What the West gets wrong in their reaction against Russia
In case of Russian invasion of Ukraine you have to examine first what do you want, besides exit from the current conflict with the minimal damage, for the future: to punish Russia or to prevent happening something like this or worse again. And that’s not the same thing.
Most important sentiment at the moment in discussions about Russian aggression against Ukraine is about justice.
There’re two types of justice: punitive justice and rehabilitative justice.
Punitive justice focused on punishment & retribution. It’s hard to quantify to retribution for emotional damage. And most importantly we know that punitive justice doesn’t work or at least works far worse then restorative — otherwise we would still cutting hands of the thieves.
Intellectually we all mostly agree with this, yet many of us reluctant to embrace this approach in reality. Especially in USA, especially in Russia.
Restorative justice based on understanding that the crime is when something gone wrong, not just someone done wrong. Meaning there’re always not but multiple conditions that lead to a crime.
People treat this moment as a historical one. They’re not wrong, but this is not the history — this is unfolding of the history. History of the moment was written years ago, it’s just playing out now. In order to understand how to avoid repeating of this scenario we have to examine conditions that lead to them, in order to do that we have to put this moment in historical context.
Right before the invasion we saw how even closest Putin’s advisors from the Security Council are bumbling, suggesting to offer the west “one last chance” to negotiate, but then agreeing with whatever Putin wants. They were obviously afraid of war, but even more afraid of Putin. But how he acquired such power? The answer lies in Russian inequality.
27 years ago when then president Yeltsin was at the lowest in popularity the class of oligarchs was first created to help him beat off the challenge of more popular Communist party candidate on upcoming presidential election. They succeeded. In the second presidential term some of them became first Russian billionaires. But after Yeltsin’s second term they would need someone else to guarantee control over their property. They chose Putin. And he succeed in this task, but in order to do this he had to turn Russia authoritarian.
Just to put it in perspective: in 2020, by Credit Suisse research, top 1% controlled 37% of shared economic wealth in America and 57% of shared economic wealth in Russia. Now after pandemic it’s even worse, probably over 60%. Just think of it: 1% of richest Russian holds roughly twice amount of economic power (i.e. power) than the rest of the population. Putin turned Russia into land of billionaires: by 2022 Russia had roughly the same amount of billionaires as Germany (117 vs 136) while having only third of German GDP.
How do you keep such inequality? Only by force. By total control over elections and political landscape. Billionaires class knows that if Putin no more, there will be not only the war between the oligarchs themselves like they were going on in the 90’s, but most likely there will be a political tsunami that will wipe out them all. Kremlin on the one hand and the old (supposedly oppositional) “guard” on the other controls the narrative right now, so there’s no “there should not be billionaires” in mainstream discourse, but the indicators that people en masse hate the oligarchs now even more than hated them in the 90’s are there and no one as the 1% themselves are aware of it more than anyone else. That’s the constant point of their fearmongering: “bolshevicks”, “reds”, stupid envious poor people with their fantasies about redistribution. Redistribution is the swear word both for Putin’s supporters and liberal opposition that hates Putin more than anything else — except the bolshevism of the masses.
The fear of returning of the red wave that was successfully stopped in 1996 and 2000 on Presidential level, and taken under control since then, is real and substantive. That’s why the ruling class provided Putin with so much power: as much as they afraid of him, they afraid to lose him much more. “Without Putin there’s no Russia” said one of his top lieutenants Volodin and his right: their version of Russia without Putin won’t stand. There was chance to institutionalize it earlier in 2008–2012, but they blew it. Now system holds personally on figure of Putin.
That’s why Putin holds so much power. The system that put him into place and allowed oligarchs their prosperity also provided Putin with enough power to gone mad completely unchecked along the process.
What will happen now when the West started their economic warfare against Putin? In 2021 medium wage in Russia was 34,000 roubles, USD~80 rubles — so about ~420. Overnight after first sanctions after invasion rate fell to 120₽ per USD, so medium wage fell to ~$280. Meaning, half of the working population in Russia right now for their full-time jobs getting less than $300 a month. And every indication shows that it’s gonna be worse, and soon Russian people could for $200 or less medium wage. Combined with trade blockade this means starving the country not only figuratively, but literally.
Will sanctions break the elite? Possibly. But everything Putin has to do is to increase their share in the lessening Russian pie. With the another option being the risk to lose everything if regime has fallen and socialist, communist, social democrats and liberal candidates starting to win elections the elites will take. So sanctions doesn’t mean that Putin’s grip over elites will weakens. It means that the 90% of Russian population from poverty will go to extreme poverty.
Will it help to overthrow Putin? No. With Russian people getting poorer Putin will only get relatively stronger against them. With less jobs available enlisting in Rosgvardia (national guard) to beat off the protests and suppress opposition will become even more lucrative.
Will it make Russia safer for the West, neighboring countries and the rest of the world? For a while. Probably Putin won’t be able start another aggression for the rest of his life after this. But, funny, now the West will become as interested that Putin lived forever as his elites now and for the same reason. Because life in concentration camp of a country with 1% controlling 90% of everything will immediately go extremely unstable after his gone.
It’s not only economical instability — there is also frozen violent conflicts like Chechen War. Though it seems to be stable on the surface the conflict is growing underneath it for 20 years now and inevitably blow up after Putin because Kadyrov’s regime will claim a bigger control over Russian politics — with the rest of the country vehemently against it.
So the question right now is not what to do with Putin, but how to prepare for the transition after he’s gone. And the answer is simple: more stable will be Russia coming into this transition — better it’ll go for Russia, it’s neighbours, the West and the rest of the world.
Right now the West euphorically congratulating itself with being tough on Russia and tough on Putin doesn’t think clearly. This is common problem of the era: after decades of neoliberal regime governments almost lost their ability to look forward, prepare and plan for decades and generations ahead, becoming increasingly short-sighted.
Iron Curtain and “toughness” won’t work. If you ignore Russia, it won’t go away. Economic blockade against Russia doesn’t solve the problem of possible threats coming from Russia, it’s just kicking it down the road until the world will have to face “Russian problem” again but in even more unstable and unhinged fashion.
Impoverishing Russia, exacerbating of its inequality as a punishment on Russian people for Putin might feel good, but at the end of the day it only magnifies the conditions that allowed Putin to acquire this amount of unchecked power over Russian politics, army and the nuclear arsenal and go completely insane with it in the first place.
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