On this Back Story an interview with Jade McGlynn, from the Department of War Studies at Kings College on Putin's Russia.
Dana Lewis speaks to McGlynn about how Putin uses politics of the past to frame his war in Ukraine, and campaign for a new Russian Empire.
Some of the methods were used by Soviet leaders of the past.
They are lies wrapped in powerful emotive images of Russia's Great Patriotic War, distortions of history that become consumable for a Russian's, who may understand the narratives are torqued but some how are willing to swallow it all.
On this Back Story an interview with Jade McGlynn, from the Department of War Studies at Kings College on Putin's Russia.
Dana Lewis speaks to McGlynn about how Putin uses politics of the past to frame his war in Ukraine, and campaign for a new Russian Empire.
Some of the methods were used by Soviet leaders of the past.
They are lies wrapped in powerful emotive images of Russia's Great Patriotic War, distortions of history that become consumable for a Russian's, who may understand the narratives are torqued but some how are willing to swallow it all.
Hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. The ground war in Ukraine is vicious, but so too is the information war. This week, the Kava Dam in eastern Ukraine was destroyed. Thousands flee the environmental damage. Untold Russia controlled that dam since it invaded last year. Putin's war included occupying a nearby nuclear power plant too . Russia is spinning the dam collapse as the Ukrainians shelling operation, denying responsibility, even saying the Ukrainians did it to stop a Russian advance. But in reality, Russia occupied and controlled the dam and mined the dam and is trying to block a Ukrainian counter offensive. But everything about this war has been confusing. The Kremlin has torqued its motives for invading, misled its own people about the scale of the war , and it blames Europe and America for the conflict. Okay? So they've lied over and over again, even denying they would invade in February of 2022. But in this upcoming interview with the author of Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia, you will hear Russia has spun disinformation long before Putin came to power in the Soviet Union. And it made a habit of using charged information and images to shape a narrative that while false is consumed as believable by many. All right , Jade McLinn is the author of Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia, and she is a research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College in London. Jade, it's great to talk to you. Great to meet you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's great to meet you too.
Speaker 1:So you start your book with images of red square military parades , um, talking about them and , and painting a good visual picture in your writing. And Russia showering itself with this unifying ceremony of defeat over the Nazis in World War ii , or as Russians call it, the great patriotic war. Um, and , and you call it an obsession with the past mm-hmm. <affirmative> , um, but through the past they are shaping current thinking. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I'm wondering how, why do you think that's significant? Because a lot of people celebrate war victories or resistance , um, you know, in their culture.
Speaker 2:Of course. I think it's significant for its intensity rather than because it's an exception. So , um, of course, every single nation looks back into its past to tell a story about who they are, why they're a nation, why they belong together, you know, why they're great. Something to feel proud of, takes some lessons from it, that's completely normal, and a natural way of sort of building a coherent story. Um, I think one of the areas where things are starting to change is we don't really have ideology in the same way perhaps that we had in the 20th century. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> now really, history almost functions as this sort of parabolic role where you take what's good and what's bad in particular World War ii . And I think that this is a process that's happening sort of around, around the world , um, particularly , um, well, yes, around the world , um, in the sense that people were looking to the past and trying to police the past as if , um, you know, it was some sort of fragile heirloom rather than, rather than history to understand what happened. They want to take lessons from it. And so these are processes that are happening , um, you know, internationally. But what I would say is I think there's something intense and marked about the way in which it's happening in Russia, which in some ways provide, makes it useful in terms of a , a sort of a research focus, because you can find things that happen in Russia that are also happening elsewhere in the world, perhaps more easily bec because it's so extreme. But I don't, it's certainly , um, it's not an unusual practice. I think it's more the way that this has become such , um, a pivotal part of the political culture in Russia.
