troubles. This period – an outcome of Ivan’s own policies (an irony that is perhaps lost on Putin) – included Russia’s defeat in the Livonian War (1558-83), widespread social unrest, and a large-scale famine. While hinting that Putin’s accession to power terminated the 1990s “Time of Troubles,” the new holiday also suggested continuity between Russian czarism and Putin’s rule.

Similarly, in 2020, Putin engineered a constitutional amendment to include a reference to “Russia’s millennial history” (and mentions of God), as well as an explicit claim on Ukraine. As the place where the history of Rus began, Kyiv supposedly has been an integral part of Russia ever since the Middle Ages. More recently, Putin made these claims explicit in a long article that he published in July 2021, in which he invoked Russia’s medieval past and argued that Russia and Ukraine “are the same people.”

A Global Movement

In pressing the politics of neomedieval history, Putin’s purpose is to deny the viability of democracy and to justify social inequalities, autocracy, terror, and an aggressive imperial foreign policy. His ultimate objectives are thus hardly unique. Medieval fantasies are typical of right-wing movements around the world. In the United States, neomedieval symbols have featured prominently among far-right marchers and rioters from Charlottesville to the US Capitol. Those hoping to overturn the 2020 election have even adopted the Kraken, a gigantic sea creature in ancient Scandinavian folklore. The QAnon conspiracy theory with its claims that former President Donald Trump is fighting a Satan-worshipping cabal, is distinctly neomedieval.

Trump and his associates frequently allude to this fantasy world. Faced with criticism that his US-Mexico border wall was “medieval,” Trump replied, “They say it’s a medieval solution, a wall. It’s true, because it worked then, and it works even better now.” Similarly, Trump’s White House strategist Steve Bannon openly declared that he would “like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put the heads on pikes. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats.” And, of course, some of the insurrectionists at the Capitol wore Viking costumes and wanted to “Hang Mike Pence.”

Admirers of neomedievalism are naturally attracted to violence, regardless of where they live. When confronted with the fact that Putin “is a killer,” Trump defended him, asking, “You think our country’s so innocent?” And Bannon speaks approvingly of both Putin and Dugin, a fascist who wants to subjugate Ukraine and eradicate Ukrainian nationhood.

True, the US lags far behind Russia in its embrace of neomedieval politics. But like Putin and his cronies, Trump and his fellow Republicans increasingly share the same goal. They want to undermine democratic institutions and replace them with older alternative forms of political and social organization. Appeals to the “past” – especially a medieval one – serve to historicize and excuse existing inequalities, while advancing a new system of political subjugation.

The crisis of democracy has contributed significantly to the rise of neomedieval memory politics around the world. Although Russia (that Jurassic Park of previously extinct ideologies) is infamous for pushing atavistic ideas far out of proportion, Putinism nonetheless is a warning for others. Its nostalgic fixation on turning back the Enlightenment has immense political potential and cannot be dismissed as a purely aesthetic or nostalgic movement.

MOSCOW – The West and the Kremlin have one thing in common: both like to point out that Russian President Vladimir Putin has an 80% approval rating, and opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Russians support the war in Ukraine. What was once carefully referred to as “Putin’s war” has now become “Russia’s war” – or so it seems. In fact, polling and focus groups conducted by the independent Levada Center reveal a picture that is more nuanced than the headline figures suggest.

For starters, support for the Kremlin’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine is not necessarily wholehearted. In August, less than half of survey respondents (46%) reported that they “definitely support” the Russian military’s activities, with 30% saying that they “mostly support” it (figures that have barely changed since April).

For the latter group, backing the war is probably less a matter of conviction than of conformism. Some respondents have commented, for example, that they cannot know exactly what is going on, indicating that the government knows best. People in this group might have some doubts – they are more likely to express fear and anxiety over the conflict, and unlikely to express pride – but the desire to remain in their psychological and intellectual comfort zone prevails.

That comfort zone is built largely on the belief that, fundamentally, this is a defensive war. First, most Russians are convinced that the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine – particularly in the eastern Donbas region – was under attack. In fact, most of those who expressed support for the war highlighted the need to protect this group. For them, this imperative justifies actions that might otherwise seem unthinkable.

Second, Russians – especially older Russians – largely believe that their country had to “fight back” against those that would seek to destroy it. In February 2022 – just before Russia’s latest invasion – 60% of survey respondents reported that the United States and NATO were to blame for the conflict in Donbas, where war has been raging since 2014. That figure was up ten percentage points from the previous November.

As widespread as these beliefs are, the Ukraine war still has plenty of detractors in Russia. Currently, about 17-20% of Russians say that they do not agree with their country’s actions in Ukraine, up from 14% in March. This group is dominated by young urban dwellers who consume news from the internet, rather than state-controlled television, though people who fit this description were still more likely than not to support the “special operation.”

The only category of people in which a majority opposed the war comprised those who broadly disapprove of Putin, the Russian government, and the State Duma. These people voted against the 2020 amendments to Russia’s constitution (which enabled Putin to reset the term limits of his office and prolong his rule until 2036), have a history of supporting opposition figures, and attended anti-Putin protests early last year. This group is also more likely to hold positive views of the West.

But Russians with long histories of dissent are not alone; more Russians oppose the fighting in Ukraine today than did after the violence first erupted in 2014. No more than 10% spoke out against the annexation of Crimea – half the number who declare their opposition to the war in Ukraine today – and only 11-12% of people said they were dissatisfied with Putin eight years ago, compared to 15-16% today.

Even as the ranks of antiwar Russians have grown, however, the likelihood of antiwar protests has plummeted. It is not difficult to understand why. Taking part in unsanctioned protests is now punishable by hefty fines and prison sentences for repeat offenses. Moreover, Russians can face criminal charges for inciting “others to take part in unsanctioned protests” or for “discrediting the Russian armed forces.” And the nationwide ban on mass events, introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, has yet to be lifted.

The will to rebel is further depleted by simple desensitization. “People have gotten accustomed to what is happening and have simply stopped paying attention,” one survey respondent explained. As long as there is no military mobilization and the most dissatisfied Russians are able to leave the country, a sense of normality prevails.

Of course, there are challenges that cannot be ignored, such as higher prices and the loss of savings. But, much like the pandemic, the conflict is viewed as a storm that must simply be weathered. While most Russians hope it will end soon – even among the war’s supporters, many would like Russia simply to declare victory and agree to peace terms – they are bracing themselves for an extended conflict and confrontation with the West.

Regardless, Russians seem willing to assume that things will eventually return to normal. “I think everything will work out soon,” one respondent noted. “It will sort itself out one way or another,” said a second.

In the meantime, there is little reason to think Putin’s regime is in any real danger. Russians largely blame their current struggles on the US, Europe, and NATO – an impression that sanctions have done nothing to dispel. Moreover, both the political opposition and civil society have been destroyed, and the threat of repression looms large. Putin is also ready to suppress those ultra-nationalists who think he is too soft. Imperialism and war are his niche, and he will surrender it to no one.

The question is whether the further deterioration of socioeconomic conditions could cause Russians to turn on Putin. After all, anti-government protests in Russia have often been sparked by unexpected developments in unexpected places. And before long, Russia will be headed into its next presidential election campaign, which will require Putin to articulate a powerful new vision to Russians. The war in Ukraine alone is not enough. That bullet has already been fired – and hasn’t stopped ricocheting.