What might actually have been behind the trip — and what could Washington have been trying to negotiate with the Kremlin?

Iran

CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow has produced a multitude of explanations, the most popular being that he went there to warn the Kremlin against aggression toward NATO countries, particularly the Baltic states. I find that explanation far less convincing than another possibility: the main subject of the visit was Iran, and the Americans wanted to find out whether they could reach an understanding with Moscow on limiting Russian support for Tehran — and what Putin would demand in return.

The United States is now just over two months away from the November 3 midterm elections. Republicans need a result they can show voters, and Trump in particular badly needs a success in the Middle East. The war with Iran has dragged on for nearly six months. The promised quick victory has failed to materialize, Iran continues to resist, the Strait of Hormuz remains a problem, and the resulting pressure on the oil market is being felt directly at American gas stations. Regular gasoline now averages about $4.10 a gallon nationwide, roughly 90 cents more than a year ago. For an American voter, this is considerably more tangible than any diplomatic maneuvering over Ukraine.

Trump needs an outcome that allows him to declare victory and get out of the conflict. He no longer necessarily needs to destroy the Iranian regime or force it into unconditional surrender. He needs something that can be sold to the American public as success: Iran has made concessions, Hormuz is open, America has achieved its objectives, and the president has once again delivered peace.

Iran has managed to hold out in part because it receives outside support. China helps it, and Russia helps it. Moscow can provide intelligence, facilitate sanctions evasion, and sustain financial and military-technical channels. Russia does not control Iran and cannot order Tehran to capitulate, but it can make continued resistance easier or harder - though the true scale of its support is very difficult to assess.

That suggests a very practical purpose for Ratcliffe’s mission. How far is Russia prepared to go in supporting Iran? Could an agreement be reached under which Moscow reduces that support? Could it stop providing certain intelligence, close some sanctions-evasion channels, or restrict other forms of assistance? Could Russia help facilitate a settlement? And, most importantly, what would Putin demand in return for Russian neutrality or cooperation?

Ratcliffe himself is a logical choice for such a conversation. He is someone Trump trusts and, at the same time, the head of an intelligence service. He is senior enough to conduct a serious negotiation, but his visit can always be presented publicly as a routine professional contact between intelligence agencies whose substance is, by definition, classified. Had Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, or the secretary of defense flown to Moscow, it would have been much harder to minimize the political significance of the trip. Ratcliffe offers the administration the best of both worlds: a trusted senior emissary for a sensitive negotiation and plausible deniability about its importance.

After Ratcliffe returned to Washington, he was seen in contact with senior military officials, including the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What is the American military leadership primarily preoccupied with at the moment? Iran. This proves nothing by itself, but it fits the broader picture.

Europe

The claim that the main purpose of the visit was to warn Moscow about NATO raises far more questions. It fits poorly with the Trump administration’s previous policy toward Europe. Washington is simultaneously discussing reductions in the American military presence on the continent while the press tells us that the CIA director was sent to Moscow to demonstrate American determination to defend Europe. That is an odd combination: the United States is considering reducing the very military force Moscow actually has to take into account while supposedly compensating for it with a verbal warning.

If a state genuinely wants to send a hard military-political signal to an adversary, there are much more convincing ways to do it. Reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank, deploying additional aircraft and air defenses, or moving more forces into the region would carry considerably more weight than sending an intelligence chief to tell Moscow not to attack. A warning becomes credible because of the capability and willingness to enforce it.

The NATO explanation fits Trump’s own behavior even less well. Had he really sent the CIA director to Moscow to frighten Putin away from attacking NATO, Trump would hardly have missed the opportunity to advertise it. We would already have heard that one decision by Donald Trump had saved Europe, prevented World War III, and preserved peace for all mankind. That would be entirely consistent with his political style.

Instead, Trump has played down the significance of the trip, describing it as essentially routine and declining to turn it into a personal triumph. That makes much more sense if the real subject is politically awkward for him. Admitting that the United States is seeking Russian assistance because it has failed to obtain the desired result against Iran on its own is hardly an attractive message two months before an election. If an agreement is eventually reached, Trump can announce that he defeated Iran. If nothing comes of it, Ratcliffe’s trip can simply disappear from the news cycle.

The story about a stern warning to Moscow over Europe is, in that case, a very convenient cover: instead of admitting that Washington was seeking Russian help over Iran, the administration can present the visit as another demonstration of American resolve.

The Main Question

But this leads to the most important question: what did Moscow ask for in return?

If Washington wants Russia to stop providing Iran with intelligence, the obvious Russian response would be to demand that the United States stop providing intelligence to Ukraine. If the Americans want Moscow to restrict military or technological support for Tehran, Russia could demand restrictions on American arms supplies to Ukraine, including weapons sold to European countries for onward transfer to Kyiv. If Washington wants Russia to close financial and sanctions-evasion channels for Iran, the Kremlin could ask for sanctions relief for Russia itself.

The logic of such bargaining is straightforward: if you want us to stop helping your enemy, stop helping ours.

This is why the next round of contacts matters more than Ratcliffe’s visit itself. If Washington rejected Russia’s price, the discussion may simply end there. If contacts continue, it will mean that the American side at least considers Moscow’s demands negotiable.

And that brings us to the real question: how far is Trump prepared to go to get out of the Iran war before the midterms?

Put more crudely, could he trade Ukrainian interests for a deal on Iran? The possibility exists. Iran and Ukraine currently have very different political value for Trump. Reopening Hormuz, reducing pressure on oil and gasoline prices, and declaring victory over Iran can be translated almost immediately into a domestic political success. Ukraine is much more remote from the everyday concerns of the American voter.

So the most important thing to watch now is not another anonymous leak about what Ratcliffe allegedly told Moscow about NATO. It is what Washington does next toward Ukraine and Russia. If we begin to see new restrictions on assistance to Ukraine, pressure on Kyiv, demands that Europeans reduce weapons transfers, or other concessions to Moscow, they will have to be examined in the context of the Iran negotiations as well.

The central question after Ratcliffe’s Moscow visit is therefore no longer simply why he went there. It is much more consequential: what price did Putin name — and is Trump prepared to pay it with Ukraine?

The visit of CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Moscow is yet another manifestation of the same recurring pattern in Western diplomacy. The purpose of the visit is still unclear, but numerous commentators have already rushed to speak of some kind of “warning” that Ratcliffe allegedly brought to Putin — whether about the inadmissibility of aggression against European countries, a request to reduce escalation, cooperation against Iran, and so on. In any case, the United States is once again making the same old mistake: demonstrating its interest in contacts and possible agreements with a party that reads this as an invitation to set its own terms.

Time and again, the West tries to seize the diplomatic initiative precisely when it should be seizing the strategic initiative. Instead of creating a situation in which Moscow itself needs negotiations, Washington is the first to propose talks, the first to send envoys, and the first to reveal what it fears.

In November 2021, Biden sent CIA Director William Burns to Moscow to warn the Russian leadership that the United States knew about preparations for an invasion of Ukraine and that war would have severe consequences. The Americans regarded this as a demonstration of awareness and resolve. The Kremlin read the signal differently: the United States was so eager to prevent war that it was sending one of its most senior national-security officials to Moscow to persuade Putin to abandon it. The discussion concerned consequences after an attack, not a willingness to physically prevent the attack from taking place. Putin was given an opportunity to assess the price of war and decided that he could afford to pay it. On February 24, the war began.

Lloyd Austin’s conversation with Sergei Shoigu in October 2022 reproduced the same mistake even more vividly. Austin initiated the first call on October 21; the Pentagon openly explained the need for such contacts by citing the importance of maintaining communication with Moscow, managing escalation, and preventing miscalculation. In his conversation with the Russian defense minister, Austin warned that the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine was unacceptable. Washington believed it was drawing a firm red line. Moscow read the signal differently: Ukraine could be bombed with conventional missiles, its energy infrastructure could be destroyed, its territory seized, entire cities wiped off the face of the earth, countless war crimes committed, and the war continued indefinitely — as long as the nuclear threshold was not crossed. Thus, while believing that they were restraining Russian appetites, the Americans were in fact giving Moscow carte blanche to wage the war by virtually any other means.

The autumn of 2022 was particularly revealing. The Russian army had just suffered a rout in the Kharkiv region and was then forced to abandon the right bank of the Kherson region, including the city of Kherson itself. This was the moment of maximum Russian weakness during the entire war, when strategic logic demanded that Ukraine exploit its success, deny the enemy the opportunity to stabilize the front, and force Moscow itself to start looking for a way out. Yet this was precisely when Washington began talking about negotiations. The Biden administration started pushing Kyiv toward dialogue, while General Milley, after the liberation of Kherson, publicly described the situation as a possible “window” for diplomacy. Russia received exactly what it needed most after a series of heavy defeats: time for mobilization, regrouping, and the construction of deeply echeloned defensive lines.

“Better give them time to regroup, build defenses, construct fortified lines, and dig themselves properly into the ground. It is not our land, after all. Then next year we will insist on a counteroffensive, for which, of course, we will not provide sufficient military assistance. And after it fails, we will say that Russia cannot be defeated and that there is no alternative to diplomacy — meaning concessions to the aggressor.” This, one can only conclude, was how Biden, Sullivan, Austin, and the other outstanding American strategists — the “friends of Ukraine” and “defenders of Western democracy” — reasoned. Their followers in the United States and Europe reason the same way today.

In each of these cases, the mistake has the same origin: an inability to place oneself within the opponent’s frame of reference. Western politicians constantly assume that the other side attaches the same meaning to words, actions, and diplomatic gestures that they themselves intend to convey. For Washington, the arrival of a high-ranking envoy demonstrates the seriousness of the issue; for Moscow, it demonstrates the envoy’s interest and weakness. For Washington, a warning about consequences constitutes a threat; for Moscow, it provides information about the price that will have to be paid. For the Americans, drawing a red line means imposing a prohibition; for the Kremlin, it simultaneously means permission to act freely right up to that line.

This is a fundamental error of diplomatic thinking. The meaning of a signal is determined not by the intention of the sender, but by the way it is interpreted by the recipient.

This is why Western warnings so often prove toothless. They explain to the adversary in considerable detail what the West fears and what it wants to avoid at all cost. Burns showed how badly Washington wanted to avoid a major war. Austin showed how badly Washington wanted to avoid nuclear escalation. Now Ratcliffe, simply by traveling to Moscow, is showing that Washington once again wants something from Moscow — and therefore Moscow can once again set its own terms.

Effective diplomacy requires the opposite approach: forcing the opponent to do what you want rather than what suits them. If Moscow wants something from Washington, let Moscow ask for a meeting, send its own representative, and explain what it is prepared to give in return. When strategic pressure and initiative are instead replaced by toothless and feeble overtures proudly described as “diplomacy,” every such move makes its initiators weaker and merely convinces the adversary that its chosen course is the correct one.

So much to discover

Bloomberg reported that in July a group of former senior European officials met secretly in Vienna with a former Russian official to discuss possible ways of ending the war. The European participants included Tim Barrow, Britain’s former National Security Adviser, Markus Ederer, a former EU ambassador to Moscow, and Pierre Vimont, a former Executive Secretary-General of the European External Action Service. At almost the same time, another back channel was operating in Baku, where former German politicians Matthias Platzeck and Ronald Pofalla met Viktor Zubkov and Valery Fadeyev. These contacts, apparently, have been going on for some time. The Baku meetings, for example, have been taking place since 2024.

After almost four and a half years of full-scale war, the continuing effort to discover what Moscow “really wants” is beginning to look almost pathological. Russia explained what it wanted long ago — in words, in ultimatums and, eventually, by going to war.

It wants an exclusive sphere of influence, above all in the post-Soviet space, in which neighbouring states may retain the formal attributes of sovereignty while their essential choices — their foreign-policy orientation, military alignments and relations with the West — remain subject to a Russian veto. At the same time, Moscow wants something broader: a decisive voice in matters of European security and, ultimately, recognition of Russia as one of the powers entitled to determine the rules by which the rest of Europe lives.

The logic was stated quite openly in Moscow’s December 2021 demands for “security guarantees,” presented shortly before the invasion. Russia published two draft agreements — one with the United States and the other with NATO — setting out the order it wanted to establish in Europe. The original texts are still worth reading, because they remove much of the mystery that European intermediaries seem so determined to preserve.

Behind the familiar rhetoric of “multipolarity” lies a thoroughly old-fashioned arrangement: great powers divide the world into spheres of influence, while smaller states enjoy as much sovereignty as the dominant power in their region is prepared to tolerate.

Ukraine became a fundamental problem for the Kremlin precisely because it tried to escape this logic and determine its own future. The war was meant, among other things, to demonstrate that this freedom of choice had limits and that Moscow intended to set them.

What exactly remains to be discovered in Vienna is therefore not entirely clear. Putin, Lavrov and official Russian documents have been explaining Russia’s objectives for years with unusual candour. If, after Bucha, Mariupol, annexations and more than four years of war, someone still needs a confidential conversation with the right Russian interlocutor in order finally to “understand Russia,” the problem is clearly no longer a lack of information.

Looking for the Keys Under the Streetlight

The problem is a deeply rooted European conviction that almost any international conflict can eventually be dissolved in a sufficient quantity of negotiations: if one agreement failed, write a cleverer one; if the demands are incompatible, keep searching for a more sophisticated formula of compromise.

The Kremlin operates on a simpler principle. If pressure works, increase the pressure; if the opponent fears escalation, exploit that fear; if, after you violate one agreement, he comes back to negotiate another, then violating the first agreement was evidently worthwhile.

That is why the language in which Moscow must primarily be addressed today is the language it has itself made central to European politics: the language of strength. As long as the Russian leadership believes that continuing the war can bring it more than ending it, no secret meeting in Vienna or Baku will change its calculations. Serious diplomacy begins when the military and political cost of continuing the aggression exceeds the expected benefit.

The Munich Reflex

There is something even more disturbing behind this endless quest to “understand Russia”: an almost suicidal willingness to dismantle, with one’s own hands, the principles on which the European — and more broadly Western — order is supposed to rest. Sovereign states are supposedly free to choose their alliances and determine their own future; borders are not to be changed by force; aggression is not to be rewarded. Yet as soon as Russia violates these principles on a sufficiently large scale, the search begins for a settlement that would accommodate at least part of what it has seized or demanded, as though the proper response to an aggressor challenging the foundations of the European order were to renegotiate those foundations in his favour.

And the extraordinary thing is how little Europe expects to receive in return. Russia is not being asked to abandon its underlying claim to a sphere of influence, renounce its right to dictate the choices of its neighbours, or accept the European security order it has spent years trying to destroy. Instead, the recurring temptation is to offer Moscow concessions in the hope that, having been given some of what it demanded by force, it will become sufficiently satisfied to stop demanding the rest. Europe pays with its own principles, its own security and often somebody else’s territory and human lives, while the aggressor is expected to contribute little more than a temporary willingness to stop shooting.

There is an uncomfortable historical name for this habit of thought. Munich, 1938, was also presented as hard-headed diplomacy designed to satisfy a revisionist power by conceding something that its leaders hoped would finally make it content. The lesson of Munich is simple: when a power openly seeks to overturn the existing order, concessions that validate the method by which it pursues that goal can encourage the next demand rather than purchase peace.

The Lesson Moscow Learned

The road to 2022 began much earlier. In 2008, after Russia attacked Georgia and recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Europe protested, negotiated a ceasefire and soon returned to business as usual. Moscow learned that the West disliked aggression, but disliked confrontation with Russia even more.

The same lesson was reinforced after 2014. Crimea was annexed, war began in Donbas, and the Minsk agreements became a kind of mini-Munich: an attempt to buy stability through concessions and ambiguity while leaving Russia with much of what force had already achieved.

The point is that repeated reluctance to defend basic principles convinced Moscow that those principles were negotiable. From the Kremlin’s perspective, 2022 was therefore the logical continuation of a policy that had repeatedly worked.

What is remarkable is that many Western politicians still refuse to admit this — and continue looking for yet another compromise that might finally persuade Russia to stop.

The depressing part is that the intellectual reflex remains remarkably resilient.

What is particularly depressing is that the people who apparently still fail to grasp this are not inexperienced idealists, but men who have spent decades dealing with Russia and European security.

Which is why “useful idiots” may even be too simple a diagnosis. They are obviously not idiots.

That is precisely what makes it worse.

They have all the information they could possibly need, and yet they continue searching behind closed doors for a Russia that does not exist.

Apparently, it is incurable.

Or even worse. They may not be confused. They may have a stake in the answer. Their careers, their standing, their whole idea of what they are good at rest on the premise that this Russia can be talked round. Say out loud that it cannot, and thirty years of work turns into thirty years of wasted time. No one signs that admission, and an institution never does. So they keep looking — not because the evidence is thin, but because the conclusion is unaffordable.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has provoked an enormous amount of controversy and debate. Viewers and critics argue about everything: its degree of historical accuracy, the legitimacy of its casting choices, the persuasiveness of the acting, the composition of the shots, the music, and much else besides. Most reviews agree that the film portrays the horrors of war and the profound psychological trauma it inflicts on those who fight.

This, however, is not a review of the film. It is a series of observations prompted, on the one hand, by the feverish reaction and excitement surrounding it and, on the other, by a comparison with our present reality.

Whether consciously or not, Nolan exposes the central contradiction of contemporary Western culture. He continues to employ the language of heroic epic, recreating Troy, Odysseus, monsters, and fate, while removing the moral premise from which epic itself arises: there is no escaping fate, and therefore one must face it directly, even when the chances of victory are slight.

The Homeric epic is a world in which “victory” is a value in its own right. One may condemn a particular war, or blame particular people for a particular defeat, but no one pretends that the outcome of war is irrelevant. People fight not for the sake of war itself but for a result: their own victory and the enemy’s defeat. One may cover oneself in glory along the way, and that certainly does no harm, but true glory must be crowned by the fall of Troy. The alternatives are therefore simple: Troy will either fall or stand. The Achaeans will either win or return home defeated and humiliated. The war will end in victory for one side and defeat for the other.

The emphasis placed by contemporary Western art on trauma, the horrors of war, and the deconstruction of the heroic myth as such—of which Nolan’s Odyssey is another example—creates the impression that the modern West no longer wishes to think or speak in terms of victory and defeat. Victory seems to be regarded with suspicion, as something associated with militarism, vanity, toxic male aggression, and a “primitive division” of the world into winners and losers. The “mature” person is supposedly the one who has understood the futility of struggle; anyone who still desires victory is seen as stranded in a remote heroic past and therefore appears ridiculous.

War Machine: The Comic Achilles

This is precisely the premise of the 2017 satire War Machine. Brad Pitt’s General McMahon is appointed commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan. He takes the challenge seriously and wants to win the war—only to discover that his principal adversary is not the Taliban at all, but the American state machinery itself.

He has the body of a hero, the will of a hero, and the almost grotesque physical manner of a man who believes himself made for war. What we see is Achilles in a world where no one takes Achilles seriously. The echo of Pitt’s role in the 2004 film Troy, in which he played the great Myrmidon, is obvious.

The satire arises because McMahon continues to think in terms of victory in a political system that has long since lost any understanding of what victory is supposed to mean. He believes the war can be won through the right strategy, more troops, discipline, and personal will. Yet the American leadership wants no “victory” at all. As Pat McKinnon, the seasoned bureaucrat and US ambassador to Afghanistan, tells him: “You’re not here to win. You’re here to clean up the mess. … Just move the needle a little bit. Show everyone how all the graphs are pointing in the right direction.” In such a system, a general who seriously utters the word “victory” inevitably looks insane.

In 2017, this satire seemed persuasive. After years of campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Western audiences readily accepted the idea that generals wanted to fight because they knew how to do nothing else, and that the desire for victory was a form of professional deformation. The film itself was based on the history of the US command in Afghanistan and was presented as a satire on ill-conceived US foreign policy, although some critics discerned in its protagonist the features of a tragic figure who comes into conflict with the very system within which he was formed and rose to success.

The Afghan war could not, in fact, be won through military will alone, because the US political leadership had failed to formulate a clear understanding of what victory was supposed to mean. The armed forces conquered the enemy—and did it professionally; the politicians, as so often happens, failed to make proper use of military success and ultimately turned it into a protracted political crisis that cost countless lives and vast sums of money.

Unfortunately, excessively broad and abstract conclusions are often drawn from particular events. That is exactly what happened here: the desire to win was declared foolish in itself. Every commander is always a little McMahon, always a little clown, while an epic hero such as Achilles or Odysseus is treated as a dangerous narcissist who ought to address his trauma instead of seeking glory beneath the walls of Troy.

Nolan’s Odyssey completes this evolution. Critics have observed that the film shifts the centre of gravity of Homer’s narrative towards trauma and the human experience of war. Such a reading is intelligible to the modern viewer: it allows one to sympathise with the hero without sharing his values, and to admire the epic after first stripping it of its heroic content.

The historical rhyme is striking. In War Machine, Brad Pitt portrays a parodic Achilles—a man who still wants to fight and win, although the surrounding world finds this absurd. Nolan returns to Troy itself, but views it almost exclusively through the horror of war and the trauma of those who came home from it. Questions of victory and politics—the very motivation of the epic’s heroes—are discarded as irrelevant. Between these two films lies the cultural path travelled by the West: from mocking the will to win to suppressing altogether the thought that victory can be a moral and political necessity.

The Anti-War Message

It is worth recalling that anti-war art, and cinema in particular, comes in two forms. One says that war is evil and must therefore be avoided; it consoles the viewer by inviting him to condemn violence and war as such, requiring nothing beyond compassion experienced in the safety of the cinema. The other says that a moment comes when evasion is impossible and a person must make a difficult and often unpleasant choice; it offers the viewer an example of action and urges him to draw practical conclusions.

Casablanca, made in 1942 in the midst of war, belongs to the second kind. Its hero wants precisely to sit the conflict out: a “neutral” bar in a neutral city, no allegiance to either side, “I stick my neck out for nobody.” The entire film describes how this position brings him to an unpleasant and uncomfortable choice. In the end, Rick gives up the woman he loves, his neutrality, and his peace: he puts her on a plane with her husband, a resistance leader, and joins the Resistance himself. The film’s anti-war meaning lies neither in a slogan nor in its general presentation, but in action: an adult must outgrow the temptation to condemn “war in general” when a very particular war has arrived and threatens those close to him and the world in which he lives. The film does not say, “War is terrible.” It says that some things are worse than war, and that evasion of one’s moral duty is among them. As a character in Mikhail Bulgakov puts it: “Cowardice was undoubtedly one of the most terrible vices. … No, philosopher, I disagree with you: it is the most terrible vice!”

Nolan’s anti-war cinema, by contrast, belongs to the first kind. Three hours of accomplished imagery convey that war is frightening and bad. Yet “war is evil” is not even a thesis, still less an act. It is more like the weather: no one disputes it, and nothing follows from it. The anti-war message of Casablanca leads the viewer towards an understanding of the necessity of choice; Nolan’s leaves him sitting in his chair, moved and motionless.

The fifth year of a bloody war in Europe appears to impose new demands upon art. An honest anti-war statement must answer the question of what is to be done when war is already under way and evasion is impossible. Nolan instead produces a timeless “violence is evil,” appropriate to a prosperous peacetime year and almost indecent now, when Europe is living through its largest war since 1945. He has made precisely the kind of anti-war film from which nothing follows—at the very moment when a great deal ought to follow from it.

The Desire for Comfort and Peace

It would nevertheless be wrong to blame Christopher Nolan alone. The film resonated with viewers who evidently do not wish to see this simple distinction. Their blindness is voluntary, because not seeing is comfortable, whereas seeing imposes obligations. The viewer has been taught to regard compassion as a form of valour. A tear for the victims, declarations about the inadmissibility of war and violence—these become signs of belonging among the “good,” among those who feel.