Speaker 1:I mean, if I could say , as somebody who spent 12 years in Russia as a correspondent, I mean, Putin came to power and I was there , um, and the parades on Red Square tended to be, you know , a ceremony of honoring tho those who gave their lives in World War ii. And just about every Russian family was touched by that because, you know, 30 million people, 25, 30 million depending on the estimates, at least half of those were civilians. It's, it's almost every family could relate to it. And suddenly, about 10 years into Putin's rule, you start to see him start to surround himself with these images and the Kremlin start to promote them in a way that I had never quite seen before, with, you know, the marching with, with photographs of people from their families. Um, and it, and it was seen almost by the Kremlin to be a kind of unifying political device, rather than just a, a moment to mourn those who gave their lives in the past. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative>, certainly, I think you picked up on , um, probably two of what I would call the key points there. So the first one is that , um, there is this shift. It's not to say that there wasn't already, you know , um, certain kind of historical elements that were introduced early on, but certainly from 2012, there is this big shift because the, the processes that the sort of Putin regime had been using to legitimize itself no longer worked. Um, and the evidence of that emerged , um, in the sort of mass protests around 2011 and 2012. And so there needed to be this shift, and there needed to be this more coherent story about who is Russia, you know, why is Russia all of these sort of big existential questions? And there wasn't really much to reach for beyond history because it's too multiethnic for Ethnonationalism. There's four official religions. There's no ideology. You can't do civic nationalism in a country like Russia for, for pretty kind of obvious , um, political reasons. And so history was the one thing, as you rightly pointed out, you know, 89% of Russians cite it as the thing as the event that they feel most proud of in their history, the, the victory over artism. And this was something that they could use. And they did this in a variety of ways, both by othering in the sense of putting in memory laws that make it a crime, you know, to discredit the memory of the great patriotic war , which on paper, I think, to most Russians at least, would sound very reasonable. But of course, it's applied in a very , um, in a very haphazard way , um, like, like all Russian law , um, as , as a sort of a way to just shut down , um, the government's misuse. And you also there referenced the immortal regiment where people walk with the , um, portraits of their , um, family. But that was originally a civil society movement. I interviewed , um, the founder for one of the free founders for my PhD that was originally a civil society movement set up to keep the memory of the war apolitical, to keep it as you were referencing, as it used to be about remembering the dead and the sacrifices. But in 2015, there was a hostile takeover, and the state , um, appropriated it for, for their own uses, even though many Russians still believe that it's a sort of grassroots organization.
Speaker 1:So, I mean, you've, you've kind of addressed it , politics of memory. Um, it , in your book you call it historical framing. I don't know if you've, you've coined that phrase, or you've taken it from elsewhere. It's pretending the desperate traumas of the past and even the triumphs were being repeated in real time . Can you explain
Speaker 2:That? Yes. So this is my term, and the reason why I created it was to describe what I was seeing as essentially a very detailed and intensive and sustained, and I'm talking about sort of thousands of analogies, and it's these use of historical analogies , um, to convince people that what is happening now is just like what happened in the past, and therefore what happened in the past will happen again unless there is some way that, that this is corrected , um, or, you know, or it should happen again. And we have to therefore learn the lessons from the past. So it's also using the past as a way to almost dictate your next moves psychologically, this is very effective. We know there have been studies, for example, there was a study at Stanford University by Promis Gilovich , which shows that in 1983, which shows that if people are given historical analogies, it very much, even if they're quite kind of super cool ones , it very much influences the policy decisions that they make. But , um, this is how I sort of understood the media framing or the media, Russian state media presentation of core events in 2014 to 2015, which are still, you know , have an enormous influence on the way in particular that people see , um, the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's, it galvanizes the nation to support a war that an invasion of Ukraine, one of its neighbors in , in killing fellow Slavs that probably no other platform , uh, would be capable of doing. But are both sides guilty of it in the sense that there have been lots of analogies in parallels drawn about President Putin's invasion and what the Nazis did in terms of claiming territory. And people saying that, you know, Putin and, and his regime, they used the term regime are trying to, you know, gather back the lands that they lost in the collapse of the Soviet Union. So are both sides just as equally guilty?
