Russia’s inevitable collapse – EURACTIV.com

“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force”[1] – this quote from George Orwell is timeless and is clear across many modern tyrannies and autocracies, especially Putin’s Russia, now in its final stage before the inevitable collapse.

Anna Fotyga is a Polish Member of the European Parliament, former minister of foreign affairs of Poland.

Batu Kutelia is the former Georgian ambassador to the United States and deputy secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council.

Russia’s imperialism is back

It has taken exactly 14 years and the wars waged by Russia against two sovereign nations, Georgia and Ukraine, to fully expose Russia’s brutal and immoral force. With the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, many clearly saw the trajectory of Putin’s autocracy. Some even saw this much earlier.

In 1999, Russian Soviet historian Yuri Afanasyev projected a scenario in which “by 2015 Russia will end up in the trap of imperial nationalism[2]” and in May 2015, at a conference in Poland marking 70 years since the end of WWII, he warned European leaders of “new form of Stalinism growing in Russia”, calling it “criminal from the bottom up”. In June 2009, Central and Eastern European leaders wrote an open letter to President Obama stating that: “. . . [Russia] uses overt and covert means of economic warfare, ranging from energy blockades and politically motivated investments to bribery and media manipulation in order to advance its interests and to challenge the transatlantic orientation of Central and Eastern Europe”.

For some Russian neighbours – former Soviet captive nations – this revenant evil was obvious, but it took too long to convince the free world of it. It can be explainable – after the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and then of Ukraine in 2014, the reality was too harsh to admit – that the post-Cold War rules-based international order was collapsing.

Putin as the new Hitler

A barrage of propaganda spread by Russia to their domestic or international audience portrayed a much more “comfortable” illusion. Ivan Krastev, in 2017, wrote that “the question is no longer whether it’s possible for Hitler to come back; it’s whether we’d even be able to recognise him”[3]. But after February 24 2022, when Russia launched a full scale war of aggression against Ukraine, the world has recognised the new Hitler – Vladimir Putin.

Eadem, sed aliter (same but different). Among many parallels, like brutality, criminality, and immorality, one of the distinguishing similarities of Hitler, Stalin and Putin is the use of information for consolidating power and projecting psychological fear: a tactic fundamental to any tyrant. The most recent proof of this is the director of broadcasting at Russia’s state-funded Russia Today media channel, Anton Krasovsky, who suggested drowning or burning Ukrainian children [4].

This is the overall mood on every Russian government channel. Putin’s order is voiced through these media outlets and implemented by the Russian military through the actual systemic atrocities in Bucha, Irpin, Izum, Mariupol or mass indiscriminate bombings of major cities. Now as we have recognised Putin as the new Hitler, the key question is what we do about it.

Ukrainians with modern western weapons and high battle spirit are doing heroic work for all of us to expose ‘the world’s 2nd biggest army’ as militarily weak and morally bankrupt. Putin overly relies on fraud for maintaining his influence internally and externally.

The key pillar of this fraud is the so called “false dilemmas” between chaos and order or war and peace. These narratives have been “skillfully” pitched by the state propaganda machine to domestic audiences through state-owned or state-controlled media to the international community through corrupt politicians, useful idiots, or through ignorant international bureaucrats. This information operation is excessively well-funded by a handful of oligarchs.

Russian society was given a similar dilemma when Putin came to power: Democracy and chaos or strong leader and order. Russians made their choice and embarked on the journey towards the eventual catastrophe of the Russian state.

A Report and the War on Truth

This theory explains fairly well all the major narratives of today’s propaganda that trail back to the 2008 war with Georgia. In particular, blaming the victims, Georgia and Ukraine, for starting the war and blaming US and the West for encouraging them to start the war.