This psychological comfort is greatest when someone else is available to fight on your behalf. It is easiest to denounce war from a safe distance while someone else spills blood—for example, Ukraine. One may even help Ukraine, but the assistance is measured out in quantities that leave its purpose entirely unclear. Plainly, it is not intended to secure victory, because “Russia cannot be defeated,” as we hear almost every day. What, then, is it intended to achieve? “Support Ukraine for as long as it takes”—yet after four years of war, no one has managed to explain how we are to know when the requisite “it” has been achieved. Ask what outcome the West desires and there is no answer: neither the defeat of the aggressor nor the liberation of the occupied territories, only that the war should drag on without becoming too loud. At best one hears something about “weakening Russia.” But what are the criteria of weakness, and why should recognition of territorial seizures—which is precisely the compromise over which Western politicians agonise—make Russia weaker rather than stronger?

The principal justification for this lethargy is a paralysing fear of escalation. The West insistently repeats that one must not provoke a nuclear power, and that any decisive step risks global apocalypse. Yet genuine fear of escalation is treated not by fleeing from escalation, but by a carefully designed strategy of deterrence that includes clear and forceful measures of de-escalation. The most important of these is to demonstrate visibly to the adversary that he is not feared. The equilibrium of deterrence always rested on an intelligible formula: we may die, but you will die with us. This is thoroughly Homeric—to look fate and death in the face in order to deprive the enemy of the illusion of impunity. The modern West, however, has unlearned this language. By constantly signalling its fear of crossing “red lines,” it merely assures the aggressor that he retains the initiative. In the end, the strategy of “preventing escalation” becomes an incentive to aggression.

The Refusal to Understand the Other

This mentality has a deeper root, one that Nolan’s Odyssey also illustrates and that explains why the West so persistently refuses to see whom it is dealing with. It is the refusal to understand the other as other—the same refusal that led Nolan to rewrite Odysseus, a man formed by the psychology of heroic epic at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, as a traumatised contemporary. The approach to another consciousness is simple: either the other is constructed exactly as we are, with the same rationality and motives, in which case he is understood in advance; or he is unknowable and irrational, and therefore impossible to understand in principle, so there is no point in trying. This perspective cannot accommodate a third kind of consciousness: one that is structured somewhat differently from ours, yet can be understood through effort. And it is precisely within this third category that every Homeric hero exists—at once close to us and alien.

With Putin, the West chooses the first type. It reads him as a rational actor with legitimate interests who wants security, money, and status—in essence, a Western leader speaking with a Russian accent. Hence the endless faith in a negotiated formula: since he thinks as we do and sees the world as we do, there must be a bargain somewhere that satisfies both his interests and ours; if we have not yet found it, we must simply be searching badly and persuading him badly. When this approach fails yet again and Putin escalates in defiance of every apparent material advantage, the West leaps to the opposite pole—madman, irrational actor—and arrives at the same conclusion: we do not understand what he wants, so we must somehow wait until he calms down and avoid provoking the violent lunatic.

In reality, Vladimir Putin is entirely intelligible. He simply thinks and acts within precisely that supposedly “obsolete” paradigm: in categories of force, domination, the humiliation of the defeated, and triumph over them; in a predatory zero-sum world where another’s gain is your loss. He is neither a mirror nor a mystery, but a rational actor whose language is force.

Yet the very language Putin is capable of understanding has been purged from the West over decades as “obsolete,” “inhuman,” and therefore unacceptable in polite society. Unable to communicate its position to the other, the West is left either to plead with him to behave more quietly or to abandon communication altogether.

To understand does not mean to agree or accept. Understanding the enemy is the first condition of defeating him. One cannot overcome an adversary of whom one has no adequate conception. The post-heroic consciousness can imagine an enemy-Achilles: an alien will equal to one’s own and terrible, before which fear would at least be justified.

The present aggressor is made quite differently. He wants spoils without risk, not glory through risk; impunity, not an encounter with fate. He is not the greedy Agamemnon but a hyena that senses the lion has grown old and no longer wishes to fight, and becomes more brazen in direct proportion to what others are prepared to concede.

Its courage is a function of another’s softness. Every Western call for de-escalation, every “let us not provoke them,” every instalment of aid to Kyiv measured out so as not to anger Moscow confirms Vladimir Putin’s picture of the world: the prey is whimpering, therefore I may continue. The image of an unstoppable steamroller, the nuclear sabre-rattling, the rhetoric of inevitability—all of it is the same hyena wrapped in the old, moth-eaten hide of a bear. The masquerade works because the victim is afraid of the hide and does not even wish to check whether there is really a bear inside it.

“Victory Is Impossible”

The rhetoric of win-win is particularly helpless when confronted with an adversary who defines his own gain precisely as the enemy’s defeat. Since Russia seeks to deprive Ukraine of territory, sovereignty, and the right to determine its own future, no mutually beneficial settlement of these issues exists between Russia and Ukraine. Every Russian gain within this structure entails a Ukrainian loss. A “compromise” can determine only the scale of those losses; it cannot transform them into a common victory. This is war in its classical historical meaning—not a well-meaning European win-win, but a bloody and uncompromising win-lose. Troy will either hold or fall.

Contemporary Western language attempts to eliminate the very possibility of tragic conflict in which the interests of the parties are incompatible, justice requires coercion, and peace is achieved through the defeat of the party that began the war. The desire to win is therefore presented as intellectually primitive, while willingness to negotiate under any circumstances is proclaimed a sign of “maturity.” In reality, this “maturity” conceals an inability to acknowledge that some contradictions can be resolved only by changing the balance of power.

This obstinacy does not retreat even before facts. When Ukraine inflicts heavy blows on Russia, burns its oil-refining capacity, sinks its ships, and makes the war more costly for the aggressor year after year—that is, when the prospect of victory over Russia moves from abstract dream to something more tangible—the West attempts to ignore it. It continues to cajole Putin into sitting down at the table and remains prepared to give him part of Ukraine, because he will accept nothing less. There is still no language of victory over the aggressor: the balance of power may shift in favour of the defender, while the language remains unchanged and capitulationist. This proves that the renunciation of victory is not calculation but a cast of mind. Calculation would change as the balance of forces and the front line changed; a habitual system of thought does not change, because it fears not defeat but the very decision to win.

There Are No Trustworthy Oaths Between Men and Lions

In peacetime, the proposition that “war is evil” appears thoroughly humane. It exposes military bravado, protects the individual from the pressure of heroic myths, and reminds us that generals and politicians are capable of turning other people’s lives into material for their own ambitions. Such a consciousness may be useful for preserving peace.

But once war is already under way, and once one is dealing with an adversary who thinks in the “obsolete” concepts of victory, the humanistic critique of militarism reveals its vulnerability. It has nothing to say about what must be done here and now—how the war is to be stopped and that precious peace restored.

From this comes the hackneyed formula: “All wars end in negotiations.” It is presented as proof that striving for victory is pointless and that resistance should be replaced as quickly as possible by the search for compromise. As though negotiations were a phenomenon entirely separate and isolated from everything taking place around them. They are not. Negotiations do not exist separately from war. Negotiations do not annul its results. They begin by recording the balance of power created on the battlefield. The parties arrive at the negotiating table with occupied territories, battered armies, depleted resources, and a recognition that further military action has become futile. The outcome of negotiations is determined above all by who proved stronger and who convinced the adversary that nothing more could be achieved.

The formula “all wars end in negotiations” deliberately erases the difference between negotiations conducted by victor and vanquished and negotiations between equal opponents. It shifts attention away from the decisive question—on what terms will the war end?—towards the comforting banality that, sooner or later, people will sit down at a table. Yet at the same table one may agree to restore a just order, conclude a temporary truce before the next war, or simply hand the aggressor everything he has managed to seize by force and even more besides.

Recovering the Lost Vocabulary

Today War Machine looks different from the way it did in 2017. We have learned to recognise the madness of generals who wish to win an unnecessary war (haven’t we?), but apparently have still not learned to recognise the madness of politicians who do not wish to win a necessary one. In the film, the general who believes every problem has a military solution is ridiculous. Today the opposite belief looks increasingly grotesque: that every problem has a negotiated solution which does not first require the aggressor to be stopped or defeated. Both illusions arise from an unwillingness to see the specific nature of a particular war. But the first at least retains an understanding of force, whereas the second hopes that willingness to talk can replace the ability to withstand a blow.

It turns out that stopping a hyena requires no superhuman heights of courage and sacrifice. What is needed is precisely General McMahon—a man who utters the word “victory” seriously and regards it as neither shameful nor ridiculous. Not Homeric heroism, not the necessity of charging with a spear against a superior power as Diomedes charged the god of war Ares—no, all that is required is the ordinary WILL to see the task through. The hyena retreats before someone bares his teeth, because it has no intention of risking its own.

But a culture that has forgotten how to desire victory cannot produce even this modest quality. It mocked its only defence against the scavenger long before the scavenger reached the gates. First it turned McMahon into a clown because he—a commander!—wanted something strange: to win a distant war rather than to “manage risk.” And when war itself arrives, and can and has to be won, there is no longer anyone for the task: such a person has already been declared archaic, obsolete, psychologically unprocessed, and unnecessary.

Perhaps this is why Homer remains far more contemporary than many contemporary interpretations of Homer. He does not conceal the price of war and offers no consoling fantasies. Yet the horror of what is happening does not imply that struggle is meaningless. On the contrary, only an understanding of its cost gives human choice its true weight.

Nor did this hero remain in the Bronze Age. He is a human type, not merely a literary figure, and the twentieth century produced him in the flesh. In the summer of 1940, when France had fallen and signed an armistice, and sober calculation dictated submission, one man declared from London that France had not lost the war. De Gaulle then possessed neither an army nor territory nor legal authority; he possessed only the will to refuse a defeat that everyone else regarded as accomplished. It is the Odyssean arc in its purest form: exile, years of perseverance against the apparently obvious, the return home, and the restoration of name and power.

Beside him stood Churchill in the position of Hector—alone against a power that was expected to crush him, fully aware that he might fall, and nevertheless refusing to retreat. These men saved their countries neither through negotiations nor through an abstract revulsion from “war in general,” but through precisely that will to victory which is now so often mocked as a relic.

We need not even look into the past. Homeric epic is unfolding before our eyes. The words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride”—spoken at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, constitute the existential choice of an epic hero. Which present-day Western leader could have said the same? Judging by their policies, it is difficult to expect comparable steadfastness from any of them. Zelensky displays an absolute determination to face fate directly and do everything within his power to overcome it. In him are joined Hector, remaining at the walls of a doomed city, and Diomedes, daring to raise his weapon against the god of war himself.

Yet it is precisely here that the central paradox in the relationship between the epic hero and the contemporary world emerges. Confronted with Zelensky, post-heroic society experiences profound internal discomfort.

A post-heroic world accustomed to treating evasion of struggle as “maturity” and safe compassion as “valour” encountered a man who refused to follow the rules of the comfortable managerial ritual. His refusal to flee was not merely a military decision; it was a blow against the very optics of the post-heroic world.

From this grows the sullen irritation, and at times outright hatred, directed at Zelensky by those who preach “peace at any price.” By his very existence and his choice, he confronts this world as an exposing mirror. The hero who accepts battle destroys the comforting myth that “resistance is futile” and forces the advocates of compromise to see themselves for what they are: political and moral dwarfs hiding behind humanistic rhetoric.

The Triumph of Willlessness

The two refusals—the refusal of victory and the refusal to understand the other—spring from the same source and lead to the same result. Victory is renounced for the sake of emotional comfort: victory demands effort, whereas “just peace,” “just negotiations,” and “war is terrible” allow one to avoid choosing and paying any price. Understanding the adversary is renounced for the same reason: it is unpleasant to acknowledge that the enemy is constituted differently and thinks in terms of force and domination; it is easier to imagine him either as exactly like us or as mad.

These two refusals are directly connected, because victory is a result, and a result is born from understanding and will. Understanding supplies the objective—what precisely is to count as victory and how it can be achieved; will supplies the force required to achieve it. Homer understood this: men fight neither for war itself nor for the beauty of suffering within it, but for an outcome—their own victory and the enemy’s defeat. Achilles chooses a short life for the sake of what will outlive him; Hector knows in his heart that “there will come a day when sacred Ilion shall perish,” and nevertheless goes out to fight, because otherwise that day will come too soon; Odysseus struggles homeward for ten years and returns victorious.

This is why the triumph of Nolan’s Odyssey is, in essence, a triumph of the willess. The film takes the story of a man of unbreakable will and a clearly defined purpose and removes both, leaving only an experience: see how frightening and painful it was. The will that captured Troy and conquered the seas, the strength “which in old days moved earth and heaven,” is reclassified as trauma; the purpose for which everything was undertaken—victory and return—is bracketed off as something awkward. The audience applauds precisely this subtraction. It has been shown a hero deprived of both understanding and will, and has recognised itself in him.

These are not abstract reflections. Western policy in Ukraine is the impotence of one who does not wish to act: it wants to help, but not for the sake of victory, and only in ways that will not bring serious trouble upon itself. Years pass, hundreds of thousands of lives are lost, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent, and the aggressor continues the war—because there is no objective of defeating him.

Here the true meaning of an anti-war position is revealed. Are you against war? Then help to end it sooner—through victory over the aggressor, so that both he and everyone watching from the sidelines learn for the future that war ends badly for those who start it. Everything else—“negotiations at any price,” “do not provoke him,” “allow him to save face”—does not end wars but gives birth to new ones.

This is absent both from Nolan and from the public that admires him. What are they celebrating? Fine words about war being bad? Everyone already knows that.

Homer says something different, and far more difficult to accept: once war has been forced upon you, dignity lies not in cursing it but in winning it and returning home. Odysseus did not wish to go to Troy and tried to evade the expedition; but once he found himself at war, he did not stand in the middle of the battlefield preaching peace. He did everything required to end the war in victory; the Trojan Horse was his idea. His return home is likewise a victory, because he overcame everything that stood in his path and recovered his home, his name, and his kingdom. Peace is brought neither by lamentation nor by an awareness of one’s moral righteousness. It is brought only by victory.

On July 9, The Economist came out with a cover story: “The man who would change Russia.” The man is Andrey Melnichenko – eighth on the Russian Forbes list, owner of EuroChem and SUEK, accounting for roughly one percent of Russia’s GDP. The magazine recorded sixty hours of interviews with him and published his essay on Russia’s future.

On 16 July the magazine printed my reply “The man who would change Russia?”. A letter to the editor is tightly capped on length, so what ran in print is a heavily condensed version of the argument. The full original text follows below.

*******

The Melnichenko essay’s content can be summarised briefly. The West is presented with four scenarios for Russia – a humiliated periphery of the West, a satellite of China, disintegration, a North Korean-style fortress – and all four are declared catastrophic. There is only one alternative: recognise Russia’s sovereignty. The word “sovereignty” is used 31 times in the text. It is not defined once. The word “Putin” does not appear at all.

The Analysis

Let us begin with what this text is not. It is not an opposition statement, and there is no point reproaching the author for that – he makes no such claim. The biographical frame is well known and speaks for itself.

In September 2023, in an interview with the Financial Times, Melnichenko compared sanctions to a natural disaster – “rain, a hurricane” – insisted that he absolutely did not consider himself personally responsible, said that the blame lay with everyone who had “allowed” the war to happen, and that “it’s pointless to talk about good and evil,” because everything depends on where you’re looking from.

All the while, his fortune doubled over the course of the war – on the back of rising fertiliser prices. Apart from that, EuroChem – which Melnichenko, once sanctioned, placed in a trust benefiting his wife – has supplied acetic and nitric acid to the Sverdlov factory, Russia’s only significant producer of the military explosives HMX and RDX, as Reuters established from railway data. The trust is the manoeuvre in miniature: Russian oligarchs and other pillars of the regime use Western legal forms – trusts, courts, “no control” pleadings – to escape responsibility under the very law they are helping to undermine.

In the summer of 2023, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office moved to nationalise his company SIBECO, then withdrew the suit later – after, as The Economist itself discovered, a donation of 32 billion roubles to Sirius, a school project personally patronised by Putin. In April 2026, Melnichenko filed a suit in a Swiss court seeking removal from the sanctions lists – arguing that he has no influence over the Kremlin’s military decisions. Three months later, the essay appeared.

None of this is kompromat; it is context.

The Prosecutor General’s suit against SIBECO was not a malfunction of this system – it was the system working as designed: a reminder of who the real owner is in Russia. The state demonstrated its ability to seize any property at any moment – and took 32 billion for not seizing it this time.

There is no property in the strict sense in Putin’s Russia – only conditional tenure, a grant held at pleasure, confirmed through loyalty and periodic contributions whose size and timing are set unilaterally. And he who has bought himself off once ends up not in safety but on a payment schedule: the next lawsuit is a matter of time and appetite.

It cannot be ruled out that the essay in The Economist is itself the next instalment, paid in kind: the thesis of Russia’s sovereignty, delivered onto the cover of the West’s leading magazine, is worth serious money to the Kremlin. Thirty-one uses of the word “sovereignty,” thirty-two billion for a withdrawn lawsuit – a billion per mention, with a billion to spare. A coincidence, of course, but the exchange rate has been set precisely.

Hence the internal contradiction that brings down the essay’s entire construction. The author sells the West a “sovereign Russia” as a predictable counterparty whose commitments hold and whose strong state is the best protection for contracts and investments. However, the author himself is the living refutation of that thesis: a man who has to buy himself off and demonstrate loyalty to the authorities at every turn merely to preserve the ability to draw income from his own assets is explaining to the world that such a system is a reliable guarantor of property. If even the 20 billion dollars of the eighth man on the Russian Forbes list are not protected inside it, what exactly does it guarantee to external partners?

A general law operates here, and it is worth stating separately, because it concerns more than oligarchs: whoever strikes a deal with Putin and his regime will pay permanently, and the price will only rise. This is not an excess; it is the nature of the deal: bargaining with arbitrary power, you pay not for a result but for a temporary abstention from violence, and every instalment paid does not close the question but confirms your solvency and the method’s effectiveness. The West, which the essay invites to “come to terms,” has already paid on this schedule – if not in money, then in concessions: 2008 was paid for with the “reset,” 2014 with the Minsk agreements, 2015 with “deconfliction” in Syria. Each deal bought a pause; each pause cost more than the last; and in 2022 the bill arrived in the form of the largest war in Europe in eighty years. Melnichenko is, in effect, selling the West a subscription to his own experience.

No Strategy Meets No Substance

There is nothing to reproach Melnichenko for: he is playing his hand rationally, concealing neither his position nor his interest. The question is different: why does the West’s leading magazine spend sixty hours on a man offering his services to the government of a country at war with Europe, and put him on the cover as the one who “would change Russia”?

The answer is unpleasant but simple. The West has no strategy on Russia – and into the resulting vacuum is inevitably drawn anyone who displays even an imitation of strategic thinking. Melnichenko mocks the formula “support Ukraine for as long as it takes” as tactics masquerading as strategy – and on this single point he is right. “As long as it takes” – to achieve what? There has been no answer for four years. A strategy is a defined goal, a path towards it, and criteria for its achievement. None of this has been formulated in Western policy on Russia: there are only the tactics of holding out one more day and one more night, packaged in the rhetoric of resolve.

Melnichenko himself, however, displays exactly the same emptiness of content. Nowhere does he formulate what the contradiction between Russia and the West that he describes actually consists of. The conflict is described exclusively through metaphors: “accumulated pressure” that “breaks through to the surface,” a foundation that “has already been destroyed,” a “mechanism” the world “has lost.”

What pressure, accumulated from what, who destroyed the foundation – not a word. The only semblance of a cause – “Moscow’s security concerns were heard but never seriously addressed” – is left as undefined as “sovereignty”: which concerns? What exactly did the West threaten Russia with – its independence, its economy, its borders?

For thirty years the West enriched Russia, and Melnichenko himself is walking evidence of it: capital in Western jurisdictions, rights “governed by Western law in Western courts,” children “at the world’s best universities” – his own list. He describes a golden age of integration and simultaneously asserts that an irreconcilable contradiction was maturing all along – without ever naming it.

The reason for the silence is simple: the contradiction exists not between Russia and the West but between Putin’s regime and the West. It is neither territorial nor military but strictly internal-political: the very existence, next door, of countries living by rules, with open borders and free information, is a threat not to Russia but to a model of authoritarian, self-appointed and irremovable power in which property is a grant held at pleasure and law is an instrument for suppressing the discontented. Ukraine became the enemy not because of NATO but because it demonstrated the possibility of a different path for a country with a shared historical past.

To admit this is to admit that the contradiction is removed by changing the model of the Russian state, not by “recognising sovereignty.” Melnichenko cannot say this – or the entire pathos of his essay evaporates on the spot.

The undefined “sovereignty” has a companion word in the essay – “respect.” The final choice the author offers the West is between a future “in which major powers again learn to respect each other’s sovereignty” and one “in which each attempts to reduce the others to objects of management.” Read it closely: respecting sovereignty is proposed to major powers – and towards each other. The remaining countries are assigned the second half of the sentence: to be objects, managed not by “each” but by the power to which they are allotted. This is spheres of influence, a concert of great powers – the so-called “Yalta 2.0”. The word “again” is telling too: major powers have already twice “learned to respect each other’s sovereignty,” in the nineteenth century and in 1945, and both times the result was called a partition of the world.

As for the word “respect” itself: in the Kremlin’s political language it means not the recognition of equality but the recognition of a right to act outside common rules – that is, a demand for capitulation, as I have written about separately. Substitute that meaning into the essay’s formula and it reads correctly: learning to respect Russia’s sovereignty means recognizing

Russia’s right to break, with impunity, any common rule it sees no longer serving its purpose.

A Split in the Elites?

Here a predictable objection must be answered: isn’t splitting the elites exactly what we should be working towards? Aren’t texts like this a first step “to the other side” – something to be encouraged rather than exposed?

There is a difference, and it needs to be clearly understood.

First, defection is an act that carries a price and an irreversibility: the defector loses something permanently on the side he leaves – which is precisely why a defection can be believed.

Second, the defector brings a contribution: inside knowledge of the system, resources, a concrete plan – what to do so that the situation in the country and the world actually changes.

Melnichenko fails on both counts. He pays no price: the war is not called aggression, Putin is not named at all, the assets in Russia have been ransomed and remain intact, loyalty has been demonstrated – while litigation to lift the sanctions proceeds in parallel. And he offers nothing: the essay’s entire content is “negotiate with Putin on his terms”. A man who knows from the inside how the ransoms and the “conditional tenure” really work could have brought something invaluable to the other side – instead he has brought the Kremlin’s position.

This is not a defection but a construction that wins under any outcome: a defector burns the bridge – Melnichenko charges a toll for crossing it in both directions. And in that capacity he is but an instrument of soft power: the Kremlin’s thesis, delivered by an “independent, sanctions-stricken businessman,” persuades better than the same thesis from Lavrov’s lips – which is exactly what the cover of The Economist has demonstrated. To reward this with the lifting of sanctions is to pay the Kremlin for a well-chosen courier – and simultaneously to devalue genuine defection: why would anyone burn bridges and offer specifics if one can, like Melnichenko, offer nothing at all?

The Recommendation

Two practical conclusions follow – one particular, one general.

The particular one concerns our protagonist himself, and it is not an accusation but an offer. Melnichenko is litigating for the removal of sanctions by proving his inability to influence Russian policy. The current sanctions regime is built in such a way that this may work: the path to unfreezing assets runs through demonstrating one’s own passivity. (One wonders, in that case, how a man who by his own account can influence nothing “would change Russia.” A rhetorical question, admittedly.) This is an inverted incentive – the system rewards the position “it’s nothing to do with me.”