Speaker 2:Well, I wouldn't use the word guilty actually, for either case , because I think it's just, again, something that most people do. Most people use historical analogies. Often people will use historical framing. But yes, it's definitely a tactic that you can see on both sides. I think there are some elements I'd like to differentiate though, for example. Sure . Um, Putin has been very, cl Putin clearly does have his own personal obsession with history. We know he spent most of Coronavirus locked up with chu , I mean , his bunker locked up with Chuuk and , um, the state archives for company , um, which is not, not a good way to spend coronavirus if there was a good way. Um, but, and we see that in his essays. But , um, and he has spoken about the importance, you know, of , of sort of regathering. So I think sometimes that's just a reflection of, of Putin's own kind of historical obsessions and historical references. In terms of the comparisons with Nazism, I agree with you. I'm , and I think that the overuse , um, in the west of the 1930s and World War II analogies, I think it hinders rather than helps our understanding , um, because there are clearly many differences. But again, it's not really functioning to help understanding the whole purpose of using it is to express Russia is so evil. It's just like the most evil thing that we can think of. So again, we come back to this point where history, it's not about history, it's, it's about memory and, and what's good and what's bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a great , you, you paint your foe as evil mm-hmm. <affirmative> , um, and you very much start framing these things in black and white, which, which can be a dangerous oversimplification of very complex , um, conflicts. But so, so in your book, it's interesting how many , um, and in other writings that you've done, how many , um, statements and historical comparisons there's been with just generally this was done in the Soviet Union. This is not President Putin's, I don't wanna say brilliance or distortion Yeah . Um , of, of the past and, and their, their current and, you know, present danger. Uh, but in fact, you , you paint a pretty good picture of saying that this is sort of routine business in the Soviet Union where you, you, you paint the west and, and , uh, and in particular America now, which is taking a lot of the brunt of the criticism inside Russia mm-hmm . <affirmative> , um, you know, as, as somebody who's plotting to overthrow your state mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative>. No, it's true. Exactly. And I think , um, do you
Speaker 1:Have like other examples of that?
Speaker 2:Sure. Well, it builds, it builds on those myths that were embedded within the Soviet unit . It builds on Soviet narratives that, that still exist. Um , in terms of other examples, so I think around sanctions in particular, sanctions in 2014, and then sanctions since there's been a lot of , um, some, some in the West have been perplexed by the way that that hasn't worked , um, in any way to sort of undermine or doesn't appear to have worked in any way to undermine Russian's support for, for, for Putin's government or for, for his, his way of governing. But I mean, first of all, there's lots of evidence that it was never going to do that, both from within Russia and from outside. But also one of the things that has helped the, the government in this case , uh, the Russian government in this case, is that since 2014, they have depicted sanctions as an attempt to destroy Russia, just like the West destroyed the U S S R . But this time, because they've learnt from the mistakes, and because Putin is not weak, like Gu Beja in this narrative , um, you know, actually Russia is going to facilitate a return to a fare world order to feel a more self-sufficient and stable , um, Russia that's similar to like the Brene or the Andro areas of the Soviet Union. So that's very much the, the paradigm within which sanctions are understood. Yes, the West is trying to destroy us again, but this time they won't, it won't work.
Speaker 1:President Yeltsin , the, the predecessor of President Putin who could take a punch is, is , is how I describe him. I mean, he could actually , um, d despite all of the criticism of him, he, he would allow a large room of criticism in, in the newspapers in Russia. And , and, and he, he did not try to control them and, and could not at that point, but he , he, he banned the Soviet anthem. Um, he renamed the KGB and dismantled part of it and made it the F s B . Um, he, he tries to dis disentangle Russian identity from Soviet identity. Why, why was that so important in this new , um, independent state called Russia ?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think it's , um, it was seen as important because it was a way to disentangle. It was also about disentangling, not just Russia from the Soviet Union, but also the idea of Soviet greatness as Russian greatness. Um, and providing Russians as sort of a way to see themselves as, as separate from, from empire. I'm not saying that , um, sen and people around SEN didn't have any imperial notions of, of Russia and which countries should belong to Russia, but they did, of course, you know, famously say, it will take as much sovereignty as you can swallow to , um, you know, to, to the , um, the sort of , uh, the states, the different sort of regions , um, and , and within the Russian Federation. And there was certainly a very different approach. Clearly. I mean, it's ne never, nothing's ever black and white. You also, of course, have these issues of Chechnya , which are far too complicated to go into now . But the point was that it was about providing a Russian identity that separated it from, I suppose, what we might call the Imperial Center. But I think by any measure, it failed. And , um, but
Speaker 1:Did be , before you talk about the fact that it failed, did he do that for a reason? Because I mean, there, there was a, there was a coup against Gorbachev, an attempted coup against Gorbachev. Yeltsin clearly understood. There were a lot of dangers lurking. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> did , did he feel it was important to put certain things behind Russia's history in order to move on?
