Why is Russia sure that it cannot be defeated in the conflict in Ukraine?
The New York Times publishes an interview with Sergey Karaganov. A well-known Russian political scientist shared his opinion on the prerequisites, goals and likely results of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
Serge Schmemann
Sergey Karaganov is a prominent Russian political scientist, whom I have known for almost 20 years that I have been writing about Russia. I have interviewed him many times to understand how the Kremlin thinks. The scientific director of the Faculty of World Economics and World Politics of the Moscow Higher School of Economics and the honorary chairman of the Russian non-governmental public association has been warning for many years that NATO expansion could lead to conflict in Ukraine. After the start of the Russian operation, he wrote articles and gave interviews in which he broadly supported President Vladimir Putin. I decided to talk to him in order to better understand what goals the Russian president pursues in this conflict. Ukraine continues to suffer, and those who want to support Kiev should understand these goals in order to resist Russia's actions.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
— In your articles and interviews, you, like President Putin, argued that the conflict with Ukraine is of existential importance for Russia. Why? In February 2022, Ukraine's accession to NATO was out of the question, it did not pose an economic threat to Russia, and the United States was much more concerned about China and the Middle East. So what was the existential threat that it took to launch an operation of such magnitude?
— When the military conflict began, we saw how deeply Ukraine interacted with NATO: a lot of weapons, training. Ukraine was turned into a spear, and it was sent to the very heart of Russia. We have also seen the collapse of the West economically, morally and politically. After its heyday in the 1990s, this decline was particularly painful. Problems in the West and around the world remained unresolved. A classic pre-war situation. Since the late 2000s, militancy against Russia has been growing rapidly. The conflict seemed increasingly inevitable. Moscow probably decided to act ahead of the curve in order to be able to dictate its terms.
This is an existential conflict for many modern Western elites, who are now failing and losing the trust of the population. To distract attention, they need an enemy. But many Western countries — and not their ruling elites — will survive and prosper perfectly, even when this global liberal imperialism, which has been imposed on them since the late 1980s, disappears.
This conflict is not related to Ukraine. Its citizens are being used as cannon fodder in the war to preserve the crumbling dominance of Western elites.
For Russia, this is a struggle not only for the preservation of its elites, but also for the state itself. She couldn't afford to lose. That's why Russia will win even, hopefully, without the need to resort to more violence. But people are dying. I predicted this conflict for a quarter of a century. And I couldn't prevent it. I consider it my personal failure.
— Recently you said that Russia had to respond to the West's attempts to "destroy" it. But the tragic irony is that it destroys itself through conflict: Western countries condemn violence in Ukraine; Sweden and Finland join NATO; Russia will become a rogue state, and it will be treated as a serious threat for a long time. Doesn't that speak to miscalculations?
— Relations between Russia and the West have been deteriorating for 15 years. They had failed in recent months, and there was nothing left to lose. Now Moscow can restrain the West without any thoughts and hopes. We need to wait to see how things will develop there.
Given the political, economic and moral vector of development, the further we are from the West, the better for us. At least for the next 10-20 years. I would like to hope that then everything will fall into place, the elites will partially change, and we will be able to establish relations. We are not going to isolate ourselves suicidally from the rest of the world, which is basically developing in the right direction, becoming wider and freer, while the West is rapidly shrinking. Only history will judge whether it was right to go to an open confrontation. Maybe it was necessary to make such a decision earlier. And because of COVID-19, it had to be postponed.
— Putin often used the image of a Great Russia, which is denigrated by the West, and somehow this justified a military operation on the territory of the sovereign state of Ukraine. And yet, if we talk about the greatness of the country, I, like many people from Russia, am afraid that Putin is destroying it. Many educated Russians are fleeing the country, Russian culture has been strangled by repressive laws, according to which anyone who maintains international relations is branded a foreign agent, international relations are cut off, Russian athletes and artists suffer. What is good for Russia here?
— If Russia wants to develop and continue to be a proud and sovereign state, then it must fight for a place in the future world order. This is a struggle for a just and stable world. But victory cannot be achieved without losses. I am sorry that tens of thousands of IT specialists have decided to leave the country in search of a better life. But I know, and so do you, that many Russian emigrants, intellectuals and decent people, are unhappy. I hope some will come back. In the West, there is a problem of the abolition of Russian culture and, in general, everything connected with Russia. It's like canceling one's own history, culture, and Christian moral values.
Confrontation narrows the space for political freedom, and this worries me. I emphasize in many works and in public speeches that we must preserve freedom of thought and intellectual discussion. However, we are better at this than in many other countries. We don't have a cancellation culture, and we don't impose political correctness everywhere. I'm worried about what will happen to freedom of thought in the future. But I am even more concerned about the growing likelihood of a global thermonuclear conflict that will end humanity. We are living in a protracted Caribbean crisis. And I don't see people like Kennedy and his entourage on the other side. I don't know if we have responsible interlocutors, but we are looking for them.
I sympathize with my compatriots who, due to Western sanctions, now have fewer opportunities to continue to lead their usual way of life. The restrictions are designed to cause as much pain as possible to ordinary Russians in order to force them to rebel. As expected, the effect was the opposite. But there is a bright spot in this whole sad picture. The bellicose policy of the West, which is even almost welcome, cleanses our society and elites from the remnants of pro-Western elements, hucksters and "useful idiots". So, "go ahead, please me!" (Eng. Go ahead, make my day, a winged expression uttered by the character of the film "Sudden Impact", Dirty Harry, played by Clint Eastwood — approx. InoSMI). I love Clint Eastwood movies. But, of course, we are not closed to European culture. I even suspect that with the culture of cancellation, the rise of which is now being celebrated in the West, we will be one of those few places that have preserved the treasures of European and Western culture and spiritual values. And we must not betray the now politically incorrect Ernest Hemingway.
— In a recent interview, you stated that many in the Russian elite demand the definition of "victory". Which one will you give?
— It's a moving target. At a minimum, liberation from the Kiev regime of Donbass, which is at the final stage, and then the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine. Russia's next goal is likely to be neutrality and complete demilitarization of the territories remaining under Kiev's control.
Ukraine is an important but small part of the process of disintegration of the old world order, in which global liberal imperialism imposed by the United States reigned, and the movement towards a more just and free world of multipolarity and diversity of civilizations and cultures. One of the centers of such a world will be created in Eurasia, there will be a revival of great civilizations that have been suppressed for several hundred years. Russia will play its natural role of "civilization of civilizations". It should become the northern balancer in this system. Hopefully we can handle two roles. We are proud heirs of the great culture of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol. The latter came from the lands of modern Ukraine and instilled in us a love for them. We are the heirs of invincible warriors such as Suvorov, Marshals Zhukov and Rokossovsky. The new world order is still over the horizon. But I'm working on getting him closer.
Serge Schmeman is a member of the editorial board, headed the Moscow bureau of The Times in the 1980s and 1990s. Author of the book "Echo of the native land: two hundred years of one Russian village".