A properly designed mechanism of personal sanctions should turn the incentive the other way round: removal is not begged for by lawyers and not earned by essay-writing, but purchased through verifiable action. A public break with the regime, transparent and substantial funding of Western and Ukrainian defense capabilities and Russian anti-regime resistance: organisational construction, protection of and assistance to victims, political prisoners and exiles, support for media, and only after that – a substantive conversation about lifting sanctions, about security guarantees, about a possible role in the country’s future, the preservation of assets, and so on.

How much should that cost? The yardstick is known: this man paid 32 billion roubles for the withdrawal of a single lawsuit – so that is the going rate for the questions he actually cares about.

The bid for the role of “architect of change” has been made publicly; the price list of change is known; the offer can be accepted as early as tomorrow. If it is not accepted – and it will not be – the question of whether Mr Melnichenko genuinely wants to change anything in Russia can be considered closed.

The general conclusion is addressed to the West. Melnichenko made the cover of The Economist not because he said anything new – but because the West itself has no answer to the question “what do you want from Russia?” As long as there is no answer, others will supply one – in their own interests. Today it is Melnichenko; tomorrow there will be someone else: a vacant place never stays vacant for long. The only defence against other people’s answers is one’s own: a formulated goal, clear terms, criteria of success. A strategy – not the tactics of surviving until the next summit.

The Summary

Finally, let us perform a simple exercise: subtract from the essay the one word that is never defined. What remains? Recognise the conquests, lift the pressure, negotiate with those who control the country. Moscow’s terms are, in fact, quoted in the essay directly – recognition of the territories Russia now claims under its constitution, legal protections for Russian-speaking populations, Ukrainian neutrality – but with one telling qualifier: they have, the author says, “narrowed” to these three points. The “narrowed” demands include territories Russia does not even control militarily, and Ukraine’s renunciation of allies – that is, the demands of February 2022 in full, repackaged as a sign of moderation. Capitulation, presented as compromise.

The Kremlin itself supplied the test of this thesis – on publication day. On July 9, as The Economist came out with its cover about “narrowed” terms, Sergey Lavrov, Rusian foreign minister, declared that Russia would continue the war until the goals set by Putin in June 2024 are achieved: withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the entire territory of four regions, recognition of the annexations, Ukraine’s renunciation of NATO, “demilitarisation” and “denazification” – and pronounced Moscow’s “reserve of goodwill” towards a West that “imitates readiness to negotiate” definitively exhausted.

Nothing has narrowed. The difference between the essay and the minister’s statement lies not in substance but in packaging: Lavrov calls it Ukraine’s capitulation; Melnichenko calls it Russia’s sovereignty.

This is not a new concept – it is the Kremlin’s negotiating position, unchanged.

Melnichenko offers the West nothing: no concession, no guarantee, no mechanism – the essay consists entirely of demands addressed to one side. The undefined “sovereignty” is needed for precisely this: define it, and the text turns into a statement by the Russian foreign ministry. That statement, as it happens, was actually delivered – the same day, July 9, by Lavrov. It just didn’t make the cover of The Economist.

Among Russian-speakers in exile, an entire cottage industry has grown up on YouTube whose stock-in-trade is forecasting the imminent fall of Putin's regime — the economy about to collapse, the elites about to split, in the more lurid corners the president himself already secretly dead. Their predictions rarely come true and their audiences rarely seem to mind. A modest film about a wartime weatherman is an unlikely place to examine why — but it turns out to be a remarkably precise one.

Anthony Maras’s Pressure has arrived in cinemas — a chamber drama about the three days before the Allied landing in Normandy in June 1944. The whole of the action unfolds in Southwick House, the manor where the Allied command waits for a weather forecast in order to decide, once and for all, when and how to carry out the vast amphibious operation.

Andrew Scott plays James Stagg, chief meteorologist at the headquarters of General Dwight Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser), Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe. The plot fits into a single sentence: Stagg sees, in the data coming off the Atlantic, a storm bearing down on the Channel, and insists on postponing the landing set for 5 June.

Everything else is pressure. Atmospheric, but more than that, human.

General Montgomery (Damian Lewis) presses — impatient to attack, and already knowing the answer he wants: we go on the fifth, and let the weatherman bend the forecast to fit the plan. Eisenhower presses: every day of delay is a risk of a leak and of the whole operation collapsing. Colonel Irving Krick presses — Stagg’s American rival, who before the war advised Hollywood studios: he pulls matching weather charts out of the past and blithely promises his superiors exactly what they want to hear — the fifth will be clear. And finally the sheer scale of the decision presses: an error would mean either a missed window and a ruined operation, or an operation that fails at the very outset. Either way the cost of a mistake is colossal.

But Stagg does not yield. Not out of stubbornness, and not because he thinks himself infallible — simply because the data say what they say, and a professional has nothing else to stand on. The landing is put back by a day. The storm arrives exactly when Stagg expected it, and on 6 June a brief weather window opens — one the German meteorologists failed to see. Eisenhower is credited with a remark made many years later: “the Allies won the war because their meteorologists were better than the Germans”.

The film is solidly made, in the workplace-drama genre the Americans mastered long ago. But its real subject is neither the weather nor the war. It is two ways of dealing with reality, embodied in two men. Stagg moves from the data to the conclusion those data compel. Krick moves toward the conclusion his client wants. The question the film poses runs far wider than a landing on the Normandy coast: which of these two deserves to be called a professional?

Why Eisenhower listened to Stagg

It is tempting to answer: because Eisenhower was wise and Stagg was honest. A convenient answer, but an empty one.

Had Eisenhower listened to Krick and gone on the fifth, it would not have been Krick who answered for it first — it would have been “Ike” himself, before Roosevelt, Churchill and the entire Allied coalition. And so the one who pays for the mistake is the one who has to get to the bottom of the forecasts. Eisenhower cannot simply take whichever answer is the more pleasant. He needs the most realistic forecast possible.

For all that, Krick is far from a charlatan. His forecasts in North Africa came true, and Eisenhower reminds Stagg of this directly. The method of old charts works — where the weather repeats. Over North Africa it repeats. Over the Atlantic in early June it does not: there everything changes within hours, and past charts are useless.

On the other hand, however, Krick’s priority is to give the kind of answer his client will like. Which is precisely why he simply throws out of his sample June 1916, when that same region, on those same dates, had foul weather: an inconvenient chart might spoil the optimistic forecast.

The man who started keeping score

In 1984 the psychologist Philip Tetlock did to the experts what they had so carefully avoided: he began writing down their forecasts and checking which came true. For twenty years he collected predictions from 284 professionals — political scientists, economists, analysts, journalists.

He published the results in 2005. The average expert predicted the future only slightly better than chance — but, as it turned out, “average” here concealed two entirely different breeds, and the whole difference lay in them.

Tetlock divided the experts into “hedgehogs” and “foxes,” after Isaiah Berlin’s old formula. The hedgehog knows one big thing: he has a grand theory that explains everything, and he bends every fact to fit it. The fox knows many small things: she hesitates, weighs, revises her estimate when new data arrive. The foxes predicted markedly more accurately. The hedgehog is precisely Krick: the conclusion first, the supporting evidence after.

Here it is important not to draw the false conclusion that foresight is impossible altogether. It is possible — but it depends what, and over what horizon. Stagg names a specific day, 6 June, and turns out to be right: the weather three days out is predictable, because it obeys physics, and he can see the approaching front. Rain in a given area tomorrow will be forecast fairly accurately. But the more complex and “wilful” the system, the shorter the horizon and the vaguer the timing. To name the day of a military coup or an armed uprising is all but impossible — because the event itself hangs on a mass of secret decisions and accidents invisible from outside. One can only estimate a probability. What distinguishes the professional is that he knows where the zone in which concrete forecasts can be made ends, and the zone in which they cannot begins.

It also emerged that the more famous the expert, the worse he predicted. The explanation proved simple: television selects for confidence, vividness and one neatly stated idea — that is, it selects for hedgehogs. The cautious fox, with her “about sixty percent, but a lot depends on three factors,” loses the casting to the hedgehog, who knows for certain that everything will collapse by spring.

The public market for expertise, Tetlock showed, rewards precisely the qualities that kill serious forecasting. It is not that foresight is impossible — the foxes managed it, and markedly better than the rest. It is that publicity selects for hedgehogs, and the fox, with her caveats, is not invited on air.

What the audience wants

Now the question that usually goes unasked. If failed forecasts do not bring down reputations, then the audience is buying something else from the experts. What?

The answer is simpler than it seems, and it is in the film itself. Eisenhower had an interest in the most realistic forecast possible, because the success of the whole operation — and his own career — depended on it.

The viewer who switches on yet another broadcast about the regime’s inevitable collapse is not planning to decide anything. He is planning no landing operation. What he wants is intellectual entertainment and reassurance — everything is moving in the right direction, all will be well, “you just have to wait.”

A symbiosis takes shape: the audience gets consolation and permission to do nothing, and the expert gets a fame that can be converted into income.

This mechanism has a textbook example. In the autumn of 2023 the political analyst Valery Solovey announced that Putin had died — and named the date, the place, and even the manner in which the body was being kept: a freezer at the Valdai residence. “Putin is dead, dead beyond recall, he’ll stay in the freezer” — here there is not even a forecast left. This is a report of a supposedly accomplished fact: no “perhaps,” no probabilities, no “medium-term perspective.” The deceased is now stood in for by a double — a Belarusian carpenter by the name of Yevgeny Vasilyevich.

Almost three years have passed. Putin appears, speaks, travels, wages a war. One would think a categorical claim about his death ought to have ended the career of the man who made it. Instead — broadcasts, interviews, hundreds of thousands of views. Each fresh appearance by Putin does not refute the theory but feeds it: it’s the double, of course. A claim that ought to have been tested by simple comparison with reality is shielded from any test by an added theory explaining why the obvious refutation in fact refutes nothing.

And the freezer was not his debut. Before it there had been Putin’s departure “on the Yeltsin scenario,” a political crisis promised for 2019, Putin’s replacement by Medvedev in 2020.

Solovey is the most absurd example. Even those who watch him chuckle at the freezer.

But the same mechanics work in far more respectable genres. Take the two most common storylines in Russian-language analysis.

“The economy is on the brink of collapse.” Behind this forecast there usually stands an economist with real qualifications, who does indeed see in the figures what he sees: falling incomes, deficits, the running-down of reserves. But the question posed is a different one: not “will the indicators worsen” — they will — but “will worsening indicators lead to a political decision to end the war.” That is already far from economics alone. It is a question of what level of impoverishment the regime is prepared to impose on the population, and the population to endure, and no macroeconomic model holds the answer. The economist answers all the same — and answers with the same confidence he brought to the questions his discipline can actually resolve.

“The split in the elites.” Here it is the same, only in place of figures there is political-science theory. The elites do indeed split, and in many well-known cases it was precisely a split at the top that accompanied or hastened the fall of authoritarian regimes. But this method explains what has already happened rather better than it forecasts how a situation will develop — the more so with structures as opaque and closed as today’s autocracies. Can it simply be applied to any autocracy now living, without adapting it to that autocracy’s particular features? This is Krick’s approach in its purest form: what works in North Africa will (supposedly) work exactly the same way in any other region.

Withstanding the pressure

From the film it is easy to draw a narrow moral about how to tell a good expert from a bad one. But Pressure speaks of something wider — of professionalism as such, and of what happens to a person when his professional conclusion collides with the wishes of those he serves.

What marks the professional is a readiness to use his knowledge and experience honestly, to formulate the conclusion they lead him to, to explain that conclusion — and to hold to it until new data give grounds to revise it.

Far more often one meets a different type of behaviour. A person may have an excellent education, wide experience, an impeccable résumé. He genuinely knows his trade. But the moment his superiors or his client need a particular answer, he puts his knowledge in the service of that answer. The command wants to attack — so he must explain why an attack is possible. The political leadership has chosen a course — and the task reduces to finding a convincing justification for a decision already taken. A plainly impossible task has been set — and the officer reports that work is under way, the difficulties are surmountable, and all that is needed is a little more time.

A justification can always be found: “We’re small people. The decision was made at the top. We’re under pressure. If not me, they’ll find someone else. My job is not to argue but to carry out. They know better up there. The bosses know best. They have a plan.”

As another fine workplace drama — Thirteen Days (2000) — puts it, there is something immoral about abandoning one’s own judgment.

Whoever has done that ceases to be a professional. And it is not only a matter of the quality of the work. Professionalism is also self-respect: a person who betrays his own conclusion and his own reasoned opinion, again and again, to please his superiors, ceases to respect himself, however his rank and salary may climb. Either you are the author of your own conclusion, or you are the executor of another’s wishes, going against your own views merely to oblige. For the one who chooses the second, knowledge is no salvation: it stays with him, but it now serves not to see reality but to make it easier for the boss to turn away from it.

A professional is needed by a state, an army, a company or any other complex organisation above all in order to see what the leadership does not see or does not wish to see, and to say so clearly enough. At times his entire professional work comes down to a few deeply unwelcome sentences: this task cannot be done; this plan rests on false premises; the chosen course leads to the opposite result; the decision must be reconsidered.

Holding such a position can, of course, come dear. One may spoil relations with the leadership, earn a reputation as a difficult man, lose a promotion or a post, be squeezed out of the profession. In some systems the price is considerably higher — up to persecution and repression. In any case one must, again and again, defend one’s conclusion before people who outrank you and who are waiting to hear something pleasant. James Stagg withstands all of it — and does not retreat.

This is what the word “professional” means. Knowledge alone does not make a professional if, at the decisive moment, the person tailors the picture to the desired result. The official who thinks the policy being pursued mistaken and harmful, yet obediently justifies it; the officer who thinks the order impossible, yet reports his readiness; the expert who dresses a decision already taken “at the top” in the language of expertise — all of them remain educated and experienced people. They cease to be professionals.

The film is worth seeing, if only to watch what a person looks like who does not sell his superiors hope and does not tailor his knowledge to the order, but does the very thing a professional is for: says what he holds to be true, even when what is wanted from him is something else entirely.

Preamble

This piece may at first look like a detour into Russian domestic opposition politics. It is not.

I offer here an analysis of a recent foreign-policy document presented at Yulia Navalnaya’s forum — a circle that includes, among others, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a figure well known in the West. The document claims to outline the European policy of a future democratic Russia. In fact, it reveals something more important: the inability of a significant part of the Russian opposition to think of itself as a political subject.

For Western readers, this matters directly. The question is not whether these people are morally preferable to Putin’s regime; of course they are. The question is whether they are capable of formulating a policy, defining national interests, bargaining on behalf of a future Russia, and speaking to Europe as representatives of a state rather than as petitioners seeking admission back into polite company.

That is why this is not merely a Russian story. It is a story about how the West imagines a post-Putin Russia — and about the risks of mistaking respectable rhetoric, legalistic language, and good intentions for actual political strategy.

New Foreign Policy for a New Russia

At the Fourth Forum of Yulia Navalnaya, a document entitled “The Foreign Policy of a New Russia in the European Direction” was presented. Its authors are Gleb Bogush, an international lawyer; Evgeny Roshchin, a political scientist at the Washington-based CEPA; and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

What does the document tell us? A new Russia will be peace-loving, will not interfere, will respect, support, assist and restore. It is impossible to object to any of this — one is hardly going to be in favour of war or against human rights. That is precisely the trick: the document is written in such a way that arguing with it feels awkward, and that is a sure sign that it says nothing. A political statement differs from a sermon in that one can disagree with it on the substance. Here there is no substance. What we have before us is not a doctrine and not a concept, but a list of good intentions.

Where specifics do appear, they are all of the same kind: the International Criminal Court, a Special Tribunal, the European Court of Human Rights, the Rome Statute, protocols to the European Convention. One can see the hand of an international lawyer — and a qualified one. The problem is that international law is not international relations, still less foreign policy. Law is the framework within which states act; politics is the action itself.

The document lists in detail which courts the new Russia will join and which conventions it will ratify — and fails to answer the first question of any foreign policy: what is the national interest? Not in general terms — there are enough general words there about the “well-being of citizens” — but in concrete terms: what does Russia need from Europe? The document answers a different question: why Europe should let us back in.

Notice the asymmetry. The authors offer Europe in advance a full package of services and concessions: troop withdrawal, reparations, nuclear self-restraint, courts, conventions. And nowhere, not in a single point, do they formulate what the new Russia wants to receive in return. Not political support for reforms, not investment, not technology, not market access, not joint projects that would pull the Russian economy out of the pit into which Putin has driven it. Cultural and scientific cooperation is mentioned in passing, almost casually, in a comma-separated list. Yet this is where any foreign policy begins: what do we want — and what are we prepared to bargain with in order to obtain it?

Here, however, nobody intends to bargain. The result is not foreign policy, but an application form. As if Soviet pioneers had been instructed to write an essay on how they would build communism: a radiant future from beginning to end, and not a single question about where any of it is supposed to come from.

To avoid speaking in abstractions, I will examine four points.

Point One: Reform of the Foreign Ministry

The declaration promises a personnel reform of the ministry, a “new system for training diplomatic personnel”, the renewal of the diplomatic corps “on the principles of openness and meritocracy”, and the exclusion of those implicated in aggression — while at the same time providing “guarantees to career officials not implicated in crimes”.

Allow me to ask several questions as someone who worked in this system for twenty years. What is a “new system for training diplomats” — and do the authors know what the old one consists of, in order to understand what exactly they intend to change? On what will the new system be based, what will it look like, and who will teach?

Where does the line of “involvement in aggression” run in an institution where alnost every employee for years has approved, implemented and voiced policy? Depending on the answer, the “uninvolved” are either an empty set or the entire ministry minus a dozen names. This criterion is the only substantive question in the entire personnel reform, and it is precisely the one that is not posed. Reforming an institution by people who have no idea how it works from the inside is an undertaking with a predictable outcome.

Point Two: The Economy That Is Not There

Now to what is wholly absent from the document. Courts, tribunals and reparations receive paragraphs; economic relations with Europe receive not a single line. Yet this is the material substance of any “European direction”. How will the new Russia trade with Europe? How will it attract European investment — and by what means, under what regime of guarantees, after investors have twice in thirty years lost everything in Russia? What is to be done with the hydrocarbon trade, which, whether one likes it or not, will remain the country’s main export resource for years to come? The “green transition” mentioned by the authors is a wonderful thing, but it does not happen overnight and costs vast sums of money. Where will the money come from, given that the document has already promised to direct state reserves and frozen assets towards reparations?

There are no answers because there are no questions. And, symmetrically, the question is not posed from the other side either: how will Europe look at all this? What demands will it make — and it will make demands, many of them — in exchange for lifting sanctions, granting access to markets and returning Russia to the financial system? The document silently assumes the Europe of 1990, waiting for Russia in the “common home from Vancouver to Vladivostok” — the rhetoric of the Paris Charter, now thirty-five years old. The Europe of 2026 is rearming and building an architecture of deterrence against Russia.

Europe is prepared to negotiate with Putin, who frightens it. With those who give everything away in advance, Europeans will behave far more harshly — not least by taking out on them the accumulated nervous shocks and fears endured in the times of Vladimir Vladimirovich P.

Here, incidentally, the authors demonstrate a construction that mirrors the Kremlin’s. Putin has spent all these years betting on European appeasers — those who will say: never mind democracy, never mind Ukraine’s sovereignty and all those other principles, as long as there is cheap gas again, let us do business with Putin. The authors of the declaration are betting on appeasers in reverse: allegedly, people will prevail in Europe who will say: forget this rearmament, this security, this strange American policy, let us be friends with Russia again; surely this time it will not let us down, now such wonderful people are in charge. The concept is exactly the same — hope in someone else’s fatigue and someone else’s frivolity instead of one’s own policy — only with the opposite sign. Putinverstehers turned inside out.

As for real bargaining, the document prepares nothing: all the trump cards have already been handed out for free before the game has even begun.

Point Three: The Ukraine That Is Not There

The document begins by stating that the war against Ukraine is criminal — and that is where the substantive conversation about Ukraine ends. Reparations are set out; the tribunal is set out. But how the war itself ends is not.

Yet this is the first question that any text on the foreign policy of a future Russia must answer. Suppose the war is ended by a new government — the very government whose policy the declaration describes. On what terms does it intend to negotiate with Ukraine? Compensation is one thing; that, at least, is discussed. But the restoration of relations — how? What security guarantees is the new Russia prepared to give Ukraine? Without them, no normalisation is possible in principle; after everything Ukrainians have lived through, a word of honour will not be enough. Troop withdrawal — from where, to where, in what sequence? Possible partial disarmament, the border regime, the deployment of units and formations in border regions? None of this is there, not even at the level of posing the question. A serious approach requires at least describing the initial conditions and indicating what one intends to do with them. Here peace with Ukraine is simply declared to have arrived — offstage, by someone else’s hand.

Again, everything comes down to an unformulated interest. The proper logic would look like this: Russia is in such-and-such a situation; it needs normalisation with Ukraine and Europe — not for the sake of normalisation per se, but in order to obtain support, money, technology and joint projects that would allow it to rebuild the economy, reduce tensions within society and heal the wounds of war; for this purpose it is prepared to take such-and-such steps in such-and-such a sequence. That is what foreign policy is. The document contains neither the first link in this chain nor the last — only the middle part: concessions, suspended in mid-air, without purpose and without price.

Point Four: Renouncing First Use of Nuclear Weapons

And finally, the point on which the lack of any foundation beneath the entire construction is most visible. Renouncing first use of nuclear weapons sounds noble. But military doctrine is not something one writes in advance as a gesture of goodwill.

Military doctrine is first and foremost an external signal addressed to other states, and above all to potential adversaries: these are the conditions under which we will use force; this is the line that should not be crossed. Deterrence is built entirely on this signal; the adversary must factor the worst-case scenario into its own planning.

Doctrine can only be the product of hard analysis: threats, the condition of conventional armed forces after this war, demography, geography, relations with neighbours — including those with multi-million-strong armies, — alliance commitments, and the regime of strategic stability. Perhaps, after such an analysis, a new Russia would indeed come to renounce first use. But then it would do so as part of a package of agreements, in exchange for reciprocal guarantees, as a negotiating position. To announce it in advance and for free, in a declaration of good behaviour, means handing out strategic assets before any analysis and before any bargaining.

And what is telling is that no analysis is visible behind this point. The renunciation of first use stands in a comma-separated list alongside the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus and commitment to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty — as items in a list of good deeds. Such matters are not decided off the cuff.

Yet here everything is decided off the cuff — and not only here: as we have seen, the same absence of analysis is visible beneath every statement in the document, from Foreign Ministry reform to the Ukrainian settlement.

This, in fact, is the main characteristic of the text: any foreign-policy concept must be the product of an analysis of threats and circumstances; here, instead of analysis, a “universal human” gesture is inserted everywhere. This is how foreign policy doctrines are written by people who have never thought of the country’s security and national interests as their own task.

What Was This?

Four points, four ways of exposing the same emptiness. The foreign-policy service is to be reformed without knowledge of how it is structured; strategic thinking is replaced by attractive “universal human” gestures; instead of a discussion of the economic basis of relations, there are general words about “cooperation with Europe”. And where there should be an answer to the main question — how the war ends — there is ringing silence.

But behind these particular failures lies a general intonation, and it is worth naming. The whole document, from the first point to the last, is written in a single genre: please forgive us, we will not do it again, we will be good boys and girls — just take us back into Europe.

This is not foreign policy. It is a petition.