Speaker 2:Well, yes. Um, in order to move on, exactly. In order to create a sort of post-Soviet Russian identity. And there's been quite a lot written on , um, how Yeltsin tried to do that and how we kind of searched around for, for a new national idea. And they even had like an essay writing contest, and, but nothing really emerged from it. And that's really the problem that then Vladi Putin also faced, is that there wasn't really a coherent post-Soviet Russian identity. And the only thing that kind of worked was history, especially because of the difficult position in Russia where you have, I mean, it's not unique to Russia. We have it in the uk, you have it in Spain, but where you have , um, kind of, well, what , what is called in the Russian constitution, the state forming people, so the, the Russians, the ethnic Russians, who are sort of around 75 to, to 80% of the population, but you also have a large number of non-ethnic Russians who are indigenous to those lands. So how do you marry that without, you know, you can't give in too much to nationalism. Um, and this was one of the issues that Yeltsin found, and one of the ways that he, he managed it was to describe the Russians as also victims of the Soviet Union. Um, but in the end, that was, that was quite difficult , um, to get people to really buy into for lots of reasons. Um, but I think one of the key reasons was just the state of the economy, because you see from around if there was a lot of hope and optimism around the, the sort of during the, during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union , then by 1993, you already have a majority expressing nostalgia for the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and, and, and certainly the, the older majority who were, you know, bemoaning the loss of, of apartments and cars and , uh, the , the , the social support network of, of the Soviet Union, however wobbly that was. But you've written about how Russians see the war. They sing themselves to sleep with their own lullabies. What do you mean? Mm-hmm . <affirmative> .
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , it's a Russian phrase. So , um, it's kind of like, I suppose an American, it would be to drink your Kool-Aid. I just think it's a much lovely <laugh> phrase . Um, and so it means where in particular, I mean, this comment is not so much about Russians, the, the population, though perhaps it could definitely be applied, but this is more about the elites and the people who created , um, or sort of , uh, ramped up the propaganda and the way that they sort of came to believe their own propaganda , um, over time, or certainly it reinforced , um, their, their own myths. And we clearly see that with the , um, invasion , uh, the four scale invasion on 24th of February, because there's no way that anybody , um, who was engaging with accurate intelligence on what was happening in Ukraine would've imagined that , um, that Bandera sea were , were sort of Nazi collaborators, were roaming the streets, and that Ukrainians would meet Russians of bread . And so ,
Speaker 1:So what is the war about? Do you think in if, if the, if the Russian public mm-hmm. <affirmative> have , have swallowed, you know, the Nazi line, what , what really do you think in the Kremlin's view is the war about? Why , why have they taken this on?
