Russians who support the Ukraine invasion aren’t always ‘brainwashed’ by propaganda

Since Russia’s invasion began almost one year ago, the Ukraine war has rarely been out of the news anywhere in the Western world. But one dimension has been largely absent. What Russia thinks – as opposed to what we think about Russia – has featured at best as a very minor strand.

Now, I recognise that “what Russia thinks” is a generalisation that conflates leaders and people, and disregards many other distinctions. Nor do I wish in any way to diminish the bravery of those Russians who have spoken out against the war. But the fact is that there has been no mass anti-war movement.

I also recognise that there are reasons, big and small, why “what Russia thinks” has commanded so relatively little coverage abroad. Travel, business and media connections with Russia were largely cut off at the start of the war. It is not easy to divine what Russians think because of censorship and suppression of contrary opinion inside Russia.

As well as that, the Russian state has shown itself ill-equipped to get its message out, even as Ukraine has excelled at presenting its case. Above all – and for many this might be the overriding argument – why would anyone even think of giving the time of day to what a country that has just mounted an act of naked aggression against another state?

There is, though, I suspect, another reason why Western discussion has largely failed to consider what Russia might be thinking, and it is this: a pervasive belief that Russians are being brainwashed by a malign state into toeing the official line.

To be sure, the Kremlin’s brutal suppression of protests in the early days and the ruthless pursuit of individual dissenters surely helped to nip dissent in the bud. Thereafter, though, the most common Western explanation for what is seen as the surprising acquiescence in the war inside Russia is the power of state propaganda to bend minds.

This leads Western officials and reporters to dismiss official statements as distortions or lies and home in on a number of particularly virulent Russian state TV shows, where any criticism focuses on the perceived weakness of the Russian war effort rather than on the actual wisdom of waging war.

In some ways, the Western assumption that underlies this view could be seen as charitable, as it presupposes that one day, in the not too distant future, Russians will realise the error of their ways. They will rise up against Vladimir Putin and all his works, and suddenly see the Ukraine war – if not the world in general – just as “we” see it.

Such enlightenment, it is admitted, might have to wait for a post-Putin leader, but the argument stands: Russian support for the war, such as it is, is a consequence of coercion and deception; it is not what Russians really think.

Now I would love to believe that millions of Russians are prudently biding their time before revealing their “true” selves – but I very much doubt this is going to happen. And this is not because Russians have been so effectively bamboozled that only a very few will ever see the light, but because the official version as presented by Putin, his ministers and the state media, plugs into what many Russians – perhaps even the vast majority – think they know about their country and its 20th-century history.

You may call that state propaganda if you like, but how far is Russia unique in holding its own view of its past? Most nations, including the UK, cultivate their own, self-justifying national myths; they propagate them in their schools, and treat those who challenge them too enthusiastically with suspicion.

Ukraine is building its own national mythology right now, creating a history and a self-image that will endure for decades – perhaps centuries – to come. Whatever the outcome of the war, Ukraine will emerge in its own eyes as a land of ancient roots, valiant warriors and protectors of European civilisation against the demon Russia.

Russia, for its part, has been far less successful in forging a new sense of nationhood since the Soviet collapse (for which many reasons might be advanced). But this does not mean that Russians do not have their own bedrock of shared beliefs, which help to define them as a country. The experience of the Second World War – known as the Great Patriotic War – has survived the end of the USSR to provide Russia today with one of its most cherished national stories (the hard-won victory over fascist evil) that is shared across regions, generations and social classes.

Yes, it has been cultivated and capitalised on by Putin from the start of his presidency, not least as one of the few uncontested parts of the Soviet legacy. But even hardened opponents of Vladimir Putin might hesitate before demolishing their country’s version of the Great Patriotic War.

In this sense, the war between Ukraine and Russia is not just a clash of arms, but a clash of historical narratives and national myths.

But the historical dimension goes further. What has been striking over the past year is how much an individual country’s history has also defined the response of those countries on the sidelines, with the Second World War a favoured parallel.

Thus British officials and commentators hark back to the dark days of standing alone against Hitler and the perils of “appeasement” (for Hitler read Putin and for “appeasers” read those, such as myself, who have called for diplomacy).

The US finds parallels between Washington’s response to the pleas of Churchill and the help being sent to Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine now. But it also looks back to its Cold War duel with the Soviet Union, and its policy of supporting nascent democracies now.

At least part of the reason why France and Germany, say, may respond a little differently to the Ukraine war from the way the UK and the US do, surely reflects their own experience of the Second World War. That does not make them sympathise with Russia, but it does give them a default position of preferring peace to war, which for them was the rationale for creating what has become the European Union.

East and Central Europe have their own perspective. For many, Ukraine’s war is an echo of their own struggles – first against Nazi Germany, and then against Soviet communism. Like the UK, they are more open to armed conflict as the possibly necessary price of independent statehood, and the greatest fear is of Russia.

For Russia, meanwhile, the fear is the opposite; of being overrun – once again, as many Russians see it – by an expansionist power coming from the West. In 1914 and 1941 it was Germany, and today it is the US and Nato. This is a deeply ingrained fear that hardly needs to be reinforced by state propaganda. It was already there – in family histories, local museums and the school curriculum.

None of this means that Russians and Westerners cannot find a common language in other areas. But history, as has been said, is another country. And the idea that one day the scales will fall from Russia’s eyes over the war in Ukraine is Western wishful thinking of the first order.