This reflects the approach professed by the participants of Yulia Navalnaya’s forum: they do not think of themselves as an independent force — as a subject of change — and they do nothing to become one. They see themselves as attendants to a future good government: advisers, assistants, experts who will be accepted, admitted, appreciated. In domestic politics, this is the expectation that someone else will change the regime and invite them in. In foreign policy, it is exactly the same, only the addressee is larger: the senior, strong and wise West, addressed from below.

Do Not Petition, but Speak

And yet in this text we should have heard the voice of a country. A large and strong country — despite everything — one that has committed grave crimes and is taking the difficult path towards recognising them, but has preserved composure and self-respect. Such a country does not ask to be patted on the head and granted something from above. It recognises responsibility as an act of its own will, not as an entry fee. It proposes its own ideas for correcting the situation and is prepared to discuss and bargain for the most favourable possible terms for itself, because it considers its citizens deserving of treatment as equals.

The difference between these two positions — that of petitioner and that of subject — is not stylistic. It is the difference between a country that will forever stay in Europe’s antechamber and a country with which Europe will speak as an equal.

The path of self-respect is not easy. One can easily stumble and fall either into the swamp of self-abasement — we went through that in the 1990s — or into the poisonous fumes of resentment and chauvinism, which we are going through now. It is a path along a razor’s edge. This was the path taken by Charles de Gaulle, who quite literally saved France from becoming the spoils of the victors.

What we are being offered, in effect, is the path of Mark Rutte — at first glance a seemingly respectable European in a good suit, but in reality someone endlessly fawning before the stronger, humiliating both his own dignity and the dignity of those he represents.

The document is written not for Russia and not for its future citizens, but for a Western audience, and is meant to certify the authors as politically acceptable interlocutors. In that form, perhaps, it will work. As a basis for foreign policy, it will not, because there is no foreign policy in it: no interest, no price of the issue, not even a world beyond one direction — as if China, India, the United States and the Global South did not exist.

A real conversation about the foreign policy of a future Russia must begin at the other end: with the country’s interests, formulated concretely; with a sober assessment of the world of 2026, not 1990; with an understanding that concessions are currency, not a calling card; and with people who know what they are writing about. For now, what we have been shown is a declaration of foreign policy that lacks the main intention: to have a policy of one’s own.

Diagnosis

In this sense, the document matters not only in itself. It offers a fairly precise intellectual portrait of the Russian opposition as a political milieu: it claims to be a future political force, but still thinks of itself not in terms of government, responsibility and competence, but in terms of moral self-presentation. Fine words, correct gestures, impeccable declarations, a demonstrative readiness to be “good” — and, at the same time, a complete lack of professional understanding of the very fields these people propose to enter.

This is not confined to foreign policy. The same logic is visible elsewhere: the state, the economy, the army, diplomacy, security and the institutions of power are treated not as complex systems requiring knowledge, experience, discipline and the involvement of professionals, but as a stage on which morally correct formulae may be pronounced. Competence is replaced by confidence in one’s own righteousness; a professional approach by the belief that being on the right side of history is enough to confer the right to design the country’s future.

But politics begins precisely where the moral pose ends. To govern a state is to understand how institutions work, the cost of decisions, the resistance of the environment, the limits of resources, conflicts of interest and the consequences of every promise. The document presented here contains no such understanding. What it contains is the confidence of people who do not know the subject and do not see this as a problem.

This is the Dunning–Kruger effect translated into politics. The Russian opposition wants to rule the country, redesign its institutions, reform its foreign policy, rebuild the state and change Russia’s place in the world. Yet it does not understand that such tasks require professional competence — and that this competence is precisely what it lacks.

Instead of politics, it has developed the habit of imitating politics: loud statements, moral appeals, public declarations, and, at best, human-rights advocacy. These may be legitimate activities in themselves, but they do not amount to the craft of government.

The problem is made worse by Western recognition. People who are known, received and treated as respectable in the West begin to mistake that recognition for political qualification. Yulia Navalnaya, whose actual experience of institutional work remains unclear, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, known above all for his imprisonment and for advocacy around the Magnitsky Act and the murder of Boris Nemtsov, are treated as figures of political authority. They appear to have accepted this treatment as evidence of their own competence. But public prominence, moral courage and Western acceptability do not in themselves produce the knowledge required to govern a country.

That is why this is not merely a weak text on foreign policy. It is a symptom of a deeper malaise: the Russian opposition dreams to govern Russia, redesign its state and speak on its behalf, while lacking the competence required for such work — and lacking even the awareness that this competence is necessary.

Eleven Schengen Area countries – Sweden, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, as well as Iceland and Norway – have signed an appeal to the EU authorities calling for European visa policy toward Russian citizens to be made stricter, more coordinated, and more consistent.

Of course, Europe has every right to decide whom it admits to its territory, on what conditions, and on the basis of what security considerations. If European countries want to tighten the issuance of visas to Russian citizens, that is their sovereign right and their political decision.

In itself, however, restricting entry for citizens of a particular state precisely on the basis of citizenship is a legally and politically slippery issue. It inevitably raises questions of discrimination, collective responsibility, proportionality, and the grounds on which a person is treated as a threat not because of his or her actions, connections, or participation in supporting the regime, but simply because of a passport.

It would be one thing if the European Union, or individual European countries, were at war with Russia: then every citizen of a hostile state would automatically be viewed through the prism of military confrontation and the logic of wartime. During war, citizens of enemy states do not, as a rule, visit each other for holidays, study, leisure, or business as if nothing had happened.

But European countries are not at war with Russia. Moreover, they continue to maintain relations with it almost at the pre-war level, albeit with certain exceptions. Russia is waging war against Ukraine, threatening Europe, carrying out sabotage, cyberattacks, political interference, and blackmail; yet Europe itself continues to exist in a strange intermediate mode: not normal relations, but not a consistent rupture either; not recognition of Russia as an adversary in the full political sense, but also not readiness to treat it as an ordinary state. In this situation, visa restrictions based on citizenship become not part of a clear wartime logic, but a symptom of Europe’s broader uncertainty.

The eleven countries are quite right to write that the European response to Russian aggression must be coherent and coordinated. This is the right formula. More than that, it is precisely the formula Europe has catastrophically lacked since the very beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

But if European policy really must be coherent and coordinated, why is this requirement applied so readily to the visa issue and with such astonishing hesitation to everything else? Why is a coherent and coordinated policy necessary when processing Schengen visa applications, but not when defining Europe’s goals in this war, matters of military assistance to Ukraine, the confiscation of Russian assets, the closing of sanctions loopholes, the protection of infrastructure, resistance to Russian agents of influence, and the development of a new architecture of European security? Why is coherent and coordinated policy immediately forgotten as soon as vague hints about “negotiations” once again come from Moscow – and European figures again and again launch into reflections on the territorial concessions Ukraine should supposedly make?

Let us reveal a small secret: coherence and coordination in politics do not begin with a visa application form. They begin with an answer to the question – what Europe actually wants to achieve.

Does Europe simply want to “stop the war” – that is, wait for the moment when the aggressor itself finds it useful to slow down the offensive temporarily in order to regain strength? Or does Europe want to “end the aggression” – that is, force the aggressor to stop military operations, withdraw its troops, give up what it has seized, and deprive it of the ability to repeat the same thing a few years later?

These are fundamentally different things. The aggressor can “stop” the aggression itself whenever it finds that convenient. Ending the aggression must be done by the opponents of the aggressor – through the force of their policy, military assistance, economic pressure, diplomatic isolation, and a clear strategic objective.

Europe still does not have such an objective – or, more precisely, it has never formulated it clearly, firmly, and publicly. How exactly should this war end from the point of view of European interests? What should the post-war order on the continent look like? How will the security of Ukraine and European countries be ensured? What measures will be taken to prevent a new aggression? What will Europe’s relations with Russia be?

Where is the comprehensive strategy in which visa policy would be one of the instruments – rather than a substitute for a strategic, coherent, and coordinated approach?

In normal politics, the objective is defined first; then the strategy is built; and only then are the instruments selected accordingly. In current European practice, the reverse happens: a convenient instrument is chosen – in this case, visas – a political posture is constructed around it, this is then presented as a display of firmness, and the question of the ultimate objective is postponed until later.

This is the classic case of searching not where something was lost, but where the light is better. Where it is possible quickly to tighten procedures, reduce the number of multiple-entry visas, and report on one’s principled stance, European policy suddenly becomes severe and clear. But where difficult decisions are needed – decisions capable of genuinely changing the course of the confrontation with the Putin regime – caveats, exceptions, legal complications, the “need for dialogue,” fear of escalation, and endless talk about how sooner or later everyone will have to sit down at the negotiating table immediately reappear.

This performative strictness looks especially absurd against the background of the fact that many representatives of the Russian regime, as well as members of their families, have long possessed European passports, residence permits, real estate, bank accounts, companies, and stable channels of movement across Europe. Others use Israeli passports or passports of other states that enjoy convenient entry arrangements with the EU. In other words, people embedded in the Putin system, who have benefited from its money, status, corruption opportunities, and political protection, often have far more reliable access to Europe than an ordinary Russian applicant for a Schengen visa.

Here, for some reason, European resolve becomes far less visible. Where is the systematic review of passports, residence permits, and investment schemes that have already been granted? Where is the verification of the origin of the capital used to buy real estate, obtain residency, and open companies? Where is the consistent work to strip representatives of the Putin elite and their families of the European privileges they continue to enjoy?

The same problem is in sanctions policy. European sanctions remain full of holes, inconsistent, and in many respects poorly thought through. Personal sanctions should have split the ruling regime, raised the price of loyalty to Putin, created incentives to exit the system, and demonstrated a distinction between those who continue to serve the regime and those who are prepared to break with it. In practice, however, they have so far failed to detach the beneficiaries of the Putin system from the Kremlin. On the contrary, they only drive these people deeper into the Putin structure, offering them neither a political exit, nor a comprehensible system of incentives, nor a clear mechanism for breaking with the regime.

This is not a strategy, but an administrative reaction. Not politics, but the bureaucratic processing of symptoms.

Ending the aggression means creating conditions under which its continuation becomes unacceptably costly for the Putin system, militarily impossible, economically destructive, and politically dangerous. It means helping Ukraine not “for as long as it takes” in some vague ritual sense, but as much and in such a way that it can liberate its territory and deprive Russia of the ability to continue the war. It means building European security not around fear of Putin’s defeat, but around the understanding that the preservation of his capacity for renewed aggression is precisely the main threat to Europe.

This is where a real coherent and coordinated policy is needed – not in consular departments and visa instructions, but in a comprehensive strategy that links military assistance to Ukraine, sanctions pressure, the confiscation of Russian assets, the fight against sanctions evasion, energy policy, counterintelligence, infrastructure protection, resistance to hybrid warfare, and the post-war settlement of Europe into one internally consistent political course.

In such a strategy, the visa issue would take its proper place – not central, not symbolic, but instrumental. Then it would be clear why particular restrictions are introduced, whom they are supposed to affect, and what political purpose they serve. Then it would be policy, not a gesture.

If European ministers seriously believe that the response to Russian aggression must be coherent and coordinated, they should begin not with visas, but with the formulation of a common objective. Russian aggression must not be “stopped” by yet another pause; it must be ended. Russia must be forced to withdraw its troops. Ukraine must be given the opportunity to restore its territorial integrity. Europe must build a security system in which a new Russian aggression becomes not merely undesirable, but practically unfeasible.

That would be a consistent policy.

Everything else is merely searching under the streetlight.

I watched The Wizard of the Kremlin and, frankly, expected something much worse. When the first reports about the project appeared, along with the plot description and cast, it seemed almost inevitable that this would turn into another stereotypical Western portrayal of Russia - cartoonish oligarchs, endless conversations about the KGB, and a collection of clichés only loosely connected to reality. After watching it, however, my impression turned out to be somewhat different. The level of cliché in the film is, in my view, fairly moderate. Moreover, at times the filmmakers manage to capture certain features of the Russian political system and even some aspects of the psychology of its participants rather accurately.

But the film’s problem lies elsewhere entirely.

The story is built around Vadim Baranov, a character who quite obviously combines traits of Vladislav Surkov and, to some extent, Konstantin Ernst. Through his recollections, the audience is shown the history of Russia from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the consolidation of Putin’s centralized system of power. Oligarchs, television, political intrigue, security services, and clashes between the main figures all appear on screen.

The problem is that the film tries to fit too much into a single story. Russian history during this period is itself extraordinarily dense with events, conflicts, and personalities. In a relatively short period of time, the country moved from the chaos of the late 1990s to a rigid personalist system of rule, and every stage of that transformation could easily have become the subject of its own film or television series. Done properly, it could have been something far more explosive than Game of Thrones.

Instead, The Wizard of the Kremlin tries to show everything at once. Events move so quickly that the film rapidly turns into an accelerated lecture course on modern Russian history delivered through fiction cinema.

That would not necessarily have been fatal if the film had been held together by a compelling central character. But this is precisely where its main weakness becomes obvious.

Vadim Baranov, through whose eyes the viewer experiences the entire story, remains almost completely underdeveloped. He appears in nearly every major scene, speaks with Putin, oligarchs, journalists, and officials, explains how Russian power works, proposes political strategies, and participates in key events of the era. Yet it remains entirely unclear who he actually is internally or how he himself relates to what is happening around him.

The filmmakers seem almost deliberately unwilling to answer the central question: why does this man do what he does? Does he genuinely believe in the idea of a strong state and “sovereign democracy”? Does he think he is saving Russia from chaos? Or is he simply a cynical political technologist interested only in power, influence, and proximity to the system? Perhaps he understands the destructive nature of what is happening but convinces himself that Russia cannot be governed any other way. The film chooses none of these possibilities and shows no meaningful internal evolution of the character.

Baranov remains an astonishingly hollow character. Throughout the film he barely changes, undergoes no meaningful internal transformation, and never gives the impression of someone experiencing genuine inner conflict.

Yet this should have been the very center of such a story. The history of Putin’s system is not merely a sequence of political events; it is also the story of the people who built it — people combining careerism, fear, conviction, cynicism, a sense of historical mission, and the ability to justify their own participation in what they were creating. Without understanding their internal logic, the narrative itself turns into little more than a collection of events and names.

This is especially noticeable in Baranov’s personal storyline. His relationship with a woman who later leaves him for an extrremely wealthy Dmitry Sidorov, whose prototype is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, occupies a significant amount of screen time, yet has virtually no effect on either the plot or Baranov himself. At one point Putin even reminds Baranov that Sidorov “stole his woman,” hinting at a possible personal motive behind the conflict with the oligarch. Yet Baranov himself never shows any desire for revenge, inner conflict, or even a change in attitude toward Sidorov. As a result, the entire subplot feels fundamentally unnecessary.

Boris Berezovsky is portrayed rather strangely as well. At the beginning of the film he appears more or less as he actually was in Russian politics of the 1990s — a deeply cynical, pragmatic, and unscrupulous operator who viewed the state primarily as an instrument for influence and property. But later the film turns him into a committed fighter for democracy and freedom in Russia. This transition is neither shown nor psychologically explained.

More than that, one gets the impression that the filmmakers essentially merged Berezovsky with Garry Kasparov. From Berezovsky they retain the oligarch, intriguer, and creature of the 1990s system; from Kasparov they borrow the image of a principled and ideological opponent of Putin speaking about democracy, freedom, and Russia’s future in the language of a political émigré and opposition publicist of the 2010s.

The problem is that these were very different people with very different biographies, motivations, and relationships to Russian politics. Instead of showing the complicated and contradictory evolution of Berezovsky himself, the film effectively replaces him with a mixture of two different political figures. And since the film never properly explains the internal logic of this transformation, the result feels confused and unconvincing.

Even more schematic is the portrayal of Boris Yeltsin. Whereas the film at least attempts to complicate Berezovsky, however clumsily, Yeltsin is depicted almost exclusively as a permanently drunk and barely coherent alcoholic who seems to have stumbled accidentally into the center of historical events.

Of course, alcohol was a very real aspect of Yeltsin’s life and political image. Ignoring it would have been absurd. But the film reduces the entirety of his character to this single trait. As a result, a man who played a colossal role in late twentieth-century Russian history is turned into little more than a comic figure.

Yet Yeltsin, if one thinks about it, is a deeply tragic and utterly unique figure in Russian history.

He simultaneously dismantled the Soviet system, opened the path to oligarchic capitalism, created the chaos of the 1990s while also attempting to contain it, and gave Russia — however briefly and imperfectly — an experience of relatively free political life. More importantly, he was effectively the only ruler in centuries of Russian history to leave power voluntarily rather than being carried out feet first, overthrown by conspiracy, or clinging to office until physically incapable of governing.

Incidentally, unlike in the film, where Putin is constantly called “the Tsar,” it was actually Yeltsin who was sometimes described that way. He resembled a traditional Russian ruler far more closely — loud, imposing, harsh, capable of sudden gestures. Putin, by contrast, was almost never called that.

There was always something simultaneously pathetic, tragic, and historically monumental about Yeltsin. Yet the film removes all of this complexity, leaving behind only alcohol, exhaustion, confusion, and bizarre behavior, turning Russia’s first president into a purely buffoonish figure. Whatever one’s attitude toward him, Boris Nikolayevich did not deserve such humiliating treatment.

The film also handles the war in Donbas in a remarkably careless fashion. As far as one can tell, the figure of Igor Girkin is effectively replaced by Alexander “The Surgeon” Zaldostanov, leader of the Night Wolves motorcycle club. The substitution looks absurd — much like the Surgeon himself.

Girkin, whatever one thinks of his views or the consequences of his actions, is still an ideological figure. He is a man of war, a man of imperial myth, for whom the conflict is genuinely a matter of conviction. That is precisely why he eventually became inconvenient for the system itself — because ideological people fit poorly into controlled vertical structures and tend not to understand the limits imposed upon them.

The Surgeon, by contrast, belongs to an entirely different category. He is neither an ideologue nor a man of war but rather an element of the state’s decorative machinery of the 2010s: patriotic show business, biker-pageantry officialdom, a man integrated into the system of grants, budgets, and state rituals. His role is to perform “popular patriotism” for television audiences, not to fight wars or formulate the ideology behind them.

There is a profound difference between people who sincerely believe in war and empire and those who merely learned how to profit from servicing that belief.

That said, the film is not entirely without merit. Jude Law delivers, in my opinion, a remarkably convincing performance as Vladimir Putin. This is not a caricature but a fairly accurate rendering of Putin’s mannerisms, facial expressions, intonation, and even that characteristic mixture of guardedness, resentment, and cold self-control associated with the Russian president.

Andrey Zayats, who plays Igor Sechin, is also highly convincing, above all because of the constant sense of concealed menace emanating from the character in nearly every scene.

The film also articulates certain basic principles of the Russian system rather accurately. In particular, it correctly suggests that in Russia money itself does not grant real status; rather, proximity to power determines property, status, and influence. For Russian audiences this is obvious, but for Western viewers it remains an important insight, since Russia is often understood merely as a “corrupt country” rather than as a system in which state power stands above property itself and determines the right to possess it.

Yet the film constantly remains at the surface level of these themes. It shows events but almost never the internal mechanics of the people who created the system. As a result, instead of a genuine political drama about the emergence of Putin’s Russia, one gets a series of historical tableaux connected by a narrator who remains psychologically opaque throughout.

In the end, the film leaves a rather mixed impression. It contains strong performances, several sharp observations, and an obvious attempt at a serious discussion of Russian power. Yet as a coherent artistic work, it ultimately fails. What remains is essentially a dramatized chronicle of Russian history whose main character merely recites chapters from a textbook without ever revealing his personal attitude toward events in which he himself was both participant and architect.

And yet, judging by the very title of the film, the real task should have been to uncover the psychology of the people who built the present regime — people like Vadim Baranov. That is precisely what the filmmakers failed to do.

Another European debate over who exactly should be sent to Moscow to negotiate an end to the war — Angela Merkel, Gerhard Schröder, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, or some other European heavyweight — once again demonstrates one of the central problems of the modern European approach to the war in Ukraine: the cart has long been placed before the horse.

An outside observer could easily get the impression that all the key questions have already been discussed and settled. That there is a clear and unified understanding of what exactly is supposed to be negotiated, under what conditions the war could end, where the boundaries of acceptable compromise lie, what will happen to the occupied territories — and whether there will still be occupied territories at all (which brings us back to the question of the terms on which the war would end), what security guarantees Ukraine would receive, who would enforce any future agreements and by what means, and finally, what the European security architecture after the war is even supposed to look like and how it is supposed to function.

Yet one somehow does not recall any such decisions having actually been jointly adopted by European leaders and approved by European institutions. And indeed, Europe still has no coherent answers to any of these questions. But that does not prevent endless enthusiasm for discussing the technical infrastructure of hypothetical negotiations: who should serve as negotiator, who possesses “sufficient authority,” who knows how to “talk to the Kremlin,” who might be able to “convince Putin.”

In reality, the question of who represents whom is entirely secondary. Once a negotiating position has been defined, priorities established, and the famous red lines drawn, the selection of negotiators becomes a purely technical matter.

Politics as Administration

The modern European political class increasingly perceives politics primarily — if not exclusively — as a process of administration, coordination, regulation, and risk management. From this emerges the illusion that any conflict can be resolved through the correct set of procedures: appoint a special envoy, hold a summit, adopt a declaration, establish working groups, define consultation formats, draft a roadmap, and create monitoring mechanisms.

But great-power politics, especially during wartime, does not work this way. It begins not with negotiators and conferences, but with answering a much more fundamental question: what kind of world should emerge after the war, and who is prepared to sustain that order through force, resources, and political will.

In the case of Ukraine, Europeans seem determined — with persistence better applied elsewhere — to skip over this stage entirely. Instead of defining a strategic objective — whether Russia should suffer defeat, what the future balance of power should look like, what kind of security system should emerge in Europe — the discussion immediately turns to how exactly the negotiation process should be organized.

Particularly revealing is the reflexive eagerness of many European politicians to seize upon any, even the vaguest, hint from the Kremlin about a supposed “readiness for negotiations” — long before any concrete proposals appear or any signs emerge that Russia’s war aims have actually changed.

In doing so, Europe places itself in a weak position. In international politics, not only the substance of negotiations matters, but also the demonstration of political will. When one side constantly signals a desire to “return to dialogue” as quickly as possible regardless of circumstances, the opposing side interprets this not as peacefulness, but as a sign of exhaustion, fear of prolonged confrontation, and an internal unwillingness to continue the struggle.

In the Kremlin, such signals are traditionally interpreted precisely this way. Russian political culture is extremely sensitive to displays of weakness, hesitation, and attempts to avoid confrontation at any cost. As a result, such reactions do not bring compromise any closer; they merely strengthen Moscow’s conviction that pressure works and that Europe will eventually begin lowering its own demands.

Wait and Hope

Behind all this lies the expectation of a “window of opportunity” that is somehow supposed to open on its own. The resemblance between European politicians and the Russian opposition milieu is striking, is it not?

For years, much of the Russian opposition has existed within a logic of waiting: waiting for a regime crisis, an elite split, Putin’s death, economic collapse, or some undefined “moment X” after which political space will supposedly emerge automatically. Until then, the primary task becomes maintaining media visibility, commenting on current events, and enthusiastically settling old scores with one another while pretending this constitutes real politics.

European elites operate according to a remarkably similar logic. There, too, exists a hidden hope that at some point the Kremlin will “mature” into negotiations, that the Russian system will tire of war, that Putin will recognize the limits of what is possible, after which everyone can return to the familiar model of managed diplomacy and compromise.

In both cases, politics is replaced by waiting for favorable circumstances. To paraphrase the late Yegor Letov — with no small degree of irony, given that the song itself is titled Everything Is Going According to Plan while the entire “plan” amounts to little more than waiting: “once the window of opportunity arrives, everything will be fucking wonderful — it’s coming soon, we just have to wait.”