Speaker 2:It's about Russia. It's about Russia's status. It's about Russia's, right? It's about what, you know, in Russian , in the Russian view, in the Kremlin view, it would be about security, but security in the sense of status. This is Russia's area. Russia has the right to , um, to control at least sort of Eastern and central Ukraine. And , um, any evidence of Ukrainian identity or Ukrainian ness is just a sign of extreme nationalism. And it's just a weapon that has been created by the west, first, by the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and later then weaponized by , um, the s a and, and its allies to destroy Russia. So, I mean, there's, on that level, that works, I think, across a range of areas. But for me, what I find particularly interesting is also that Russia's entire historical narrative, that the basis on which they've been creating this post Soviet identity, it kind of collapse, is if Russia can't control Ukraine, because they can't show that they are this cultural great power. If they can't convince people in hard gift <laugh> to, to, you know, join the, the Russian world, they can't show that they're this milit militarily , um, exceptional power again, if they can't take hard gift , which is what, 30 , 20, the 30 kilometers from, from the Russian border. And also just the elements of it. If Kyiv is, if Ukraine is its own separate identity, if R Russia is not the inheritor of Rus and all of these different elements, it starts to unpick. And of course it doesn't matter. I mean, all nations are constructed, all his, all national histories and national cultural memories are slightly made up, you know, I mean, it's not completely, but you know, they might be based in something real, but then they're, you know, adapted to political needs. It doesn't actually matter, but it matters to the way that history is told in Russia because it's told, and you know, here the legacy of the Soviet Union is important as well, and that sense of history as an interpretive framework for how life should be. But , um, it matters in Russia because the, the Russian view of history is very essentialist. There is a historical truth. And , um, you know, even, even if it can sometimes be a bit vague and, and vacillating, but there is a historical truth, and you either, you are either sort of a great country with this great history or you are not, and it's very black and white. Um,
Speaker 1:So do Russians support the war? I mean, you , you said it's acquiescence mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:<affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And I would stick with that. I think , um, I think that broadly, yes, more , most we could say that certainly a significant number. Um, in my view, based on my research, it would certainly be a , a majority and an easy majority are willing to go along with the war. You then have a section and not a , not in considerable section who are pretty apathetic. And, you know, there are different types of apathy, but certainly some of those would be really passive opponents. And then you have your ever dwindling number of, of active opponents, not because the war is becoming hugely popular, but because it's terrifying and many people to protest and many people have left. So I think for me, I don't, like, in the same way that, you know, I probably wouldn't speak about all English people or all British people. I try to avoid doing the same Russia because it just doesn't reflect what my analysis shows me. Um, you know, there's many different types and also people's views change, but I think our essence is a good word. Um, especially because if you think back to 2014, it was so popular. The annexation of Crimea and intervention in the Donbass was also incredibly popular. And that same sense of excitement, and to be honest with you, party, that festival atmosphere that was there in, you know, I remember <laugh> , um, in March, 2014. It just isn't there, there , there is an anxiety , um, there is a lot of negative emotion. That negative emotion is often channeled towards a reason why people must support the Army. They must do this, or they hate Ukrainians. But it's very, it's very different to the celebration of 2014 .
Speaker 1:I, I have Russian friends just like you do. And , uh, and the , the , the conversations are difficult and there are people who are out of the country who certainly see the war one way and probably see it in, in the Western framing of it and don't support it. Uh, but there are people who are still, you know, very much attached to Russia who can't even bring themselves to talk about it half the time. Um, that , you know, you said that they're confused. Um, some of them are apathetic. Some of them have been, you know, so confused by the Kremlin. They don't know what to think .
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm . Well, I, I think definitely that's part , I'm
Speaker 1:Not giving them, I'm not giving them a buy or a pass , by the way, unresponsiveness. No,
Speaker 2:No , no. But I, I mean, I'm not a priest. It's not my job to sit and , and , and judge pupil . Anyway. I've made plenty of, of, of mistakes. But , um, it's more that , that , uh, the confusion point is an interesting one and a good, and I think a very important one because that's part of the purpose of the kre and propaganda. Unlike maybe the Soviet propaganda, which we try to, I'm looking domestically here, which would try to kind of impose a set view. The Russian propaganda often makes people feel like, I have no idea what the truth is. Maybe, you know, the truth is just something that you instinctually feel rather than find out, you know, in a sort of enlightenment manner. And when that happens, people rely on the sort of myths that, you know, that resonate with them emotionally. Um, the sort of , um, the politics of memory history that we've been speaking about, and that anti westernism. So in a weird way, even when people don't believe the propaganda, they kind of end up in a position where they're still amenable to the same arguments, or they still see things in a broadly similar way. Because that is almost the base that that is left by Russian popular culture, which of course, the, the Kremlin has, has manipulated and , um, you know, funded its its own ideas through as well.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's a culture of staying under the radar, right? So in the Soviet times, you , you just didn't express opinion. You worried about your neighbors, you know , spying on you and turning you in. And even now that's apparently that is rec recurring in Russia now, where if you say something negative about the war, your neighbor might report you. Or if you're heard in a restaurant to be saying , you're saying something critical that that can wind , you know, you can wind up in jail.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it's very unlikely you would end up in jail. I think there have only been, well, not only there have been awful terrible sort of 537 according to over the info, actual political cases, but , and they do tend to be for more, not for like a one-off crime, but you would certainly get an incredibly expensive fine , um, you know, and have to go to, and, and, and you could even possibly be sort of arrested. Admittedly, you wouldn't be sent sort of prison. But , um, I mean, so that happened to somebody the other day because they were reading a Ukrainian book on a, I can't remember if it was a train or a plane now. I mean, so it's not, it's just anything. So of course it's not a great , um, it's not a great system for encouraging people to explore their views and their criticism of the wards . But it mildly it's an incredible amount of, there's an incredible amount of fear. And I think in particular, even if I compare it to this time, even if I compare right now with this time last year, the fear , um, and the amount and it's present is, is marked and it had already increased considerably. So I think it's dark, of course, it's dark days for Russia, but also maybe, I think for, for Russian researchers who are gonna really struggle to be able to understand as we get into this kind of one and a half year point, where is where are public attitudes going?