Even dictators such as Hitler and Stalin needed false pretexts to attack Poland in September 1939. Putin has been using the technique of ‘maskirovka’ and other deception doctrines since the very beginning. False flag operations such as “blowing up Russia” were used as a pretext for a full re-invasion of Chechnya that brought him to power.[5] Putin, like his predecessors Stalin and Lenin, knew that a “small Georgian nation could trigger liberation struggles throughout all Captive Nations”[6], and even more if Ukraine, a big European country, were to break away. Rewriting history on these terms is very important for Putin.

It sets the pretext for Putin’s victorious wars and to embark on a “special mission” of re-establishing its influence over the post-Soviet space to acquire global influence. This is just plain fraud, and the Russians know it[7]. To understand this, one needs to listen carefully to Russian propagandists. They do the job for their ruler. That is why Putin’s propaganda mouthpieces are millionaires as well as his enablers, like former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder or international “validators” like Swiss Diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, being placed in important and well compensated positions.

Many of the Western leaders used the “Tagliavini Report” as a pretext to set aside some of its disagreements with Moscow in order to improve relations. The European Parliament was successful in countering this false narrative, adopting a resolution on 14 June 2018 on Georgian occupied territories, 10 years after the Russian invasion. The European Parliament acknowledges that Georgia was the first to experience full-scale Russian military aggression in August 2008, and underlines that the impunity which followed the 2008 invasion on Georgia is one of the factors that enabled Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

But we also need action on the part of other institutions, review of the misleading report, ‘a new official document is needed on thorough report of violations of the 2008 ceasefire agreement for which the EU as the mediator of the 12 August 2008 Ceasefire Agreement bears special responsibility.’ It can be based on facts presented in the report of the French EU Council Presidency, European Security, and the EU Mediated Georgian-Russian Cease-Fire Agreement [8]

It was quite surprising to hear the similar propaganda line mixed with some conspiracy theories, like – “President Bush encouraging President Saakashvili to start the war in 2008”, from Dimiry Muratov, a Russian Noble Prize laureate, in his video talk with Uldis Tirons [9] 17 April  2022. This demonstrates how strong and powerful propaganda is, and how well it works within Russia. It has already been adapted to social media platforms as well.

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Telegram has emerged as a significant information battlefield[10] where the Kremlin and pro-Kremlin actors spread disinformation and propaganda about the war. In Russia, nine of the ten most popular political Telegram channels spread Kremlin pro-war narratives, according to a DFRLab analysis[11].

Lesson learnt. Exposing Russian plans

Partial success of his force and fraud in 2008 and in 2014 in Georgia and Ukraine, stimulated Putin’s “all in” move in 2022. He wanted President Zelensky to flee Kiev and have the government evacuated – aiming to win by propaganda and take his authoritarian fraud to the next level. But the brave Ukrainian nation resisted heroically and revealed the true face of a Russian criminal who mobilized a defunct army.

Russian informational fraud needs to be demystified. Only then will Russian autocracy collapse, and will others connected to it follow. US intelligence sharing and the rather  unorthodox way of exposing Russian war plans to the public played an important role in shifting the tide in the informational war that Russia has dominated since 2008.

New names of long-range battlefield assaults, that the wider public has heard for first time since February 24, like: HIMARS, ATACAMs, Polish Crabs, Patriots, Javelins, Byrakhtars, etc. put in Ukrainian hands will play an important role in saving many civilian lives and depleting Russian military ability to maintain the Ukrainian territories that they are occupying.

As for destroying Putin’s informational fraud over the territory that is now called the Russian Federation, this is a much more distant, longer-term task that requires moral clarity and decisive political will of Western leaders. Two targets need to be focused on. First, Putin’s global network of oligarchs and kleptocrats who serve as the cashiers of his war, the spy rings and propaganda machine.

Second, persistent and precise targeting of the Russian informational (virtual) space to subvert its propaganda as Russian “weapon of mass self-destruction”. This will be “the end of the cultural and historical phenomenon that is still known as Russia”[12]. That is how far the frontline needs to be shifted, and winning this battle will be the prerequisite of accomplishing a Europe that is whole, free and at peace.