The harsh truth is that genuine political opportunities rarely emerge on their own. More often, they are created through pressure, shifts in the balance of power, deliberate effort, and the imposition of a new reality upon one’s opponent. Windows of opportunity are usually opened, not patiently awaited. That is the essence of politics.

Law vs Expediency

Against this backdrop, the parallel creation of various international legal mechanisms targeting the Russian leadership — from the International Criminal Court arrest warrant to the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, whose governing framework was effectively approved by Council of Europe member states in Chișinău in May 2026 — appears especially revealing.

One gets the impression that Europe itself does not fully understand what exactly it intends to do or what political outcome it is actually pursuing.

Some European politicians speak grandly about the need for Russia’s strategic defeat. Others create tribunals and international legal mechanisms to prosecute the Russian leadership. At the same time, a third group — and often the very same people from the first two groups — speaks of the need to “understand Russia’s concerns,” urgently return to negotiations, and seek ways to restore relations with the Kremlin as though this were merely a temporary diplomatic crisis rather than the largest war in Europe since the Second World War.

But these approaches are fundamentally incompatible. And the problem is not that Europe is supposedly playing some kind of “complex double game” — the current European political class is organically incapable of such behavior — but rather that within this political class there is no clear understanding of the ultimate objective.

The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin has already demonstrated this perfectly well. Formally, the warrant exists. Formally, it concerns one of the gravest international accusations imaginable. Yet in practice, ICC member states ignore the warrant whenever convenient.

What emerges here is no longer merely a diplomatic problem, but a fundamental legal and even civilizational one.

If you launch an international legal mechanism, if you establish a tribunal, if you declare someone an international criminal, then this is no longer merely an element of political rhetoric that can later be quietly removed from the agenda for the sake of another “reset” in relations. Legal systems do not function this way — or at least they are not supposed to within the very European model of the rule of law upon which Europe likes to base its identity.

One cannot simultaneously claim that international law forms the foundation of the European order while also treating it as an instrument of temporary political expediency: today we create a tribunal, tomorrow we quietly forget about it, and the day after tomorrow we return to “pragmatic dialogue.” This is an outright undermining of the very idea of law as something binding and superior to current political circumstances.

Are Europeans really proposing to negotiate with the very same people whom they simultaneously propose to prosecute before a special tribunal? What exactly is this supposed to look like from the standpoint of Europe’s own legal order? Is the Council of Europe expected to conclude that genocide and aggression are certainly crimes, but that if the aggressor agrees to negotiate, then perhaps he is not quite so guilty after all and may even deserve to be rewarded for his many years of trying to redraw Europe’s borders by force? It would certainly be fascinating to watch the debates on this issue in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe or in the European Parliament.

Physician, heal thyself

The reason for all this is the same old problem: indecision and fear of calling things by their proper names and adopting a coherent political line. Either Russian aggression constitutes a threat to Europe, in which case that aggression must be stopped, punished, and prevented from recurring by all available means, or Europe must admit that it is unwilling — more precisely, unwilling rather than unable — to pursue such a course, in which case it should abandon Ukraine and begin pleading for Vladimir Putin’s mercy.

The situation into which Europeans are driving themselves resembles an old Soviet joke: one foot is still standing in socialism while the other has already boldly stepped into communism — to which comes the obvious question: how long can anyone stand awkwardly split between the two?

In the end, Europe increasingly resembles not an independent center of power, but an enormous bureaucratic machine producing procedures, resolutions, and moral declarations behind which there is no real political substance — meaning no strategic vision and no willingness to demonstrate the persistence and political will necessary to bring that vision into reality.

European leaders’ indignation at being supposedly excluded from the negotiation process is understandable enough. But before complaining, they should first direct their grievances toward themselves, because it is precisely their own meaningless and spineless conduct that deprives Europe of agency and effectively neutralizes its enormous economic potential in political terms. It is not enough merely to have interests and demand that others take them into account — one must also be capable of defending them. By oneself.

The latest wave of such discussions in the West was triggered by a recent article in The Economist and a number of similar commentaries arguing that growing fatigue, irritation, and latent dissatisfaction are emerging within the Russian elite. More and more analysts suggest that the prolonged war, economic exhaustion, international isolation, and the absence of any clear path out of the conflict are gradually undermining the stability of the Putin system from within. Yet many of these assessments oversimplify the very nature of the Russian regime, automatically applying to it the logic of more conventional authoritarian systems, where elite dissatisfaction can eventually lead to policy adjustments or even a change of leadership. The Russian system is both far more complex and far more dangerous. Irritation within the elite is indeed growing — but this does not automatically mean that any mechanism exists capable of transforming that irritation into political action.

How It Began

The beginning of the war against Ukraine initially plunged the Russian elites into a state of shock. The decision to invade came as a surprise to the overwhelming majority of representatives of the political, economic, and bureaucratic class. No one seriously expected either a large-scale military conflict with Ukraine or, all the more so, a long-term confrontation with the West. Neither unprecedented sanctions, nor the rupture with European markets, nor Russia’s effective isolation from a significant part of the global economy were anticipated. No one had prepared in advance for the emergency withdrawal of assets, the destruction of established patterns of interaction with the West, or life under conditions of escalating international confrontation.

However, the initial shock, compounded by the almost complete absence of political agency both among the Russian elite and Russian society as a whole, was eventually overcome. The Russian system of power is structured in such a way that the overwhelming majority of its participants do not regard themselves as independent political actors capable of influencing strategic decisions. Their role lies not in shaping policy, but in adapting to decisions that have already been made. This is precisely why even such a massive shift as the beginning of a full-scale war did not provoke organized resistance within the system.

The reaction of Western countries also proved contradictory. On the one hand, extremely serious sanctions were imposed on the Russian economy, financial system, individual industries, and representatives of the elite. On the other hand, not all sectors of the economy were affected equally. Moreover, the very logic of the sanctions mechanism contained a fundamental contradiction from the outset: Western countries formulated almost no clear conditions under which sanctions might eventually be lifted.

This was especially true of personal sanctions. Russian elites rather quickly concluded that the sanctions were effectively indefinite in nature and lacked any transparent mechanism for removal, even in the event of changed behavior. As a result, instead of causing a split within the elite, the sanctions policy in many ways produced the opposite effect — the gradual consolidation of a significant part of the Russian ruling class around Putin and the existing regime.

Many hoped (the word “counted on” would be too strong here) that after the presumed success of the “special military operation,” some sort of fundamental agreement would be reached with Europe and the United States regarding new rules of coexistence. It was assumed that the world would accept the new geopolitical reality, sanctions would be lifted, and relations would return to the previous model of interaction, albeit now “on equal terms” (whatever exactly that was supposed to mean).

Certain hopes within the Russian elite were also connected with Donald Trump’s return to power in the United States. A significant part of the Russian ruling class proceeded from the assumption that a new Trump administration would, at a minimum, attempt to secure a rapid freezing of the war in Ukraine, reduce American involvement in the conflict, and gradually normalize relations with Moscow. Many believed that Washington under Trump would be prepared to effectively recognize the existing territorial realities or at least push Ukraine toward a compromise on terms acceptable to the Kremlin.

However, these expectations are also failing to materialize. Despite the contradictory rhetoric of the US administration and the constant debates within the United States over support for Ukraine, no rapid exit from the war on terms comfortable for the Kremlin is taking place. Moreover, the war itself continues to drag on, while the sanctions-based and military-political confrontation between Russia and the West persists, with prospects for further escalation.

For part of the Russian elite, this has become an additional factor of irritation and disappointment. Within the system, a sense of strategic deadlock is once again emerging: many in the elite had expected the war to end in 2024 — it did not, and disappointment has set in. The war is not bringing the expected victory, relations with the West are not normalizing, sanctions remain in place, and the prospects of exiting the conflict without serious political and economic costs are becoming increasingly unclear.

How It Feels Now

What is especially painful is precisely the destruction of expectations. For many years, the Russian elites viewed conflict with the West as a way of achieving some sort of “compromise” and returning to the familiar system of relations. Today, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that the negative situation is assuming a far more long-term and systemic character than might have appeared at the beginning of the war.

Russia’s economic situation is deteriorating noticeably. The military overheating of the economy, which in 2023–2024 made it possible to demonstrate relatively high growth figures, is gradually exhausting itself. Formally, the Russian economy still continues to show growth, yet more and more economists — including entirely systemic and regime-loyal experts — acknowledge that this growth is artificial in nature and largely driven by mobilization dynamics. By 2025 it had already become clear that the economy was exhausted by the war, with its labor, financial, and material reserves running out; in industry, growth persists only in defense sectors generously supported by the state budget, while most civilian production is stagnating or declining.

The state is pouring colossal sums into the military-industrial complex, subsidizing arms production, increasing spending on the army and security apparatus. However, such a growth model inevitably has limits. Military production in itself does not create sustainable long-term economic development. Moreover, it is gradually beginning to crowd out civilian sectors: the more Moscow spends on military-industrial manufacturing, the less the civilian economy can compete for labor and financing, distorting the entire structure of the economic system.

The fundamental problems of the Russian economy are becoming increasingly apparent: chronic labor shortages — with unemployment hitting a historic low of 2.3% in 2024 while over 90% of companies reported personnel shortages — high inflation exceeding 8% against a Central Bank target of 4%, the destruction of established logistical chains, technological dependence on imports, lack of investment, rising business costs, and the gradual degradation of civilian industries.

The International Monetary Fund has repeatedly downgraded its forecast for the Russian economy, projecting just 0.6% GDP growth for 2025 — one of the weakest figures among major economies — despite possible fluctuations in oil prices. More and more experts, including from Carnegie and the Peterson Institute, are saying that the Russian economy is entering a phase of prolonged structural exhaustion. Military overheating temporarily masked the accumulation of internal imbalances but did not eliminate them. The war itself is gradually turning into a factor of systemic destruction of the country’s future economic potential.

Against this backdrop, Western support for Ukraine continues. Ukraine is developing its own military capabilities, including long-range strikes against Russian territory — using both missile systems and drones. Strikes are being carried out against targets deep inside Russian territory, including the Ural regions and strategic military infrastructure — in July 2025 Ukraine launched around 3,000 drones into Russia, and in March 2026 that figure surpassed 7,000, exceeding Russian launches into Ukraine for the first time. Operations by Ukrainian intelligence services are playing an increasingly visible role — demonstrated most vividly by Operation Spiderweb in June 2025, when Ukrainian drones simultaneously struck five Russian air bases across five time zones, destroying over 40 aircraft.

It is becoming obvious that the Russian military-state machine is incapable of achieving its stated goals in a war against an obviously weaker opponent. By the fifth year of the war, this can no longer be concealed even within the system itself.

Naturally, such a course of events is generating growing irritation and dissatisfaction within the Russian elite. The image of Vladimir Putin as a man who “knows where he is leading the country” is also inevitably beginning to fade. The legitimacy of personalist regimes is always built upon the perception of the leader’s competence, his ability to ensure stability, security, and predictability. When the system begins to display signs of strategic deadlock, the erosion of this image inevitably begins.

Particularly revealing is the fact that signs of growing irritation are periodically beginning to manifest themselves even within entirely systemic circles. Indirect signals of dissatisfaction are appearing more and more frequently — a kind of hidden fronde, testifying to the growing irritation among part of the elite. As one analysis by Meduza’s sources inside the presidential administration, government, and State Duma put it: dissatisfaction “breaks through not only in anonymous conversations with journalists or leaked phone calls, but increasingly in official spaces.”

One of the most sensitive issues is becoming the gradual tightening of internal control over the information space. Increasingly overt attempts to build a “sovereign internet” are provoking irritation not only among society, but also among a significant part of the urban elites, the bureaucracy, business circles, and even parts of the power system itself. Not a single senior Russian official has publicly supported the internet blockings — sources close to the Kremlin privately acknowledge that the restrictions are deeply unpopular and generate public anger toward the authorities.

For many people, the internet is not merely a means of communication, but part of their habitual way of life and an important instrument of economic activity. The Russian urban economy of the 2000s and 2010s was built to a considerable extent on integration into the global information space. Therefore, attempts to effectively return the country to a semi-isolationist digital model are inevitably perceived as a movement backward — toward archaization and degradation. In 2024 alone Russia blocked a record 417,000 websites, and in 2025 there were over 2,000 mobile internet shutdowns — more than in the entire rest of the world combined for that year.

Even more revealing are statements by certain representatives of the presidential administration and Kremlin-affiliated structures that the authorities should “use the language of prohibitions more cautiously” and avoid excessive pressure on society. According to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the discussions, a number of senior officials have been warning the Kremlin about the political and economic risks of the internet blockings — and these protests may lead the authorities to slow down the restrictions. Officials and political technologists working with the Kremlin report that the shutdowns are causing chaos even within the state apparatus itself, disrupting internal communication channels that the system depends on. Such signals may indicate an understanding within the state apparatus that endless tightening of the screws is beginning to create not only political, but also socio-psychological risks for the stability of the system itself.

Publications also periodically appear noting declines in Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings — with one Washington Post report citing a state sociological centre recording a drop to 65.6%, the lowest since the start of the war, down 12 points since January. Naturally, under conditions of an authoritarian system, sociology is always conditional, especially during wartime and repression. However, the very appearance of such publications, including in relatively systemic sources, can also be regarded as symptomatic. Within the Russian bureaucracy and elite, ratings are always perceived not simply as a tool for measuring public opinion, but as an indicator of the stability of power. Therefore, even cautious signals of a possible decline in support begin to influence the internal mood within the system.

Disappointment or Resistance?

All this still does not mean that there exists any organized opposition within the elite. Moreover, such signals do not necessarily have to lead to any active actions against Putin. The Russian system of power remains highly centralized and repressive. Nevertheless, such manifestations of irritation are important as indicators of the gradual accumulation of internal tension.

Personalist regimes can for a long time appear absolutely monolithic, especially externally. But in practice, their stability largely depends on the feeling within the elites that the leader retains control over the situation. Once signs of strategic deadlock, economic exhaustion, international isolation, and internal tightening begin to accumulate, even entirely loyal participants in the system gradually begin asking themselves: where exactly is the country heading, and how long is the existing model capable of remaining stable at all?

However, the key question is whether this irritation is capable of transforming into political action. Dissatisfaction in itself does not yet mean the emergence of a conspiracy or organized resistance. This requires not only material reasons, but also political agency, political will, organizational mechanisms, and a sense that an alternative exists.

And this is precisely what the Russian elite still lacks.

Even the most dissatisfied representatives of the system continue to fear repression, above all from the FSB, which possesses enormous powers and colossal capabilities for control. The atmosphere of constant surveillance and suspicion has long become an integral part of the functioning of Russian power. All high-ranking officials and businessmen fear wiretapping and surveillance — regardless of whether they are actually under surveillance at any particular moment.

Such an atmosphere virtually destroys trust within the elite itself, and without trust it is impossible to form any serious conspiracy or coordinated actions against the regime.

But even this is not the main problem.

The main problem lies in the absence of a clear alternative. The Russian elite does not understand how the political course can be changed without simultaneously destroying the very system within which it exists and on which it is entirely dependent. The war is an organic consequence of the regime’s internal nature. It is being waged precisely as a mechanism for preserving and freezing the existing system of power for an indefinitely long period.

Accordingly, abandoning the war would mean not merely a change in foreign policy. It would mean abandoning the very strategy of regime preservation.

Such a scenario is clearly unacceptable to most of the Russian upper elite. It is precisely the existing regime that guarantees them their place at the top of the social pyramid, access to resources, property, rents, and political influence. Any serious transformation of the system creates the risk of losing all of this.

Thus, the Russian elite finds itself trapped in a peculiar dilemma.

On the one hand, the regime, following its own internal logic, is becoming increasingly repressive. Repression, censorship, control over society, pressure on business, internet blocking, restrictions on freedoms, and the expansion of the powers of the security apparatus are all intensifying. Russia is moving ever more visibly toward becoming another North Korea or Turkmenistan.

Such an evolution destroys the prospects for normal economic development and increasingly contradicts the interests of business and even parts of the state apparatus itself.

But on the other hand, it remains completely unclear how the state’s policies could be radically changed — that is, how the screws could be loosened — while simultaneously preserving the existing regime, which is built precisely upon tightening them.

The “Transition” Trap

A seemingly acceptable formula might be the option of removing Putin personally while attempting to preserve the system itself. To try to reach some kind of compromise with the West without completely dismantling the existing order. In other words, to achieve peace on Putin’s terms, but without Putin himself.

Here a fundamental problem of personalist regimes arises.

Vladimir Putin’s system is constructed not as an institutional state, but as a system of personal arrangements centered around one individual. Putin is not merely the head of state, but the central element of the entire structure — the node that maintains the key balances of interests, provides informal guarantees, oversees the distribution of resources, and serves as the supreme arbiter in intra-elite conflicts.

Once such a figure is removed, it becomes impossible to simply “replace the manager.” Removing Vladimir Putin from the system of power would inevitably lead to powerful internal turbulence.

References to the example of the USSR after Stalin or China after Mao, where the system did not suffer catastrophic consequences after the dictator’s departure, are largely irrelevant here. In both the Soviet and Chinese cases, transformation took place within a powerful party-state structure that possessed its own institutional resilience, mechanisms for reproducing power, and forms of collective governance.

Moreover, both Stalin and Mao exercised their rule primarily as leaders of party systems, relying first and foremost on an extensive party apparatus and on the legitimacy of the party itself. It was the party that served as the collective bearer of power. Despite the colossal degree of personalized authority, both the CPSU in the USSR and the CPC remained real centers of political power within which various factions and procedures of collective decision-making existed, albeit in highly distorted and authoritarian forms.

This is precisely why, after Stalin’s death, the Soviet system proved capable of restoring internal equilibrium relatively quickly. Similarly, after Mao’s death, the Chinese system did not collapse because the party structure itself existed as an independent bearer of power, possessing institutional resilience irrespective of the specific personality of the leader.

In contemporary Russia, the situation is fundamentally different. Vladimir Putin is not the leader of a powerful institutional party controlling the state. On the contrary, the ruling party itself exists merely as a derivative of his personal power. “United Russia” does not constitute an independent center of political influence and is effectively a decorative structure devoid of its own agency, ideology, and autonomy. It does not govern the state, does not determine the country’s development strategy, and is incapable of functioning independently of the presidential vertical.

In this sense, the Russian system is far closer not to the late Soviet or Chinese model, but rather to fascist-type personalist regimes, where the source of power is the leader himself directly. In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler was likewise not merely the head of state or party leader, but the direct source of the political legitimacy of the entire system. Despite all its mass character and influence, the NSDAP functioned primarily as an instrument for implementing the Führer’s will, rather than as an autonomous institution capable of ensuring a stable transfer of power independent of his person.

Therefore, any potential “transition of power” in Russia inevitably becomes an extremely dangerous and unpredictable process (which, among other things, renders all discussions by highbrow experts about “transition” a meaningless exercise). What is at stake is not merely a change of state leader, but the possible collapse of the entire system of informal balances upon which the contemporary Russian regime rests.

Finally, the very approach of “peace on Putin’s terms, but without Putin” is obviously not an acceptable option either for Ukraine or for its allies. The problem lies not in Putin personally, but in the very logic of the Putin regime’s existence and in its objectives.

The goals and tasks of the Putin regime are incompatible both with the existence of a genuinely independent Ukraine and with the construction of normal, mutually beneficial, and equal relations with the West, and ultimately with the gradual economic and social development of Russia itself.

The Putin model of power requires the constant search for an external enemy. Simply replacing one figure while preserving the regime’s underlying logic does not solve the fundamental problem. Without dismantling the system itself, Russia will, with high probability, reproduce the same crises, the same foreign-policy aggression, and the same internal degradation — regardless of the surname of the specific occupant of the Kremlin.

This is precisely why the approach of Western countries toward Russia’s future cannot be based on a passive logic: “let’s just observe,” “the main thing is to preserve predictability,” “as long as things do not become worse,” “we have to negotiate with someone after all.” Or even: “Better Putin than who-knows-who.” Such an approach is infantile, politically immature, and strategically dangerous.

Passive policy always ends in defeat.

What is necessary is an active — more precisely, proactive — approach. This does not mean attempts at external governance of Russia or direct interference in its internal processes. What is meant is something different: the necessity of exerting maximum external influence on the trajectory of Russia’s internal transformation.

Objectively, the West is interested not simply in weakening Russia, but in dismantling precisely the model of regime that generates war and makes it an almost inevitable form of the system’s existence.

This means the necessity of supporting those forces within Russia that are interested in change, in the formation of an alternative model of the country’s development based not on mobilization, militarization, and parasitic exploitation of resources, but on institutional development and integration into the modern world.

This concerns not only the opposition in the classical sense of the word. Part of the Russian elite itself could potentially be interested in transforming the system if it sees an opportunity to preserve at least part of its position and security within the framework of a departure from the Putin model.

But such a transformation is impossible without the defeat of the current regime.

This is precisely why a strategy of the controlled defeat of the Putin system is necessary — not the chaotic collapse of a nuclear power, but the consistent dismantling of a regime that poses a threat not only to Ukraine and Europe, but also to international security as a whole and to Russia itself.

The Government

The Russian state — essentially throughout its entire history, going back to the tsarist era — has been marked by a particular attitude toward the people, that is, toward the part of society that is not integrated into the structures of power and the state. They have been treated as not fully autonomous. Formally, they are adults, legally capable; in reality, they are seen as incapable of making meaningful decisions about their own lives. And therefore they require constant supervision — naturally, from those “above” who “know better.”

In the Russian Empire, a large share of the population lived as serfs until the mid-19th century — in literal dependence on landowners. But even after the abolition of serfdom, this attitude did not fundamentally change. The autocracy operated on the assumption that the people were not ready for political participation. Any forms of representation were introduced with reservations and limitations, while the very idea of political agency on the part of the population was seen as a threat.

The Soviet system did not abandon this mindset; it repackaged it.

In the early years after the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks openly spoke about the need to “educate the masses.” The people were seen as backward, illiterate, in need of having basic things explained to them — from Marxism to the structure of the new society. This logic persisted later as well, despite mass education and the eradication of illiteracy. Party officials continued to treat people not as subjects of politics, but as objects of administration.

Post-Soviet Russian government inherited this model almost unchanged — and pushed it to its extreme form.

At its core lies a simple assumption: the people are incapable of taking care of themselves. Tens and hundreds of millions of people are not capable of making decisions about their own lives. They lack competence, they lack knowledge, and most importantly, they are assumed to lack the very capacity to make responsible choices.

Yes, Russian society does display a degree of infantilism. But this is not an inherent trait — it is reproduced by the system itself. The state does not allow society to grow up. It systematically blocks any forms of independence, replacing them with control.

This manifests itself at every level.

At the level of elections — through their systematic hollowing out. The procedures formally remain, but real choice disappears. Independent candidates are excluded, political competition is simulated, and outcomes are predetermined. The reasoning is simple: “if people are given a real choice, they will choose the wrong ones.” And the “wrong ones” will inevitably break everything and bring it down. That cannot be allowed.

At the regional level — through appointment from above. The institution of electing governors has effectively been dismantled. Local self-government is steadily weakened. Even “everyday” decisions are made not where people live, but where the power vertical is located.

People are not allowed to decide what they need — the state decides it for them. And not only in general matters, but in the details of everyday life. Any initiative coming “from below” is treated as a potential threat.

A telling example is the “Immortal Regiment,” which began as a spontaneous civic initiative — a form of collective memory and self-organization. Over time, it was absorbed by the state, turned into a managed event with a prescribed script, and incorporated into official ideology.