Speaker 1:What is Russia's future? Do you think you, you, you've said before that you got depressed writing the, the book or parts of the book, and that , um, you , you don't feel that Russia's future is bright in any way, the way it's not the way it's unfolding right now.
Speaker 2:No, I don't, and I really hope I'm wrong. I would absolutely love to be wrong. Um, I don't, but then, you know, maybe people didn't see 1917 coming in 1960, not that I think 1917 was, was good. I'm just saying, you know, these things are quite surprising and the whole polluting system is built on balance, and clearly things are unbalanced. But my bigger worry, I suppose, if, if I answer sort of as, as honestly as I can, is that it's my interpretation based on my research findings, that a lot of Russian aggressive behavior since 2012 is built on a certain foundation, a certain resonance within Russian culture. And I just worry that that will still be there. If, even if or when this, this dreadful war ends and that, you know, then somebody else, even if it becomes slightly more democratic, somebody else will come and notice the political power of those, I suppose, societal needs and, and answer them again in, in bad ways, which is how I understand what happened in a very symbiotic way with, with Putin. Um, so that's, that's my big worry , is I feel like there needs to be a kind of a recalibration of, of, of how Russia engages with its past and it's, it's present and, and all of these difficult, complicated questions in order that the past doesn't continue to sort of repeat itself in these ways
Speaker 1:Because it provides for power what he's done. So the idea that somebody else is gonna come along and , and be much more moderate and try to turn the clock back on any of these things , um, is it may indeed be, you know, wishful thinking.
Speaker 2:I think so, and especially, you know, if you think about a nation that whatever happens , it doesn't seem likely that Russia is going to win this war in any sense that, you know, I mean, Russians, Russian people are not gonna bene have not benefited from this war. People are gonna be in economically dire straits as sanctions continue to, to bite people. You know, a lot of men have died, a lot of young men have died. It's gonna be a nation that's traumatized, that's cut off , um, from the countries that culturally it's traditionally cared about and measured itself against most ie . In the West economically struggling. That that's not, all of the surveys are not just of Russia. It's a sort of human psychology things suggests that people in that state are not going to want some kind of, you know, okay, let's have more federalization and explore more liberal democracy. It's thus people tend to want a sense of order and stability and a strong leader , um, in such cases. Um, and so that's, that's why I feel , um, so depressed, especially because right now, and I appreciate they're in an incredibly difficult position, but I don't really see the sort of, the sort of recognition of these problems by many of the Russian liberals who are based abroad. Um, so, but you know, hopefully, like I said, I really, really hope I'm wrong.
Speaker 1:Just , uh, in the last question, I mean , uh, you know, I'll probably inadequately attempt to provide a bit of balance, because we've been talking a lot about Russia. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , Ukraine is suffering. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , I mean , Ukraine is the one that's under a , a hail of rockets. And , uh, man , you know, unmanned drones and cruise missiles and artillery fire every night. And the, the, the war is being fought in Ukraine. I mean, essentially there is, there is some spillover into Russia, but the, the, the , the victims are Ukrainians, and I know you, you recognize that too. Um, what do you think happens now as just, if we just kind of remove ourselves from the past and look to the future in the sense that now you have this , um, you know, mi military attempt by the Ukrainians to retake those lands, it is going to be very bloody, I think , um, and it is gonna be a longer struggle than probably, you know, many people want to acknowledge right now. But will it just feed the Kremlin assembly line of disinformation where they'll say, see, there you go. You know, they're attacking us, just like we said before, we're defending our troops, we're defending , um, you know, Russians who are in those territories that we've tried to, we've tried to illegally annex, you know, it's not funny, it's outrageous, but , um, what , you know, what , how does it play out? Or it d does it eventually, you know, like a , a time bomb blow up at some point because the , the, the fallacy of of Putin's sh charade will be unveiled to everyone. And as the Russian army collapses backwards , um, the , the , the Kremlin is gonna be , be put into a life and death , um, corner that they may not emerge from .
