Moscow analyst: Russia wants "permanent war" with West | Conflict Zone

Presidential elections in Russia are the usual foregone conclusion, with nothing left to chance, not even the death in jail of the leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny, whose name Putin couldn't bring himself to speak. My guest is the Russian commentator Andrey Kolesnikov, who heads the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Moscow. Was Navalny such a serious threat to Putin's regime that he had to be killed? Even being in prison, Navalny was a threat to Putin, a competitor, maybe invisible in an information field, but at the same time quite mighty and quite impressive for the part of the population. And because of that, it was important to, let's say, eliminate him from the political field. So what's it like to live with a government that kills its political opponents? And seen from Moscow, why the sudden spate of warnings by NATO officials about a Russian attack over the next few years? What do they know that we don't? Andrey Kolesnikov, welcome to Conflict Zone. Thanks a lot. It's March, it's time for presidential elections in Russia. Vladimir Putin wants a fifth term. Vladimir Putin always gets what he wants. Is this as close to absolute power as it gets in Russia? Yes, this is one more step to the absolute power. But when we're asking ourselves where was this turning point for him, I think that the peak of his regime, the peak of development of his regime was somewhere in the year 2020, when he called a referendum about some amendments to the Constitution, but the main thing about zeroing of his presidential terms. Now he is our eternal president and after that all the doors were open for any steps from his side, like this war of February 2022 and poisoning of Navalny in the same year, 2020. It doesn't have much to do with democracy, does it? These elections, even Mr. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the New York Times last year, our presidential election isn't really a democracy, it's a costly bureaucracy. So why bother with this show? Because this is one more attempt to demonstrate to the majority of the Russian population that they are still a majority, which is obedient, indifferent and ready to continue to accept Putin's initiatives. And this is important that minority or minorities, they must understand that they are still minorities and they can't influence anything in this country, because we have a majority which is influential, which supports Putin. So nothing to do with this political system, we can't change anything. And because of that, these elections are still significant. At the same time, this is one more rail around the flag. Why not to repeat this kind of rally and to refresh the legitimacy of the autocrat? All credible candidates have been eliminated way before the polling stations opened. Boris Nadezhdin, the anti-war candidate, he was disqualified by the state. He got some traction for a while. Was he a threat? Was he deemed a threat? Nadezhdin was quite attractive to the public with liberal views. And you know, in Russia, there are millions of people who are sharing liberal, pro-democratic, pro-Western, anti-Putin vision of the world. And because of that, Nadezhdin was kind of a hope for these people once they signed for him. And it was understandable that Kremlin decided not to allow him to participate, because he could undermine the feeling of absolute consolidation around Putin. In a case of getting, I don't know, 5, 6, even 10 percent, it could mean that Putin is not the only one who deserves the support. And there are people with anti-war agenda. Not to mention that in that case, Nadezhdin could demonstrate anti-war agenda via television. And it could shake the views of the majority, which is still magneted to the TV set. So they decided not to risk. Even that slight risk. And Alexei Navalny, dead in a prison camp in the Arctic Circle. Was he ever really an electoral threat to Putin? Or was it that he and others like him were never going to be allowed to get anywhere near that status? Navalny didn't have an opportunity to participate in a legal political process. But when he did participate in the year 2013, during Moscow's mayor's elections, he was extremely efficient, astonishingly efficient for Kremlin. And after that, they decided to not allow him to participate in any kind of elections. So he was a real threat to Putin. And at some moment in the past, the whole political process reduced to this fight between Navalny and Putin. And in that sense, even being in prison, Navalny was a threat to Putin, a competitor. Maybe invisible in an information field, but at the same time quite mighty. And quite impressive for the part of the population. And because of that, it was important to, let's say, eliminate him from the political field. Do you buy the story that he was about to be swapped for a killer serving time in Germany? Do you buy that story? We don't know the truth. Maybe we'll not know it. But it looks like a plausible story. And in that sense, it was not a coincidence that he was, let's say, maybe killed, maybe poisoned, maybe something else. We have to wait for some results of his team research. Maybe they can clear up some details. Navalny's family is pretty clear and his colleagues are pretty clear that the state did kill him. You wouldn't seriously argue with that, would you? I would say the experience of this regime demonstrates that it is possible. Let's remember the case of Skripals or any other cases. And Putin several times repeated during his career that patriotically oriented people did that or this. And because of that, among people with, let's say, liberal views, there is no doubt that Navalny could be killed. Now, we don't have conclusive evidence of it, but the feeling is very strong among Russian civil society. We know that they tried and failed to kill him back in 2020. And we know because millions listened to a government assassin describing his previously unsuccessful attempt to kill Navalny, little realizing that he was actually talking to Navalny and being recorded by him at the time. So nobody's going to believe any government denials, are they, on this score? You