The logic here is simple: everything must be brought into the system. Everything must be accounted for. Everything must be kept under tight control. Independent forms of collective action — even the most harmless ones — are unacceptable in this model.

The same logic explains the tightening of censorship. Banned books, lists of “extremist literature,” “foreign agent” labels, restrictions on access to information, internet blocking — all of this is presented as protecting society. But in reality, it is the same form of supervision: the state assumes that citizens are not capable of deciding for themselves what to read, what to believe, and what conclusions to draw. They must be shielded, guided, protected from “harmful” ideas — like children who cannot be trusted to choose for themselves.

The authorities proceed from the assumption that a person does not know what they need. This is no longer just paternalism — it is a denial of agency as such.

And there is another important element of this logic — at the very top level.

Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov, and other figures of similar stature regularly — directly or indirectly — convey the same idea: they have to remain where they are, because without them everything will collapse. This is not always stated explicitly, but the logic is clear: “if not me, then who?”, “no one but me can handle this,” “the system rests on me.”

As State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin put it: ”No Putin — no Russia.”

This is a key element of how the regime sees itself. It explains several things at once.

First, the absence of succession. If a leader genuinely believes that he alone can hold the system together, then the very idea of transferring power becomes a threat. Any potential successor is a risk, because by definition he “doesn’t measure up.”

Second, it justifies permanence in power. Power ceases to be a function and becomes a mission. Not a position one can take and leave, but a duty one cannot abandon. “I cannot let the country down.”

Third, it is yet another expression of the same attitude toward society. If “no one but me can manage,” then both elites and society as a whole are seen as incapable of existing independently. They must be led, held together, directed. As Dmitry Peskov puts it, “the president knows where he is leading the country.” But he does not tell anyone. Everyone must just take it on trust.

In other words, this is the same paternalism taken to its extreme — now not only toward society, but toward the system itself.

From this logic follows the explanation for any protests. If the people are, by definition, “under supervision” and are supposed to be satisfied with the care of those above them, then any discontent can only come from outside and must be artificial in nature. Hence the constant references to “foreign agents” and “Western interference.” Genuine public dissatisfaction is simply not admitted as a possibility.

Such an attitude toward citizens — as irrational children incapable of deciding for themselves — is a defining feature of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. And this is precisely how the worldview of the Russian authorities is structured today.

However, this raises an obvious question: how, in essence, does a significant part of the Russian opposition differ from this approach?

“The Opposition”

If we turn to those who oppose the authorities, we find a striking similarity — not in rhetoric, of course, but in political and communicative practice.

First, there is leader-centrism. Key figures, unelected and self-appointed, present themselves as bearers of the knowledge of what “the country needs.” At the same time, mechanisms for real discussion and decision-making are either absent or purely decorative.

Second, there is closedness. Most structures — whether foundations, “movements,” or attempts to create parties — function as closed clubs. They lack transparent procedures, clear mechanisms for participation, and accountability.

Third — and perhaps most revealing — is their attitude toward people.

If one looks at the opposition in the media space — especially on YouTube and social networks — one sees the dominance of the same communication model. Clickbait, a constant race for “sensations,” and invitations to the same “experts,” who speak with equal confidence on everything from military strategy to domestic politics, often without any responsibility for their predictions.

The opposition, like the authorities, prefers not dialogue but monologue — its own monologue, addressed to an audience but not involving it. Attempts by activists or journalists to turn this monologue into dialogue — and dialogue implies questions, including uncomfortable ones — are met with a familiar response: ignoring, banning, rudeness, or accusations of “working for the Kremlin” and “provocation.”

What we are dealing with is not simply the absence of dialogue, but a conscious refusal of it — despite declarations about the need for a genuine public conversation on equal terms. Society is not, in fact, regarded as an interlocutor with whom one must discuss and develop solutions. It is treated as a resource, as a means — but not as a partner.

Audience is systematically untrained from thinking. They are not offered a serious conversation or given tools for independent analysis. Instead, they are provided with ready-made answers, typically in the form of slogans devoid of substantive content.

At the same time, there is virtually no reflection within the opposition on its own actions — either before the war or now. Questions are not asked about their own mistakes, miscalculations, or why, over the years, they failed to build sustainable political structures, and what, in fact, fundamentally distinguishes the opposition from the government not at the level of slogans, but at the level of practice.

An untested conviction in their own correctness, combined with a reluctance to engage in self-analysis and examine their own limitations, leads — paradoxically, though in fact quite predictable — to convergence with the regime on the most important point: their attitude toward people — as those who do not need to be asked, with whom there is no need for dialogue, who are not partners but merely an audience.

As a result, a paradox emerges: an opposition that opposes Putin’s regime precisely because it is leading the country toward degradation ends up reproducing the same mechanisms of that degradation within its own community.

Social media algorithms, of course, amplify this effect. They reward emotionality, conflict, and simplification. But this does not remove responsibility from the actors themselves. They choose to play by these rules and thereby entrench them.

In this context, it is worth recalling a line from a high-ranking character in the works of the Strugatsky brothers: “The people do not need unhealthy sensations — they need healthy sensations.” The irony captures the core point: those in power always decide for people what they “need.”

Time to grow up?

But perhaps people do not need sensations at all.

Perhaps what they need is a normal conversation — one conducted with adults. One that acknowledges complexity, discusses risks, and involves real debate rather than its imitation.

The demand for such a conversation, however, has been eroded. People have long been conditioned to believe that nothing depends on them, that they do not need to think for themselves, that decisions are made on their behalf, and that politics is, at best, a form of entertainment that requires no active participation.

Both the government and the opposition operate within the same logic. They do not see society as an equal partner. They are not prepared to delegate responsibility to it. They are not prepared to recognize its agency.

They treat it like children — showing it bright toys.

And both the regime and its opponents converge in one key message addressed to Russians: “No need to think — we decide everything for you.”

But reality is not changed by children. It is changed by adults — those who are capable of taking responsibility, making decisions, and answering for their consequences.

At the same time, opposition media figures often display the same infantilism: grievances, emotional reactions, conflict, and an inability to engage in rational discussion and produce balanced decisions. The personal replaces the political, emotion replaces analysis, and reaction replaces strategy.

If Russia is ever to become different — free, responsible, capable of agreement — this will only be possible if society itself matures. And the role of the opposition in this process should not be to reinforce infantilism or keep people in a comfortable, at first glance, but ultimately irresponsible position as objects of politics, but to facilitate that maturation — through honest conversation, through engagement, through acknowledging complexity, and through rejecting simplified answers. For that to happen, they themselves must grow up first.

With such an approach, one could attempt to build a truly different Russia.

Otherwise, everything will follow the well-known line by Viktor Chernomyrdin, former Russian Prime Minister: “Whatever party we try to build, we always end up with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” Or “United Russia.” And do we really need that?

Changing a political regime in another country through external intervention is always an extremely ambitious and complex operation. By “regime change,” we mean a change of the regime itself—that is, the system of political power and governance in a country—not merely the replacement of one or several individuals in the hierarchy with more “compliant” figures. In such cases, no real regime change occurs, nor is it even intended, as can be observed, for example, in present-day Venezuela.

The task of changing a regime can be pursued in two principal ways: through a full-scale military campaign followed by occupation and the establishment of an external administrative authority, as was done in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003; or by relying on internal anti-regime forces combined with limited external intervention. In the first case, we are dealing with an enormous commitment of resources, significant human casualties, vast material expenditures, and substantial political and military risks. For this reason, the second path appears today to be less risky and therefore more preferable.

Despite the limited nature of such intervention, the task itself remains large in scale and requires a broad approach, a clear and multidimensional strategy, and strict implementation. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this alone deters many from even considering the issue seriously. We see examples of this in the approach of Western countries toward the regime of Vladimir Putin. While “toppling regimes” in Venezuela or Iran has become familiar rhetoric in American political discourse, even U.S. officials hesitate to apply similar language to Russia, despite the fact that the current Putin regime poses a far greater threat to them.

Instead, weakened appeals to “realism” emerge; any problem that appears even moderately complex is declared inherently unsolvable, and proposed solutions are dismissed as “unrealistic.” Of course, there is no genuine realism in such arguments—they merely reflect intellectual laziness and a lack of resolve among those whose responsibility it is to search for and develop viable solutions.

At the same time, there is an opposite tendency—toward the simplest, fastest, and most spectacular moves. For example, an undesirable regime can supposedly be “removed” with a targeted strike—military, sanctions-based, or informational. “Let’s bomb the country, and the people will organize themselves and finish off the tyrants.”

Neither approach solves the problem. Some refuse to even pose the task, adopting a defeated position in advance; others are likely to break things, make costly mistakes, and ultimately retreat empty-handed. Iraq and Afghanistan, already mentioned, are instructive examples.

A serious approach begins with the acceptance of a fundamental axiom: any change of power begins inside the country.

The first condition is the presence of mass discontent. But discontent alone changes nothing. It must take organized form. A protest movement that lacks structure, coordination, strategy, and a political program remains an emotional outburst. It may be large and even violent, but without organization it cannot achieve its objectives—namely, the transformation and redistribution of power.

For real systemic change, what is required is not merely protest, but an alternative center of political agency. This implies the capacity to coordinate actions, identify and exploit weaknesses within the regime, articulate a political vision and transitional model, and assume responsibility. Without this, any vacuum of power—should the ruling system collapse—will inevitably be filled either by the security structures of the old regime or by chaotic groups driven by narrow interests.

The second critical factor is elite fragmentation. Historical experience shows that a turning point occurs when part of the elite concludes that preserving the regime has become more dangerous for them than transforming it. This may manifest itself in parts of the army or security services siding with the opposition, in elite conspiracies, in the sabotage of orders, or in informal agreements to replace leadership.

To win over part of the elite, however, protest must be organized and represented by clearly identifiable leaders. With whom are elite actors to negotiate? From whom are they to receive guarantees? With whom can they coordinate? None of this is possible when dealing with an unorganized crowd, or when protest leaders are merely the loudest individuals with megaphones who lack real authority or mandate. Once again, without organizational structure, nothing is possible.

Naturally, if external actors are interested in regime change, it would be useful for them to facilitate the emergence of such organized protest formations inside the country, supporting them through various means, including technical assistance and even arms supplies. This is especially important when authorities actively suppress all attempts at civic self-organization. Of course, such efforts make sense only where genuine mass discontent already exists within society.

Only once the above conditions are in place—an organized protest movement capable of exerting pressure on the authorities, threatening them, and negotiating with wavering elites—can external intervention be considered as a force multiplier for the protesters’ position.

In other words, direct external military intervention should occur not before, but after large-scale protests have begun to evolve into an uprising against the regime. At that stage, external actors interested in regime change, with maximum possible legitimacy, may move to directly support the insurgents. This may include decapitation strikes against critical targets, measures to prevent the army and security services from suppressing protesters, and actions designed to create the perception that superior forces stand behind the uprising—thereby encouraging defections.

The key point is that all such actions must be coordinated and form part of a single overarching strategy. The game must be played according to a score, not according to the whims of individual participants.

Thus, potentially successful regime change is a complex political process requiring the simultaneous presence of several conditions: an organized internal movement, elite fragmentation, coordination with external actors, and a carefully designed transitional plan. Without this, attempts at transformation turn either into demonstrations of force without results or into catalysts of chaos.

A useful example of long-term support for opposition forces is Turkey’s role in the Syrian civil war. Over many years, Ankara built infrastructure and a military “ecosystem” in northern Syria that proved decisive at a critical moment. Turkey acted as the principal external patron of pro-Turkish opposition forces, particularly the Syrian National Army (SNA), which participated in the offensive that ultimately led to the regime’s collapse. Turkish military presence and control over border zones provided rear support—supply routes, rotation of personnel, medical treatment, and relatively stable territorial governance—conditions without which armed uprisings often dissipate or fragment.

In this way, Turkish involvement functioned as an external reinforcement of an internal anti-regime movement: support for proxy forces, preservation of space for opposition governance, and creation of opportunities for subsequent consolidation. At the same time, the decisive role—the proverbial “boots on the ground”—was played by Syrian opponents of Assad themselves. They acted against a repressive regime that openly relied on foreign assistance from Russia and Iran.

However, this is not always the case. Frequently, strategy is replaced by tactics. A spectacular operation—an airstrike, the targeted killing of a dictator or his associates, dramatic public statements—creates the illusion of action but does not guarantee systemic results. Strategic planning requires an understanding of long-term consequences, assessment of secondary effects—from migration flows to the strengthening of radical groups—and readiness to assume responsibility for post-conflict reconstruction.

For example, in 2011 Libya witnessed an armed uprising. Intervention by the United States and European countries allowed the conflict to be turned and the regime of Muammar Gaddafi to fall. Yet the absence of a well-designed transitional plan led to the collapse of state institutions. The immediate objective—removal of the leader—was achieved, but the state itself fragmented into competing factions.

For this reason, the central question in any regime-change operation is not “How do we remove the current government?” but “What happens next?” If the model of political order, mechanisms of legitimizing new authority, the balance of regional and group interests, control over armed structures, and economic stabilization are not defined in advance, the country risks entering a prolonged phase of instability.

Risks are especially high in states with complex ethnic or confessional compositions. The collapse of centralized authority can trigger a chain reaction of separatism, armed clashes, and intervention by neighboring states. Under such conditions, regime change becomes a catalyst for regional destabilization.

The experience of recent decades confirms a simple truth: it is easier to destroy power than to build a new system. If, at the outset of an operation, there is no answer to the question of what kind of state is to be created, the consequences may prove far more severe than the problem the intervention was intended to solve.

Trumpism is frequently interpreted through the prism of personality — impulsiveness, performative politics, and the highly individualized style of Donald Trump himself. While these traits matter, they obscure a more consequential reality: Trumpism has evolved into a durable political logic with a broad social base, one that cannot be explained solely by the psychology or charisma of a single leader.

Viewed from outside the American political experience, Trumpism appears less as an ideological doctrine than as a method of simplifying a complex social and international environment through personalization, exclusion, and transactional power. Its coherence lies not in theory but in practice — in the repeated translation of anxiety about economic change, cultural displacement, and institutional complexity into emotionally resonant signals that gradually solidify into a worldview.

This dynamic has implications extending well beyond domestic politics. The same logic that privileges loyalty over institutions, immediacy over procedure, and hierarchy over reciprocity also reshapes the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, affecting alliances, conflict management, and the broader architecture of international order. Understanding Trumpism therefore requires examining not only its internal motivations, but the way its governing instincts transform the environment in which both allies and adversaries must operate.

The purpose of this essay is not to offer definitive conclusions about the trajectory of American politics, but to clarify the internal logic of Trumpism as a political phenomenon and to consider how that logic alters expectations about governance, stability, and international cooperation.

A practical ideology “from below”

It would hardly be accurate to call Donald Trump an “ideologist” in the strict sense. He is far from theoretical constructs; his political thinking is situational. Trump is first and foremost an instinctive populist with an ability to sense the emotional and social demands of an audience and respond to them immediately. It is this ability—rather than ideological depth—that sustains his support among a large part of the electorate.

But the absence of theory does not mean the absence of ideological effect. On the contrary, Trumpism forms as a practical ideology “from below,” through the constant reproduction of simple, emotionally charged signals that over time begin to function as a coherent worldview. In this process, Trump becomes a cult figure for the MAGA movement—not as a thinker or strategist, but as the embodiment of collective fears, grievances, and hopes. His words and gestures acquire symbolic meaning, and personal loyalty to him begins to compete with, and often displace, loyalty to institutions and procedures.

In its outward features, this is reminiscent of early stages of a fascist-style leader cult: personalization of politics, sacralization of the leader, justification of actions through appeals to the “will of the people,” and the replacement of rational criticism with affective, identity-based perception.

Here, “fascism” is not used as a moral epithet or identity label, but as a diagnostic of a political logic: leader primacy over institutions; friend–enemy mobilization; contempt for procedural legality; the promise of restorative national rebirth; and the gradual normalization of coercion as a legitimate instrument. The question is not whether America “becomes 1933,” but whether a comparable logic is being normalized within a different institutional ecosystem.

At this stage, however, we are not dealing with a fully formed fascist regime in the historical sense. The American institutional environment, social heterogeneity, and continuing political competition still constrain how far such dynamics can consolidate. Nevertheless, the movement’s logic and methods of mobilization clearly indicate a direction of potential evolution—especially if institutions are weakened from within and public trust in legality continues to erode.

Forward into the past

Fascist politics does not offer a vision of the future; it is anti-modernist in a philosophical sense even when it uses modern technology. Its ideal is always located in a mythologized past, cleansed of contradictions. This is precisely why the core slogan of Trumpism—“Make America Great Again”—is programmatically empty: it does not answer what America should become, only that it was once “great” and then lost that greatness. Trumpism’s mission is therefore framed as restoration.

Social base: status insecurity, stalled mobility, and a wounded norm

The social base of Trumpism resembles that of many classic reactionary mass movements. The core is not the poorest strata, but a frustrated segment of the middle class—primarily within the white population. Deindustrialization, globalization, and rising inequality have undermined prior expectations of mobility. Income growth has lagged behind asset inflation—especially housing, a central symbol of success and stability in the United States. At the same time, the symbolic order has shifted: white men are no longer treated as the undisputed cultural default around which American identity was implicitly organized.

In the language of classical Marxism, changes in the base—economic relations—have affected the superstructure: political and cultural life.

The response of American elites to these shifts was often not a sustained attempt to resolve underlying material problems (stagnating living standards, social stratification, loss of mobility), but an emphasis on superstructural and symbolic policies—identity politics, representation agendas, affirmative action frameworks. In principle, equal rights and equal civic recognition for minorities are a liberal achievement. Yet in practice, parts of this agenda were implemented in a way that many citizens experienced not as an expansion of equal rights, but as an institutional demand for affirmative endorsement—a public performance of approval and moral alignment enforced through workplaces, universities, and cultural gatekeepers.

Regardless of how accurately such perceptions reflect reality, they become politically real once they are widely shared. A substantial part of the formerly “normative” group begins to perceive itself not as a majority, but as a culturally coerced and politically marginalized category. That subjective experience—exaggerated or not—becomes a durable source of alienation and a readiness to support forces promising restoration of the prior cultural and material order.

Trumpism offers a simple solution: return to the days when “none of this existed,” when the old norm held, when the hierarchy of recognition felt stable. And the first step in such a story is almost always the same: identify “outsiders,” cast them as the cause of decline, and promise their removal.

Outsiders, internal enemies, and the politics of exclusion

Immigrants are a perfect target: politically vulnerable, unevenly protected, and easily demonized. Unlike African Americans, immigrants can be portrayed as lacking “historical belonging,” which makes it easier to frame them as an invasion rather than as fellow citizens with equal legitimacy.

But the logic does not stop at immigrants. Trumpist rhetoric tends to stoke hostility across multiple internal fault lines. Tragedies—of which American public life has no shortage—are repeatedly used as fuel for escalation and for widening the circle of blame. This is not about any single incident; it is about a pattern: turning violence into a narrative instrument that justifies harshness and expands the category of “them.”

Crucially, Trump and his team act not as leaders of the whole society, but as political representatives of only “their” part of the country. Unlike previous presidents—who at least rhetorically positioned themselves as presidents of all Americans—the Trumpist model of governance is structured around exclusion. Political loyalty competes with civic belonging; support for the movement becomes more important than shared citizenship as the basis of trust.

This style is reproduced both in public rhetoric and in governance. Trump appeals not to a common interest but to “his people,” contrasting them with the rest—elites, liberals, “internal enemies.” State power ceases to be perceived as a neutral arbiter and becomes, openly, an instrument of one camp against another. Borderline actions are then interpreted not as tragic failures or exceptions, but as legitimate “defense” of “our people” from “outsiders.”

Thus Trumpist governance operates not to integrate society but to fragment it further. Politics becomes a continuation of cultural and identity warfare; the leader’s task is not to reduce conflict, but to maintain and exploit it. Trumpism divides American society not merely by reflecting existing polarization, but by making the divide the foundation of power—turning conflict into a permanent mode of governance.

In that scheme, anyone who rejects Trumpism can be treated as a potential enemy within the country even if they are a citizen subject to the same laws and obligations as everyone else. This logic legitimizes the emotional groundwork for coercion against “one’s own,” deepening alienation and mistrust. Polarization then becomes self-reinforcing: its existence is used as proof that the movement’s fears were correct all along.

It used to be simpler: simplification, anti-proceduralism, and the rejection of liberal law

Like any fascistizing project, Trumpism seeks to radically simplify social reality. A complex society—conflicts of interest, institutional checks, procedures, compromises—is replaced by a model of direct communication between the leader and the “real people.” Anyone who does not fit becomes an enemy: the elite, the media, experts, the opposition.

A fundamentally important element of Trumpist ideology is the rejection of liberal law as such. This is not only skepticism toward specific courts or legal procedures, but a deeper hostility to the idea of law as an autonomous, universal, power-limiting system. In a Trumpist worldview, law is not a neutral framework; it is an instrument that either serves “us” or must be broken. Hence constant attacks on courts, delegitimization of independent institutions, contempt for international law, and the open preference for force to resolve conflicts. This reproduces a classic fascist attitude: force is more important than norms; the leader’s will is higher than abstract law.

In this context, the rhetoric of key representatives of the Trump camp—such as Vice President JD Vance—should be read not as a series of situational remarks, but as part of a larger ideological posture: contempt for procedural, compromise-based orders and admiration for will-based power. Liberal Europe is portrayed not as an ally with a shared institutional tradition, but as a symbol of “degeneracy” and weakness—something to be pressured, humiliated, or destabilized.

Techies know best: the tech-bro convergence

The sustained support for Trumpism among parts of the “tech bro” milieu—tech elites and IT billionaires such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and others—deserves separate attention.

Many of these actors treat society as something that can be engineered. Politics appears to them as a realm of conflicts, procedures, compromises—less as a condition of freedom than as an obstacle. Hence the irritation with parliaments, courts, law, independent media, and institutions that slow decisions and limit centralized will.

Fascistizing logic is intuitively appealing to such a mindset because it offers an extremely simplified model of power: one decision center, vertical command, minimal intermediaries, results prioritized over procedure. Where legal order requires justification and compliance with rules, the will-based model offers force (or administrative coercion) as a universal tool requiring no moral or procedural explanation. This overlap is not accidental: both technocratic and fascist mentalities tend to be hostile to complexity and autonomy.

A further role is played by a narrow version of meritocracy common to this environment: success as proof of universal superiority. If you win, you are worthy; if you lose, you deserve your place. In that logic, inequality becomes natural, solidarity becomes suspect, and hierarchy feels morally justified. Fascism, with its cult of power and contempt for weakness, overlaps smoothly with this worldview.

The rapid development of technology—especially AI—reinforces the illusion that technical progress is the primary engine of social transformation, capable of bypassing political conflict. This belief is not new; it was widespread in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Historical experience, however, shows that technology does not dissolve social conflict; it often reconfigures and intensifies it. Yet the “magic wand” temptation returns: the desire to replace political development with a technical fix.

This intellectual narrowing is particularly visible among IT billionaires whose success was built on scaling, centralizing control, and eliminating variables—methods that create the illusion of universal applicability. At the same time, techno-bureaucrats often lack institutional responsibility for long-term social consequences.

DOGE as an illustrative symptom

A striking example is Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). The idea—transferring startup logic directly to state administration—reduces governance to an engineering problem: the state as an inefficient company that can be “optimized” by cuts, automation, and removal of “redundant” procedures.