Speaker 2:So of course it will fuel the Kremlin sort of disinformation or propaganda assembly line, but I mean, everything does, they'd find other materials to fit into it. So I'd never normally use that as a concern. Will it blow up in their faces? I suppose I'm quite skeptical that it will, to be honest, just because I don't think that, first of all, I mean the, the sort of the atomization of Russian society and their disengagement from kind of politics, it's almost as if the state is a thing that just happens to them. It's not something where, you know, when you speak to Russians, it's not as if they actually kind of could do anything about it. Um, and I think that it will, of course , um, and you see this a bit from the Belgard incursions , um, it will of course make people , uh, to use Jeremy Morris's term, like defensively consolidate. So it's not so much rally around the flag, but okay, maybe the war wasn't a good idea, but you know, what would be worse? Losing the war. Um, so there's gonna be an element of that, which again, is kind of understandable human reaction without wanting to sort of justify it. So I think, I think that's the issue. I mean, in some ways, and I get a lot of criticism about this from fellow, not a lot, but I get some criticism about this from fellow Russianist . I kind of think we have to not, we have to focus on Ukraine's future, we being the west here rather than, rather than Russias . And I think just on sort of deterring Russia, I don't think there's much we can do to change or influence Russian public opinion either way. And I also think it doesn't really matter, ultimately, which I appreciate is a bit weird considering I focus on it, but I focus on it because I find it intellectually fascinating. I don't think that it makes a huge difference to what the kremen does or doesn't do either way. Um, and I think the best thing that could happen in the long run is that we help Ukraine to regain the territory that it wants, perhaps for Crimea that might be a longer term process because it can't really be done fully militarily. Um, and then we help Ukraine to become embedded within Western structures. We help Ukraine to become a successful country. And that will then serve as an example, because ultimately that's what happened with the Soviet Union, is that people wanted, you know, I mean, there are lots of different elements, but ultimately people did want a different, a different way of living. But right now, many Russians would not be keen on, they have many sort of criticisms. They're not seen on the way of western living, and we have many problems in the West. So part of me thinks that the, the opportunity here is to increase our own resilience, increase our own defense, increase Ukraine's defense, and start to focus on, you know, making democracy better for people. And in the end, Russians will want that too. And, you know, we should, when that time comes, we should, if, if that, if that, you know, desire is there, I think we should, we should try to, to meet and create structures. No,
Speaker 1:I , I think I understand. I , I think I understand what you're saying in the sense that it's , uh, it's important to understand how we got here Yeah. And why, why Putin has launched this war , um, and, and how they manipulate information within their space. But in the end, they are what they are, and you have to contain them, and you have to fight them and fight for your Western values and fight for, for Ukraine's sovereignty and everybody else's sovereignty in the neighborhood before they too , uh, find themselves facing the , the same beast. So Jade McLinn is a research fellow at the Department of War Studies, Kings College London. The book is, and she's written many of them, but the latest one is author of the Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia. And it's, it's , uh, a very good think . I mean, I, I, I appreciated reading it and, and so much , uh, appreciate talking to you, Jade . Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Definitely the appreciation is likewise, it's mutual.
Speaker 1:And that's our backstory on the Russian disinformation misinformation space. Oddly enough, you could say some of this cookie cutter approach to looking surprised, acting, concerned, denying everything, and blaming the other side has been adopted by some Western leaders just asked Donald Trump, we should be better at seeing through misinformation, but social media has made it even tougher and amplified much of it confusing times. So follow trusted media, read different sources of it to get closer to the truth. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening to backstory. Share it , and I'll talk to you again soon.