know, it means what do we mean by nobody? Because the majority still prefers to believe in an unofficial version or prefers not to think about this horrible story. Yes, a lot of Russians, they did know about the poisoning, they did know about the death of Navalny in this camp near Arctic Circle. But the majority prefers not to bother itself, not to pay too much attention to these horrors in order to keep themselves mentally normal. This is immoral, but majority prefers not to know anything about, like, casualties, hostilities, deaths, etc., etc. Because of that, it's more about belief or disbelief among people with normal views, with democratic views. Grigory Vaipan, a lawyer at the Human Rights Group Memorial, said if they could kill Navalny, they could kill anybody else. If he's right, where does all this end? All the killings, all the political prisoners, where does this end? You know, the real threat is to political prisoners, for sure. We don't have political opposition in the proper sense of the word right now because of a high level of repressions. Higher than in the Soviet Union in the last years of its existence. And I would say that unfortunately, for instance, people like Vladimir Karamoza or Ilya Yashin could be under threat. Not everyone in dissidents' community, but the main, the most vocal people from the political opposition. Because part of the political opposition is abroad, parts of the leaders are imprisoned. So for people who are imprisoned, there is a real threat, I think, unfortunately. You spoke after Navalny's funeral about moral resistance among the population, people carrying flowers and candles to his memorials. How much of that moral resistance is there left in Russia? I can stress this word, moral, because as I said, political opposition is not so efficient right now. And this is more about a moral resistance than about political resistance. These people can fight and they do not want to fight for power. They don't have leaders, they don't have organizations which are totally liquidated by the regime, even small NGOs. But the death of Navalny demonstrated, the funeral of Navalny demonstrated that this civil society is still here. We must differ society as such, which is very indifferent and passive and full of conformists. And civil society, the society of responsible citizens, who are still hope for the best for their country, who are in a permanent horror because of this war. They demonstrated that they are here. It was a heroic step for people who were going to the funeral because the face recognition system is working. And sometimes policemen are coming to the flats of these people after different kind of events of funerals, like laying flowers at the places of memory of political repressions, etc. So, if you want to see this civil society in Russia, we can open, for instance, a website over Denfo, with the concrete statistics about persecutions, about criminal persecutions, administrative persecutions, extrajudicial persecutions, a lot of examples of this kind of problems for Russian citizens. But here is this civil society which is still ready to resist and ready to at least to think about the current situation, think about the responsibility, collective responsibility. You talked about Navalny's legacy. I'd like to know how long you think it will last. Isn't it inevitable that as the years go by there will be less and less opposition, moral or real? Repression works, doesn't it? Repression is efficient. Yes, repressions work, but at the same time this fatigue from regime is also here. And in a case of a minor success of civil society in a demonstration of its views, some people who are hesitating, who are passive compromises, they can't share the views of this active civil society, activists. So, in that sense Russia is not hopeless. And I think it was just like in Soviet times when millions of people were ready for changes, when Gorbachev took the power. And this big bunch of population is also ready for changes. But, you know, in current circumstances kind of a signal must came from the very top. And without changing the first person, I guess the serious changes in Russia are impossible. There are now extraordinary efforts, and you've outlined some of them, to clamp down on even the slightest infractions of this expanding penal code that the authorities keep adding to. We hear of teachers in schools reporting 10, 11-year-old pupils to the security police, books are banned, people arrested on the metro because they were reading something that their fellow passengers didn't like. Every case pursued with the utmost vigour and brutality. And I suppose my question is, is the state really that insecure about its hold on power and its people? You know, it's more about self-development of Russian-style authoritarianism. I would say this is not simply an authoritarianism, this is more about, I name it, hybrid totalitarianism, semi-totalitarianism, because the state is trying to infiltrate into all the spheres of the private life of people. It wants to control, for instance, theatres, repertoires, book markets, libraries, etc., etc. But nevertheless, this society is modernized, this is an urban, well-educated society, and people are trying to keep their private spaces in a more or less normal situation. And books are still printed, some movies could appear in such a strange half-totalitarian space. So, yes, there are different threats, like denunciations from your compatriots, but nevertheless, it is still civil society, and I can repeat, it is not hopeless, and it can survive this period. But the space of liberty, of freedom is narrowing, this is true, but if you want to do something, you can try. And some people are trying to write articles, to be vocal, and to talk, at least to talk about the current situation with each other. It's not helped, is it, by the fact that so many ordinary citizens appear willing to inform on each other, on their colleagues, on their families, on their friends. How destructive is that to the fabric of Russian society? It destroys trust, doesn't it? Yes, it's true, it's true. The trust is not the strong side of this society, the trust to each other. But some people simply prefer not to