Reuters and AP reported that mass layoffs and cutbacks across federal agencies were carried out in ways that quickly produced operational failures and forced reversals. In particular, reporting noted layoffs at the Department of Energy affecting the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile; those layoffs were partly rescinded to retain essential staff. (Reuters)

In business, the market can sometimes compensate for lost functionality. In government—especially in areas like nuclear security, defense, and regulatory oversight—such experiments directly degrade the state’s capacity to perform core functions. The “efficiency” logic becomes a source of new risk, confirming that mechanical cuts and managerial pressure do not replace institutional analysis; they make the absence of such analysis more dangerous.

This outcome is less a conspiracy of a “deep state” than the predictable result of a simplified model of reality.

Donald Trump, though not a technocrat, displays a similar simplification: transactional thinking, pressure over argument, power over rules, institutions as obstacles to “the right decision.” The difference is only in origin—engineering and corporate logic for some, commerce and show business for others. The outcome is the same: rejection of politics as a process and the attempt to replace it with management.

Simplification of the world: Europe as the enemy, authoritarianism as “efficiency”

In the Trumpist worldview, hostility is often directed not primarily at authoritarian regimes, but at Europe’s liberal democracy—the rule-of-law model with complex institutions and compromise-based governance. Europe is framed as weak, decadent, lacking “will.” By contrast, authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China are sometimes treated as “tough but rational”.

For part of Trump’s audience—and especially for the tech-bro lens—Putin can be reduced to “Trump with obedient Congress and courts”: a strong leader unimpeded by institutions. This simplification ignores the core fact of authoritarian systems: private autonomy (political, economic, personal) is not protected by law but exists by permission. Business is tolerated only while loyal and depoliticized; property exists as a revocable privilege. Any loss of patronage can convert an entrepreneur from “effective manager” into an object of expropriation or repression.

Trumpists and technocrats often project the American experience—where business is embedded in law and checks and balances—onto regimes where law is an instrument of power rather than a constraint. Hence a dangerous illusion: that authoritarianism is compatible with entrepreneurial freedom and technological development. In practice, authoritarianism destroys the autonomy on which such actors rely.

Thus, sympathies among technocrats and post-liberal elites for authoritarian models are not a passing fad. They reflect a structural coincidence of worldviews. Fascistizing politics promises what this consciousness values: governance without politics, power without responsibility, order without freedom. That is why it can be disguised as “rationality”—and why it can be carried not only by marginalized groups, but also by self-styled bearers of progress.

Foreign policy as domestic ideology exported: deals, hierarchy, and personalized control

In foreign affairs, Trumpism rejects leadership through rules, institutions, and durable alliances. It is replaced by crude pressure—tariffs, ultimatums, demonstrative disregard for agreements. In this worldview there are no allies in the strict sense: only vassals and adversaries. This can create an illusion of strength, but strategically tends toward self-isolation and the erosion of institutional hegemony.

A telling illustration of this logic is the initiative to create the Board of Peace. Its significance lies less in institutional novelty than in its demonstration of the Trumpist approach to world politics: simplification, personalization, and control.

Reuters reporting on the Board’s launch described it as a new Trump-led mechanism presented as a conflict-resolution platform, with major questions about composition, legitimacy, and how it relates to existing multilateral structures. (Reuters). The key point is structural: the model is not built around stable procedures and sovereign equality, but around the political weight and personal authority of the chair. Even if states are formally present, the logic is that participation is meaningful only insofar as it supports the chair’s agenda.

This reproduces the reduction of politics to a deal: states are not co-equal rule-makers but parties to an arrangement under a dominant broker. Such a structure is inherently fragile. As long as Trump holds power and can leverage American state resources, the project may look like an “alternative.” But the loss of office—or a shift in domestic politics—automatically deprives such a mechanism of legitimacy and practical meaning. Personalized projects vanish with their initiator; institutions outlive creators.

This also helps explain the Trump administration’s inclination to support right-wing and far-right forces in Europe. It is not merely tactical sympathy. It is ideological affinity: rejection of universal norms, contempt for supranational institutions, and readiness to use pressure and coercion in place of law. Domestic anti-liberalism becomes exportable: undermining rule-of-law logic both inside the U.S. and beyond.

At the same time, the Trumpist approach to Europe is internally contradictory, revealing its ideological rather than strategic character. On the one hand, Europe is portrayed as weak and incapable, therefore obliged to obey American will. On the other hand, the U.S. refuses reciprocal obligations—security guarantees, institutional solidarity, responsibility for transatlantic stability. Europe must obey, but America owes nothing.

This is hierarchy without reciprocity: the vassal is obligated, the suzerain is not. Yet reality does not cooperate. If Europe truly strengthens, it will reduce dependence on the U.S., which will reduce U.S. influence. Trumpism demands European strength on the condition that it not become autonomy—an unviable construct. Pressure accelerates what Trumpism fears most: allied autonomy and the collapse of the old hierarchy.

Here the central paradox becomes visible. In seeking to restore America’s greatness, Trumpism corrodes the mechanisms that historically produced American hegemony: trust, predictability, and institutional leadership. The space created by that corrosion is filled by other centers of power—above all China, which often operates on the opposite logic: low emotional temperature, emphasis on stability, long-term interests, and economic interdependence.

Personality as accelerant: the chaos factor

Despite the internal logic of Trumpism as a phenomenon, its concrete embodiment is significantly shaped by Trump’s personality. Impulsiveness, capriciousness, hypersensitivity to personal loyalty, and a constant need for affirmation directly destabilize decision-making. Even actions that fit the general logic of Trumpism are often implemented chaotically, situationally, and contrary to stated strategic goals.

This produces an additional contradiction. Trumpism appeals to strength, order, decisiveness; yet governance becomes hostage to the leader’s moods and grievances. Tactical gestures replace strategy. Instability grows where control is promised; allies are alienated where pragmatism is claimed; “effective governance” is discredited by its own improvisation.

Trumpism is therefore less a project of strength than a symptom of weakness: not a strategy for the future, but a reaction to loss of control over a complex world. By seeking maximal simplification, it confirms its inability to govern complexity.

Ultimately, Trumpism—like other fascistizing currents—does not solve the problems it feeds on. At best it masks them temporarily with the external effects of mobilization and coercion. Suppression, simplification, and violence do not remove causes; they accumulate pressure, making later breakdowns more destructive. The result is degradation of institutions, weakening of society, growth of internal instability—and the export of chaos abroad through aggressive power politics. Fascistizing logic becomes not a means of restoring order, but a mechanism of systemic deterioration.

What to do

Effective opposition to fascistizing politics—internally and externally—cannot rely on moral condemnation alone or on imitation of its methods. Such movements feed on weakness, confusion, and simplification; symmetric escalation often strengthens them. The only sustainable alternative is a policy that combines social inclusion, institutional resilience, and strategic clarity without abandoning law, complexity, and responsibility.

Domestically, the first task is to deprive such politics of its social base. Symbolic mobilization cannot substitute for economic and social policy. Reducing inequality, restoring social mobility, protecting labor, and rebuilding predictability are not abstract ideals but practical instruments of political stabilization. A society with credible prospects is far less vulnerable to myths of a lost golden past and the search for internal enemies.

Equally important is the protection of institutional complexity. Liberal law, separation of powers, independent courts, and independent media are not weaknesses of democracy but the architecture of its strength. Confronting anti-liberal politics requires strengthening these mechanisms and restoring trust in them, while simultaneously demonstrating that the rule of law is not only procedurally correct but operationally effective.

Externally, the rejection of appeasement and double standards is essential. Authoritarian and fascistizing regimes interpret compromise as weakness and dialogue without pressure as an invitation to further escalation. A sustainable foreign policy must therefore combine deterrence, various forms of pressure, and support for victims of aggression with long-term predictability rather than reactive gestures.

Support for allies remains decisive. Fascist logic seeks to dissolve horizontal ties and replace them with hierarchical dependence. This can only be countered through genuine solidarity grounded in rules, reciprocity, and institutional commitment. Alliances that function as communities of obligation deprive authoritarian politics of its ability to exploit fragmentation and fear.

Yet even these measures encounter a deeper structural constraint: the growing honesty gap between democratic leadership and society.

Across Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and other liberal democracies, political leaders often hesitate to speak plainly about the implications of Russia’s war against Ukraine and other major shifts in the world. The conflict is treated as episodic crisis rather than as a structural challenge to security, prosperity, and the international order. The possibility that preserving stability will require sustained sacrifices—higher defense spending, fiscal pressure, reduced consumption, and the abandonment of long-standing assumptions about permanent peace—is frequently softened or postponed in public discourse.

This reluctance reflects a persistent fear that candor will strengthen populist movements promising immediate comfort, disengagement, or “peace at any price.” Yet avoidance produces the opposite effect. When sacrifices are not explained in advance, they later appear as policy failure or deception, reinforcing precisely the distrust that populists exploit.

Candor, however, is not a liability of democratic leadership but one of its principal sources of legitimacy. When Winston Churchill declared that he had “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” he was not romanticizing hardship but establishing trust—treating citizens as political adults capable of understanding danger and consciously participating in collective endurance.

Some voters inevitably gravitate toward easier promises. But many others respond positively to seriousness and clarity. Democratic societies are often more resilient than their leaders assume, provided citizens are treated as partners rather than audiences shielded from reality.

Ultimately, the central question is not whether democratic citizens can withstand hardship, but whether democratic leaders are prepared to engage them with the honesty that makes collective endurance possible. Democracies rarely weaken because societies categorically reject responsibility; they weaken when leadership ceases to explain why responsibility matters.

In this sense, resistance to fascistizing politics is not a temporary mobilization but a choice of political maturity. Either societies accept complexity, responsibility, and truth as the price of freedom, or they become vulnerable to those who promise relief from complexity at the cost of freedom. The temptation of simplicity remains powerful—but only honesty allows democracies to endure without surrendering the very values they seek to defend.

What are the main qualities we would like to see in a political leader? First of all, everyone will say — intelligence and courage. Intelligence to find solutions to complex problems; courage to confront circumstances and take risks.

Loyalty to oneself, loyalty to one’s principles, loyalty to the ideas one defends — certainly that as well. Without it, a leader turns into a conformist and, if fortunate, becomes part of the very regime or authority he once opposed. There are many examples of this.

One can have all those traits — and still fail to become a politician in the full sense of the word.

Politics is also the creation of an alternative to a situation we consider bad, wrong, unacceptable. And in order to create an alternative, one must possess imagination — political imagination.

Political imagination is neither fantasy, nor abstract slogans — for example, in our case, about a “beautiful Russia of the future,” or about making America great again, and so on.

It is the ability to see, as Gramsci famously put it, that “the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.”

Those “monsters” are not fairy-tale creatures. They are the breakdown of order itself — the vacuum of power, the collapse of rules, the surge of aggression, cynicism, and arbitrariness that erupts when the familiar framework disintegrates. They are the dangers unleashed by the death of the old system.

To confront them, one must first accept that the previous order is finished. Clinging to it is not prudence — it is denial. Political imagination means recognizing that the old reality has exhausted itself and that a new one is forcing its way into existence. It means seeing the boundaries that confine us and having the will to widen them — or to shatter them and discard them altogether.

Only those who are capable of thinking beyond a dead order can overcome the forces it releases. Those who remain mentally imprisoned within yesterday’s structure will inevitably be devoured by the monsters it has produced.

Political imagination is not necessarily required where there is a normal, established political process — procedures, institutions, parties, regular changes of power, predictable mechanisms of decision-making. For example, in Europe and the United States. Under conditions of institutional stability, the system itself produces solutions, corrects distortions, smooths out crises. In such an environment, what is often required of a politician is not imagination, but competence, discipline, and the ability to operate within rules.

For a long time, therefore, this quality was not demanded of politicians there. And that is precisely why today — in Europe and in America — they prove incapable of conceiving something genuinely new or truly effective in the conditions of a systemic crisis. Americans are playing with their enormous power like teenagers, testing the limits of what is permissible and demonstrating strength for the sake of demonstration itself. Europeans, by contrast, try to ignore unpleasant truths, hoping that reality will somehow return to its former framework on its own.

In moments of crisis, however, the ability to imagine something new becomes critically important. When habitual mechanisms malfunction, when institutions no longer ensure stability, when former guarantees disappear — what is required is not administration, but imagination. Not the continuation of habitual routines, but stepping beyond them, overcoming oneself, leaving one’s comfort zone. It is precisely such figures who enter history and achieve greatness.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

The end of the First World War. The Ottoman Empire has capitulated. It is in a dreadful condition.

The victorious powers — Britain, France, the United States, and several other European states — make no secret of their plans to partition the “sick man of Europe,” as the Ottoman Empire had long been called. In 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres was signed, according to which the Ottoman Empire was to be radically redrawn, effectively turned into a colony of the European powers.

In 1919, General Mustafa Kemal was sent to central Anatolia to oversee the disarmament of Turkish troops. Upon arrival, Mustafa Kemal decided not to disarm his forces. He declared that capitulation may have been inevitable, but what the victorious powers were demanding amounted to nothing less than the liquidation of the Turkish state and the Turkish nation as such.

He called upon the Turks to resist. He convened congresses in Erzurum and then in Sivas. These congresses functioned as political bodies where participants declared that sovereignty in Turkey belongs to the nation, not to the Sultan of the Ottoman dynasty. Decisions must be made by the Turks of Turkey. And the future of Turkey is not necessarily the future of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1920, the Grand National Assembly convened in Ankara, elected Kemal as its chairman, and began forming a national Turkish army.

A national war for the preservation of sovereignty began. Kemal turned to Soviet Russia for support, which supplied him with weapons and helped arm his forces. The Turks acted decisively. They defeated the Greeks, who had occupied Western Anatolia. They forced the Entente powers to withdraw from their territories. By the mid-1920s, Turkey had restored full sovereignty within its own borders.

In his political imagination, Mustafa Kemal understood that for Turkey to survive and have a future, it had to abandon the outdated, exhausted empire. The future of Turkey was a national state, not an Ottoman empire. Turkey renounced its colonial possessions. It abolished the Sultanate and the Caliphate. It rejected Islam as the foundation of statehood. The Kemalist revolution was, in many respects, comparable to the reforms of Peter the Great in Russia — one could even say it was deeper. In 1934, when surnames were introduced in Turkey, Mustafa Kemal received the surname Atatürk — “Father of the Turks.”

He grasped the essential point: one cannot build the future without recognizing that the past has outlived itself. One cannot mechanically transfer the past into the future. One cannot build tomorrow according to yesterday’s templates. He renounced many attributes of imperial grandeur, but in return he built a modern, strong Turkey that began to develop and, most importantly, preserved its independence.

Atatürk saved Turkey from becoming a colony of the European powers. Could he have done so without political imagination? Hardly. There were many politicians who shrugged and said, “What can we do? We must somehow cooperate with the victors; perhaps conduct dialogue with them; lobby for the interests of the Turkish population so that the victors’ oppression would not be so harsh.”

Atatürk said: “That does not interest me. I see my Turkey, and I will achieve it.” And he did — relying on his people, on the Turks, on the army.

To this day, Turkey lives according to the foundations he laid. Even Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who came to power as the leader of an Islamist party and periodically tries to introduce elements of Islamism into the Turkish state, remains a secular president. Turkey remains a secular country and continues to live on the foundations laid by Atatürk a hundred years ago.

Charles de Gaulle

For many years as captain, then a major, then a colonel de Gaulle bombarded the French authorities and military leadership with books, articles, memoranda, and notes arguing that the French army needed reform. He warned that when the next major war with Germany began, the French army would be unprepared.

A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country. De Gaulle was promoted to brigadier general only in the spring of 1940, when the Battle of France had already begun.

He commanded the 4th Armored Division and managed to push back German units in several sectors. But it was a drop in the ocean. The French army was retreating, and the French high command, headed by Marshal Pétain, was simply waiting for the moment when capitulation could finally be declared.

And it came.

In that situation, de Gaulle made the only decision he considered correct. He flew to London, where he had already been several times before, negotiating with Churchill on behalf of the French government, trying to persuade him to continue the alliance with France, assuring Churchill that France would fight, that it would not become its own enemy. But it turned out that France had ceased fighting and had surrendered.

De Gaulle arrived in London and on June 18, 1940, delivered his radio address. He declared that France continued the struggle, that France was not the treacherous Vichy regime, that France was not Marshal Pétain and his capitulators and collaborators. France was wherever there were free Frenchmen ready to fight for the freedom of their country.

At the very beginning he had no one besides his aide-de-camp. With Churchill’s support, de Gaulle began to build his “Free France.” French soldiers began to gather around him. It is important to note that the British wanted these French soldiers to join the ranks of the British army. However, de Gaulle insisted that French soldiers would be subordinated only to French command.

This is an extremely important detail — from the very beginning de Gaulle positioned himself as an equal ally of Britain, not as a subordinate, although at first he existed entirely on British funds.

He said: I am France. France that fights. France that does not surrender. We are allies of Britain, we fight alongside Britain, but we are not Britain — we are a separate belligerent power.

The independence that de Gaulle regarded as the only possible position was very difficult to defend in relations with Churchill, and even more difficult with Roosevelt. Up until the liberation of Paris in August 1944, Churchill — and especially Roosevelt — periodically tried to replace de Gaulle with some less stubborn and more compliant general. For example, at the Casablanca Conference in 1943, Roosevelt demanded that de Gaulle and General Giraud, commander of French forces in North Africa, shake hands and jointly administer Free France.

De Gaulle had to make concessions, but after some time he managed to push Giraud aside, as Giraud enjoyed no real authority within Free France.

One sometimes encounters the view that diplomacy consists of flattering tedious people and striving to win their favor by any means necessary. When someone argues that such efforts should not turn into self-abasement and the renunciation of one’s own dignity, “experts” object: what are you proposing — to be rude and insolent toward important people?

In reality, between those two extremes lies a vast range of possibilities — and that is precisely what real diplomacy employs. De Gaulle used all of them. He was rude to no one, threatened no one, but everywhere and always he preserved his dignity, keeping in mind one simple truth: if you do not respect yourself and those who stand behind you, you can be treated in any way whatsoever, and no one will listen to you.

De Gaulle positioned himself in such a way that he was listened to, that his views were taken into account. It cost him enormous effort and immense strain to maintain that position. But he managed to do so — and therein lies his feat and his greatness.

His greatness, his strength, his imagination lay in the fact that he invented a new France — not as a subdivision of British or American forces, but as an independent political power making its own decisions.

As events unfolded, his position strengthened: people joined him, some colonies supported him — and colonies meant not only territory, but resources, people, troops. But none of that would have existed had de Gaulle not first imagined his France and inspired the French with that imagined France.

In 1946 he resigned as prime minister of the provisional government. The Fourth Republic, established in France after the Second World War, became mired in chaotic, short-sighted, and selfish party parliamentarianism.

Governments replaced one another at lightning speed. Economic problems accumulated. Colonies broke away, sometimes very bloodily — for example, Indochina, where the war ended in 1954 with the catastrophic defeat of the French army at Dien Bien Phu. In Algeria, another colonial war continued, further destabilizing the country.

Eventually, in 1958, de Gaulle was effectively asked to save France from constitutional crisis. And he did so.

He conceived a new path forward for France — on the basis of a new constitution, a new state structure — and without Algeria hanging like a weight.

It was not easy. He faced threats. There were numerous assassination attempts. But de Gaulle steadily pursued his course.

Would he have achieved such success without political imagination? Then there would simply have been some Colonel de Gaulle who wrote memoranda and then sat quietly throughout the occupation. But no — Charles de Gaulle was not that kind of man.

Vladimir Lenin

As a political figure, Lenin is one of the most significant figures in world history, regardless of how one may judge him.

He is an example of a leader with completely unrestrained, boundless political imagination. A thinker who imagined not merely a different country, but a different social order, an entirely new economic and social system. A man who theoretically substantiated the necessity of revolution and the path toward it — and then carried it out in practice.

Would he have achieved the same heights of success had he attempted to operate according to old templates, using the methods by which the Bolsheviks or the RSDLP acted at the beginning of the twentieth century? Hardly.

Even his own political practice demonstrates this. Lenin employed both armed underground struggle against the tsarist authorities and legal methods — for example, participation in parliamentary elections — as well as the systematic consolidation of Bolshevik influence within the revolutionary Soviets in 1917 and the formation of his own armed units, the Red Guard.

After seizing power, Lenin continued to demonstrate extreme tactical flexibility — the virtually capitulatory “shameful,” as he himself called it, peace with Germany; then, after Germany’s capitulation, its annulment; granting independence to those regions and peoples that could not be retained; maintaining control over those that could; War Communism at the beginning of the Civil War; and then the New Economic Policy — that is, the reintroduction of elements of capitalist economic practice in order to restore an economy that had been virtually destroyed by war.

And throughout all of this — clear strategic orientation toward consolidating the power of the Communist Party and building a socialist state.

It was no coincidence that H. G. Wells, after meeting him, called him a “dreamer in the Kremlin.” The phrase was intended partly as skepticism, even irony — but it captured something essential. Lenin was indeed a dreamer, yet a dreamer who translated imagination into power, theory into institutional reality. His imagination was not decorative — it was operative.

Deng Xiaoping

A less dramatic, but equally telling example is Deng Xiaoping, who came to power in China in 1978 after Mao Zedong.

As a result of Mao’s social experiments — the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” — China found itself in a severe economic and social crisis. The economy had been devastated, and it had not been particularly developed to begin with.

Millions of people had been subjected to brutal repression and persecution. Deng inherited a heavy burden. What did he say? That the economy must be developed, that people must be allowed to earn money.

And when he was asked, “What about communism?” he replied that it does not matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice. For Deng and for the Chinese communists, this was a genuine revolution: a de facto rejection of Mao Zedong’s policies and the introduction of what could be called “normal capitalism” under the control of the Communist Party. At first glance, these things seemed incompatible. Yet Deng Xiaoping successfully combined them.

The results of his policies are evident to everyone. China effectively became a second superpower, an enormous and powerful economy.

Would Deng Xiaoping have been able to carry out these reforms if he had not been capable of imagining a new reality, one different from what existed? No, he would not have.

It is no coincidence that Mao Zedong’s immediate successor, Hua Guofeng — a Maoist who attempted to continue the policies of the “Great Helmsman” — achieved nothing and was quickly removed. Within the Chinese Communist Party, there was an understanding that things had to be done differently. And what that “different” path should be — Deng Xiaoping conceived it.

Now let us look at what we are dealing with today.

Mark Rutte

The Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, is a professional, pragmatic politician who served for fourteen years as Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

He was formed as a politician in a reality where security was always guaranteed by someone else — a stronger state, first and foremost the United States. War was something distant, something that would never come home. The main objective was not to quarrel with the patron, not to fall out of the system of guarantees, to cling like a remora to a large shark — so that scraps would fall from its jaws, and it would neither notice nor find it worthwhile to bite you.

From this emerges a particular mindset — adaptive, conformist, incapable of looking at the broader picture with open eyes.

For people like Rutte, it is almost impossible to imagine how Europe could ensure its own security without relying on distant and unreliable allies. How could that be — on its own? Without a big brother? It simply does not fit within their mental framework.

This means that such politicians possess a very limited political horizon and perspective, and virtually no genuine political imagination. That is precisely why Rutte will appease Trump at any cost — even at the cost of personal humiliation and the humiliation of NATO member states, which he periodically represents. He is ready to defer to “Daddy” Donald Trump in situations where de Gaulle would have insisted on his position through unwavering self-respect.

Rutte is moving in the diametrically opposite direction, not even attempting to imagine how the existing framework of transatlantic relations might be modified or re-designed. Strategically, such a path leads to only one outcome — the complete loss of independence, political agency, and the remnants of respect from the very same United States. In other words, instead of strengthening Europe’s security, “Rutte’s diplomacy” leads to the emergence of new risks.