talk with unknown persons. They prefer to talk not so... they're trying not to be so vocal, sitting in cafes, for instance, and they prefer not to discuss political issues. This is true, but, you know, at the same time, again, who wants to resist can try to do it. For instance, if there is such a new magazine which was initiated by the Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov with the title Gorby, in a cooperation with Gorbachev Foundation. And this is one of the attempts to create something new, even in these circumstances. There are some problems with this magazine, but it is still in the field, so why not to try to do something? And it contributes something like hope for the future. When we talk about hope, let's also talk about the war in Ukraine, which has, of course, exacerbated the repression. Lev Gudkov, leading Russian sociologist, says there's a high degree of support for the war, highest among the educated and the educated in Moscow. Does that surprise you? Yes, there are a lot of surprising stories, especially in the field of mass psychology and mass sociology. And, you know, this is all about people who are afraid of changing their life. They are trying to avoid problems for themselves. It means that they are full of, let's say, double thinking. Are they pretending the war doesn't exist? They can't avoid mentioning it or thinking about it, but they try not to do it publicly. Maybe the same people, they want to continue their careers, for instance, in universities or something like that, but in their private space, in their quizzes, like it was in Soviet times, they can't discuss freely the current situation with some assessments which are not public, let's say. This is more about private assessments, private life. So this is more about double thinking. You said recently that Putin has made clear Russia is fighting a permanent background war with the West. That argument gives him his rationale, his way to maintain power. Does Putin want that war, in your view? Yes, he wants. He is the main initiator, I'm sure, that in this personalistic regime Putin was the main source of this war, of this ideology which justifies war, the Russian idea with nationalistic and imperialistic ideas, very archaic appeals to the traditions and spiritual values, etc., etc. And he must invent the goal for the society. So this is not communism or capitalism. And they invented in Kremlin this permanent war with the West. The West was always attacking us, so we must defend ourselves. And even our expansion, this is more about defense. But recent intelligence reports, I'm sorry to interrupt you, recent intelligence reports in the West have suggested Russia intends to double the number of its troops on the border with the Baltic states and Finland. And people have spoken, officials, government officials in several countries have spoken of the fact that there could possibly be an attack by Russia on a NATO country over the next few years. How plausible do you think that is? I think this is Putin's PR to look so mighty, so impressive. And I guess he wants Ukraine. In his political philosophy this is a part of Russia for sure. And he wants to return and strengthen, as he says, these territories. He doesn't care about Baltic states, Finland or Poland. This is a lip service on my opinion. He will not have enough resources for one more flank, one more front. He simply wants to continue this permanent war with the West as a goal for the society. But at the same time in practical terms, in applied terms, he doesn't want to take, for instance, Baltic states because it will mean a real war with NATO. It will be much more serious than this war of attrition with Ukraine. Does NATO look weak to Russia, to Putin? Not so weak, but for this very majority of the society Putin looks like a strongman who is equal to NATO. NATO is more about the image of the main enemy, the United States of America and NATO. Europe is kind of a satellite of NATO and the United States. You said last month that despite all the nuclear sabre rattling that we've heard from Putin, they don't want and they're afraid of nuclear war. What makes you so sure of that? I hope that they are not so suicidal. They must understand that even the use of the tactical nukes could be suicidal for their regime, for their country. They want to live, they want to enjoy this life. And because of that, yes, this nuclear blackmailing is quite impressive. And quite effective, isn't it? It's quite effective because it's prevented the West from giving the most sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. Yes, and the problem for Russia is that the very conversations that talk about the nuclear war became such a light talk. We can do it. Why not? This is the main danger, to persuade the domestic public that it is possible. This is a danger. A British historian wrote recently that societies like Russia, autocracies don't bend, but they can break. Do you believe that? After all, Russia has broken. The Soviet Union broke up. The Berlin Wall came down. Communism was denounced as a failed experiment. Under what circumstances do you think Russia could conceivably come apart now? You know, when we are talking about the future and the behavior of our elites, they're behaving like according to the proverb, «Après nous le déluge» — after us, the flood. And in that sense, they hope that they have enough resources to continue this war until the physical end of Putin and his team. But the resources could be depleted. And the next generation of politicians, they will have to take responsibility for the country, for the European security. And this is an interest of the West, a common interest, a mutual interest of Russia and the West to have a new generation of people who can recreate this country from zero. This moment will come, because resources are not eternal. So the beautiful Russia that Alexei Navalny talked about, does exist somewhere down the line, in your view? It exists in the souls and in the brains of pro-democratic Russians. And they are here, and they will be ready for changes when the time will come. Andrei Kolesnikov, thank you very much for being on Conflict Zone. Thank you. Thank you for having me here.