This is an example of the absence of imagination.

Other European politicians are no better. They continue to act as though nothing has changed, as though Trump is merely a temporary aberration that will pass and everything will return to normal. We hear many statements that “Europe must become more independent,” but there is no shortage of declarations — what is lacking are actions. When Marco Rubio spoke recently in Munich and stated that the United States had no intention of abandoning Europe entirely, the hall rose to its feet and applauded. Tomorrow those words may well be contradicted by another of Trump’s outbursts — Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, or whatever else he may decide he wants for breakfast — but today European politicians are capable of imagining only one thing: a comfortable yesterday to which they desperately wish to return.

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin’s imagination is directed not forward, but backward. He does not imagine a new world and does not propose a new Russia. He does not project the future. He is obsessed with the idea of preserving the system in which the entirety of power is concentrated in his hands. His imagination is that of a reenactor, not a creator.

In order to preserve his personal power, he is attempting to turn history back. He seeks to return the world to the state of the nineteenth century — to a system of empires, spheres of influence, zones of control, where “great powers” divide space among themselves and do not interfere in each other’s internal affairs. This is an attempt to hide in the past, to shelter within a structure where autocracies mutually recognize one another and do not ask unnecessary questions. All dictators are pathologically suspicious; they see conspiracies and threats everywhere — especially people with a KGB background, raised in a logic of permanent conspiracy.

But such imagination has no future. This is not a project of development — it is a project of fear. It is not creation — it is defense against imagined enemies. Putin acts, unlike many Western politicians; he does not limit himself to words. But his actions are directed at recreating the old order, not at giving birth to a new one. He searches for answers in archives, in mythologized imperial memory, in images of the past, attempting mechanically to transfer them into the twenty-first century.

The result is predictable. The country is sinking into archaism. The economy stagnates and contracts. Innovative energy is drained away. Society is infected with apathy and internal exile. The horizon of the future disappears. There is no image of tomorrow — only endless mobilization in the name of yesterday.

Putin is not Mark Rutte. He is not merely an administrator clinging to familiar schemes. He is an active reenactor. But precisely for that reason he is the opposite of Lenin, Atatürk, de Gaulle, Deng Xiaoping and other reformers whose imagination created new constructions. Their imagination was directed forward. His is directed backward. And in this lies the fundamental difference between shaping history and its imitation.

Non-Kremlin Pipe-Dreamers

The Russian opposition in exile is in a more difficult position than all of those mentioned above. Atatürk was in his own country and relied on his own people. De Gaulle initially enjoyed the support of the British Empire.

Lenin did not have such resources, but he quickly managed to build them and to take advantage of the favorable political moment of 1917 — relying on a disciplined and hardened party that had existed for many years in exile.

The Russian opposition today has none of this: no serious resources, no territory, no army, no serious and powerful support from any state. Nor does it have a serious political organization on which it could rely. It finds itself in an even weaker and more complex position.

And precisely for that reason Russians need even more imagination. The bolder we think, the greater the likelihood that we will be able to find the right way out of the most difficult situation.

Yes, when there is strength, no mind is needed. But when there is no strength, the mind — an unblinkered mind, a free mind, a mind maximally free from conventions — must come to the rescue. The fewer resources we have, the more we must rely on thought.

But what do we see? We see that the Russian opposition continues the same practices that it used all the years before the war.

Some continue to conduct investigations whose effectiveness, frankly speaking, is unclear and which will matter only if someday the subjects of these investigations are brought to trial.

Investigations into the corruption of Putin’s regime, which lead nowhere and, against the backdrop of war, sometimes look like assistance to the regime in improving the efficiency of its military administration, are an indication that these investigations are being conducted without any understanding of goals and objectives under the new conditions.

Others try to pursue personal sanctions and keep adding more and more beneficiaries of the regime to sanction lists. The truth, however, is that Western sanctions policy against individual representatives of Putin’s regime, if we are honest, is meaningless. It does not provoke anyone to break with the Russian state and move to the bright side. It is hardly surprising that in the fifth year of the war these sanctions have produced no effect.

The most romantic compose plans how to reform Russia. “100 Days After Putin,” “Normal Russia,” and so on.

All these plans are united by one thing — they carefully avoid the question “who and how will implement these reforms in practice.” The question of power in the Russian opposition is taboo. But then who will carry out these reforms? After all, the only instrument of a politician is power.

Without coming to power, nothing can be done.

I believe that if Mikhail Khodorkovsky had spent the two years that he and his associates devoted to achieving the creation of a certain “Platform of Russian Democratic Forces” at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe — a body without any real authority or rights at not the most important or influential European institution — on a more productive task, namely: on creating an initiative group to develop a political strategy, to draft the charter of a mass political movement, to design a voting system that would connect Russians scattered around the world who wish to play some political role, and if he had offered people the opportunity to participate in this — it would have been far more useful.

But our public figures — with money, with media authority, with capital, with audiences — do not want to offer their audience open participation in politics; they do not want to propose new paths.

This new path could be one that is well forgotten but for the current generation of Russians very new — the formation of their own agency through the creation of a mass political movement of Russians in exile with elected representatives who could place themselves, as de Gaulle did, on the same level as European institutions, offering cooperation to them (and to any other actors and institutions) on equal terms rather than asking to sit in the servants’ room.

“We, the organization of Russian exiles, offer you cooperation. Behind us stand people — thousands, perhaps tens and hundreds of thousands — who can and want to make their contribution to the common cause: the cause of defeating Russian Putinist aggression and its regime.”

However, the “leaders of the Russian opposition” are doing nothing of the sort.

All of this demonstrates that there is no political imagination in Russian opposition circles.

What exists instead is simple pipe-dreaming. All these endless plans for reforms: let us reform the army this way, let us reform the FSB that way, and move this here, and attach Ivan Ivanovich’s eyes to Pyotr Petrovich’s nose and to Baltazar Baltazarovich’s chin.

Pipe-dreaming is not merely useless and unproductive — it is harmful. Sitting and laboring over various reform plans for some indefinite future, plans that no one knows who is supposed to implement, does not merely distract people from thinking about how to approach the moment when such reforms might become possible — it replaces that thinking altogether.

Instead of thinking about how to come to power in Russia ultimately, about what instruments must be created right now for that purpose — we engage in endless reform plans because it is more pleasant, safer, and calmer.

One can always say: we are not idle, we are working on reforms!

The calculation, it seems, is that the Russian authorities after Putin will eventually invite a select group of acceptable opposition figures for “dialogue” — on the same terms by which institutions such as PACE engage with the Russian opposition: we will consult you when it suits us; the rest of the time you remain quiet and out of sight.

This is not politics. It is the abdication of politics elevated into a doctrine. It is the rejection of political imagination — the refusal to shape one’s own reality, to define one’s own framework of action and, ultimately, to create one’s own agency and significance. It is not a will to change the world, but a willingness merely to adjust to it.

A character in a Soviet film once said of such people: “People like you are always right — in everything — because you live as prescribed, as instructed. But that is your weakness: you are incapable of madness. Greatness is beyond you. And life cannot be fitted into an engineered scheme.”

When Vladimir Putin demands that the West “respect Russia,” he is not asking for dialogue, mutual recognition, or fair consideration of interests. He is articulating a conditional threat: violence is the default, restraint is a concession, and “respect” is the price paid for its temporary suspension.

In Western political language, respect means either admiration that must be earned, or normative self-restraint—compliance with rules, borders, and rights regardless of sympathy. In Russian political culture, however, “respect” has evolved into something fundamentally different: not recognition of equality, but enforced acknowledgment of power; not adherence to norms, but acceptance of hierarchy; not law, but the right of the strong.

This linguistic mismatch is not semantic trivia. It explains why appeals to international law, rules, and “shared norms” consistently fail when addressed to the Kremlin. What the West hears as a call for legal balance, Moscow understands as a demand for moral subordination. What the West frames as compliance with rules, the Russian leadership interprets as humiliation unless those rules formalize its privileged status.

Putin’s demand for “respect” is therefore not a request for compromise. It is a demand that the West recognize Russia’s sphere of influence, renounce the sovereign agency of others, and accept that force—not law—confers legitimacy. In substance, it is a demand to formalize capitulation.

Understanding this is essential. Without it, negotiations become performative, concessions become invitations to further pressure, and dialogue turns into a mechanism for misreading intent. The problem is not insufficient communication. The problem is that the same word—respect—operates in two incompatible political grammars.

This text is an exercise in political-linguistic analysis of that incompatibility—and of why, in Putin’s system of coordinates, only force, not words, ever produces what he calls “respect.”

During his “Direct Line” on December 19, 2025, Vladimir Putin, responding to a question about whether Russia plans new “special military operations,” stated:

“There will be no operations if you treat us with respect. If you respect our interests in the same way that we have constantly tried to respect yours. If you do not deceive us the way you deceived us with NATO’s eastward expansion.”

This answer is important not as yet another propagandistic statement, but as a precise formula of a demand articulated in a language that, outside Russia, is systematically understood differently from how it is meant within Kremlin logic. In a single paragraph, it combines a condition for refraining from the use of force, a claim to special status, and an interpretation of international norms as personal deception—and it is precisely this combination that makes any discussion of “respect” fundamentally unproductive.

Here, “respect” means neither diplomatic courtesy, nor equal consideration of interests, nor adherence to shared rules. It functions as a condition for the suspension of violence—that is, as a payment for a change in the other side’s behavior. The formula “there will be no operations if…” describes not a peaceful intention, but a deferred threat: the use of force is presented as an acceptable default state, while its suspension is framed as a concession for which prior acceptance of imposed constraints is required.

The subsequent elements of the statement only reinforce this logic. “Our interests” have no legal definition and are not constrained by norms; the symmetry (“we respected yours”) is introduced retrospectively and is not verifiable; and NATO enlargement is described not as a set of sovereign decisions by other states, but as a deliberate act of deception and humiliation. A legal conflict is thus shifted into a status-moral register, where the issue is no longer rules, but “respect.”

To understand why discussions of the “respect” demanded by Vladimir Putin consistently reach a dead end, one must begin not with geopolitics, and not even with ideology, but with language—with what the word respect means in the Western politico-legal context, and what is implied by “respect” in Russian political culture.

“Respect” in English

The Cambridge Dictionary shows that respect in English is not a single concept but a set of clearly differentiated semantic regimes. Confusing these regimes is a source of systematic misunderstandings that are then carried over into politics.

The first meaning is respect as admiration, that is, respect—or even esteem—in a strong, value-based sense. The dictionary defines it as:
“admiration felt or shown for someone or something that you believe has good ideas or qualities.”

It is in this sense that expressions such as “to earn respect,” “to gain respect,” and “to command respect” are used. What is at stake here is an evaluation, not an obligation. This kind of respect is not automatic, cannot be imposed, and cannot be demanded. It can only be earned—or not earned. It is interpersonal, selective, and fundamentally voluntary.

It is important to emphasize that respect as admiration almost always applies to people. We respect a person for their ideas, qualities, or achievements. This respect is directed at an individual and is tied to the recognition of their merits.

The second meaning is respect as honour, care, and restraint, that is, respect as normative self-limitation. The Cambridge Dictionary describes it as:
“politeness, honour, and care shown towards someone or something that is considered important.”

In this sense, respect appears in fixed expressions that form the backbone of legal and political language: “respect the law,” “respect the rules,” “respect an agreement,” “respect existing frontiers,” “respect rights and freedoms,” “respect someone’s boundaries.”

The key dictionary formulation here is: “to accept that something is right or important and not to attempt to change it or harm it.”

This point is fundamental. In this meaning, respect does not imply recognition of dignity, merit, or superiority. What is involved is refraining from encroachment, accepting constraints, and consciously limiting one’s behavior. One may not respect a person as an individual, may despise their views or consider their actions unacceptable—and yet still be obliged to respect their rights.

Characteristically, respect in this normative sense almost always applies not to people as such, but to inanimate or abstract objects: the law, rules, borders, agreements, rights. Even when a person is ostensibly the object—as in “respect someone’s boundaries”—what is actually being respected is not the person, but a limit that must not be crossed. Respect is directed not at the individual, but at the norm.

The dictionary also records another important dimension of respect: “the feeling you show when you accept that different customs or cultures are different from your own and behave in a way that would not cause offence.”

If all these meanings are taken together, the conclusion is clear: in English, respect refers either to admiration, a form of esteem directed at people and subject to personal judgment, or to normative self-restraint, directed at rules, boundaries, and rights and binding regardless of sympathy or personal evaluation.

Why “Respect the Law” in Russian Is Not the Same as Respect the Law in English

It is precisely at the boundary between the English concept of respect and its Russian counterpart that a systemic distortion emerges—one with direct political consequences.

In English, as shown above, expressions such as respect the law, respect the rules, and respect rights and freedoms primarily mean compliance: procedural self-restraint, refraining from encroachment, and accepting an external norm as binding regardless of one’s personal attitude toward it.

In Russian, the situation is fundamentally different. The word commonly translated as respect («уважать») is almost entirely embedded in the sphere of interpersonal and moral evaluation. To “respect” something in Russian means to recognize its dignity, value, correctness, or moral significance. As a result, phrases that are routinely translated as “respect the law,” “respect the rules,” or “respect rights and freedoms” inevitably acquire a moral connotation in Russian perception—one that is absent from the English original.

In Russian, the neutral and normative formulation is not “to respect the law,” but rather “to comply with the law,” («соблюдать закон»), “to follow the rules,” («следовать правилам») or “not to violate rights” («не нарушать права»). These expressions describe behavior, not an inner attitude. By contrast, a call to “respect the law” sounds like a demand not merely to obey a rule, but to internalize it as morally authoritative. In this linguistic framework, the law ceases to be a procedural instrument and begins to be perceived as a bearer of moral value, almost as a subject in its own right.

This produces an important secondary effect. An accusation of “disrespect for the law,” “disrespect for rules,” or “disrespect for rights and freedoms” in the Russian context is easily read not as a legal statement about non-compliance, but as a moral judgment of the person. It sounds less like “you violated a rule” and more like “you are immoral,” “you reject proper values,” or “you are unworthy.”

This shift fundamentally changes the character of the response. Where Western legal discourse presupposes a discussion of facts, the scope of norms, and the proportionality of sanctions, Russian discourse readily moves into a mode of defensive moral reaction: denial, irritation, and accusations of hypocrisy or double standards. A legal conversation is replaced by a conflict over dignity.

This is why, in the Russian public sphere, appeals to “respect for human rights” or “respect for international law” are often perceived not as legal requirements, but as moralizing lectures. They are interpreted not as an invitation to comply with a shared norm, but as an attempt to place the interlocutor in a position of moral inferiority and thereby to humiliate them.

It is precisely here that the ground is prepared for a further substitution. A conversation about rule compliance turns into a conversation about status and dignity, and an allegation of norm violation turns into an accusation of “disrespect.” This makes it possible to shift a legal conflict into a moral and status-based one—and from there to argue not about rules, but about “who respects whom.”

The Evolution of the Concept of Respect in Russian Political Culture, 20th–21st Centuries

In classical Russian language and cultural tradition, respect is a fundamentally interpersonal and moral category. To respect someone means to recognize another person’s dignity, their value as a subject, and their right to an independent position. By its nature, such respect is voluntary, personal, and cannot be imposed. It can only be earned—through actions, character, and reputation. This is why expressions such as “to earn respect,” “to lose respect,” or “to be worthy of respect” are natural and idiomatic in Russian.

Crucially, in this classical understanding, respect implies the recognition of equality between subjects. Respecting another person does not entail renouncing one’s own agency or accepting subordination. On the contrary, respect presupposes a relationship “among equals,” even when individuals differ in age, experience, or social status. Respect here is a form of mutual recognition.

This is also how the colloquial formula “Do you respect me?” should be understood. In its original, non-ironic sense, it is not a question about dominance or force, but about recognition: do you consider me worthy, do you acknowledge my agency, do you treat me as an equal participant in interaction rather than ignoring me. Similarly, the expression “we are respectable people” refers to reputation and social recognition, not to power or coercion.

It is only in the sphere of political culture that the meaning of respect undergoes a distinct and revealing transformation. Here, respect gradually ceases to function as an interpersonal moral category and begins to acquire a specifically political meaning, one increasingly detached from equality and mutual recognition and instead tied to hierarchy, power, and the ability to compel others to take one’s interests into account.

The “normal” meaning of respect largely persists into the early Soviet period, despite the radical transformation of the social system. In the first post-revolutionary years, the party leadership, for all the brutality of the era, retained elements of collective governance. The Central Committee and the Politburo functioned as arenas of competition and debate among figures perceived as more or less equal party leaders. Vladimir Lenin occupied a leading position largely because he enjoyed the greatest respect within the party as an ideologue and organizer. His authority rested not so much on the formal power of his governmental office as on recognition of his intellectual and political superiority and his contributions to party-building. This was respect in the classical sense: recognition of merit and competence, not unconditional submission.

With the transition to Joseph Stalin’s personalist regime, this logic begins to change systematically. Collective leadership is gradually hollowed out; formal institutions remain in place but lose independent significance. In a system where any alternative authority is potentially dangerous, respect as recognition of merit becomes a problem for power. It must either be monopolized or eliminated. As a result, respect loses its connection to equality and increasingly comes to mean loyalty to the center of power and the renunciation of independent subjectivity.

In the Stalinist system, respect ceases to be an interpersonal moral category and becomes an element of political discipline. To respect means not to challenge, not to stand out, not to claim autonomous authority. This does not happen overnight, but it is here that a fundamental substitution is laid down: respect begins to function as an indicator of one’s attitude toward power rather than as recognition of personal dignity.

The late Soviet period does not restore respect to its classical meaning, but neither does it reproduce the Stalinist model in its pure form. Instead, a bureaucratic version of respect emerges, tied to hierarchical position, seniority, and belonging to the system. People are respected not for ideas or intellectual superiority, but for their “position,” “experience,” or “past.” Respect becomes a marker of integration into the system of resource distribution and access.

At the same time, respect is expressed less and less explicitly and more and more through adherence to unwritten rules and hierarchies. The person who is respected is the one whose interests must be taken into account. In this way, respect gradually transforms from an internal attitude into an external behavioral criterion. It is not yet identical with force, but it is already closely linked to capacity and influence.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in conditions of weak institutions, legal uncertainty, and sharp social differentiation, respect becomes increasingly associated with success and the ability to achieve results. Those who “made it,” “broke through,” or “survived” are respected. This respect is no longer necessarily tied to approval of personal qualities or methods, but to recognition of effective influence.

In the 1990s, an intermediate understanding of respect takes hold: respect as compelled consideration. One respects those who cannot be ignored. The key formula becomes “people have to reckon with him.” This captures an important shift: respect comes to mean less the recognition of dignity and more the recognition of significance. Equality between subjects gradually recedes, giving way to asymmetry of capabilities.

It is in this environment that Vladimir Putin’s political mindset takes shape. He comes to power at a moment when classical respect as recognition of dignity has been pushed out of the public sphere, while bureaucratic respect as belonging to the system has lost its stability. What remains is a third form: respect as the product of one’s ability to shape the behavior of others.

In the 2000s, this understanding begins to be institutionalized. Respect definitively ceases to be an internal attitude and becomes a measurable outcome. Its presence or absence is determined not by words, but by whether the other side’s behavior has changed. If demands are ignored, there is “no respect.” If behavior is adjusted, respect has been “restored.”

At this stage, respect is conceived not as a quality of relationships, but as a political result that can be produced through action. Respect is no longer awaited or earned; it is generated. It is here that a logic takes shape in which a subject’s significance is confirmed not through recognition of equality, but through the impossibility of ignoring them.

This process completes the evolution of respect from an interpersonal recognition of dignity and equality into an instrumental political category, measured by consequences and influence. It is precisely from this logic that the specifically Putinist demand for “respect” later emerges—no longer as a relationship, but as a form of enforced recognition of imposed significance.

Respect as a Function of Force: Might Makes Right and the Cancellation of Norms

At the final stage of its evolution, the concept of respect in the Putinist mindset breaks decisively with both classical interpersonal recognition and the bureaucratic logic of “having to be reckoned with,” and turns into a category of force. Respect is no longer connected to dignity, equality, or even formal status. It becomes a derivative of the ability to impose one’s will.

In this logic, respect does not arise from recognition, but from the demonstration that an actor can act unilaterally and with impunity. Respect is accorded to those who can violate rules without facing prohibitive consequences. Respect is accorded to those whose actions cannot be prevented, stopped, or reversed.

It is here that respect becomes directly linked to what can be described as the right of the strong. Norms, agreements, and obligations exist only as long as their observance serves the interests of the strong. Once they cease to do so, the strong do not treat this as a reason to renegotiate on mutually acceptable terms. They do not propose revising the rules to accommodate all parties. They simply stop complying with them.

This is a fundamental point. In the logic of force, negotiation, compromise, and the search for balance are not instruments of conflict resolution, but signs of weakness. The strong do not explain themselves. They act. Explanations, if they appear at all, come after the fact—as justifications for actions already taken.

This logic also defines a distinctive attitude toward norms. They are not perceived as universal constraints binding on all parties equally. They are seen as temporary frameworks that the strong are entitled to revoke unilaterally. If a norm obstructs action, it ceases to be a norm. If an agreement imposes limits, it loses its force. Not because circumstances have changed for everyone, but because the strong actor’s calculation has changed.

In this sense, Putin’s logic fully corresponds to the formula might makes right. Law does not constrain force; it flows from it. Force does not serve law—law serves force, retroactively formalizing its outcomes.

Against this background, the demand for respect acquires a very concrete meaning. To “respect Russia” is to acknowledge its right to act outside common rules, to accept that it may at any moment renounce previous obligations, redefine the boundaries of what is permissible, and impose new conditions. Respect here means agreement with the proposition that force confers not only capability, but legitimacy.

This also explains the constant demand for “guarantees.” These guarantees are not symmetrical. They do not imply reciprocal constraints. On the contrary, they are designed to formalize a special status for the strong, guaranteeing freedom of action to one side while obliging all others to limit themselves.

The episode of December 2021 is illustrative, when Russia presented the United States and NATO with draft treaties on so-called “security guarantees.” Formally, this appeared as a diplomatic initiative. In substance, it was a proposal to codify Russia’s unilateral privileges: no NATO enlargement, the rollback of military infrastructure, and constraints on the sovereign decisions of other states—without comparable obligations on Russia itself. This was not a project for a new balance. It was a project to legalize the right of the strong.

It is important to emphasize that within this logic Russia does not abandon the language of treaties; it instrumentalizes it. First, a fact is created by force. Then it is proposed that this fact be formalized. The treaty here is not the result of agreement, but an act of recognition of the other side’s defeat. By signing it, the weaker party acknowledges that the rules are no longer equal for all.

This is why, for Putin, it is essential not merely to secure the desired behavior, but to have it fixed in writing. Informal accommodation is no longer sufficient. Subordination must be recognized and documented. This is why, ultimately, only a form of “respect” expressed through formal acknowledgment of his right to dictate terms is acceptable.

From this, the attitude toward war follows logically. War is not an anomaly or a last resort, but an instrument for restoring respect when, from the Kremlin’s perspective, it has been lost.

In this sense, Putin’s call to “respect Russia” does not mean “acknowledge our interests” or “treat us as equals.” It means: recognize that we are stronger and therefore entitled to decide for others. Everything else is merely rhetorical packaging for this stark and uncompromising logic.

Putin’s Demand that the West “Respect Russia” Is, in Substance, a Demand to Recognize His Sphere of Influence and Formalize Capitulation

Putin’s demand that the West “respect Russia” does not imply equality, mutual consideration of interests, or compromise. He is not asking to be consulted. He is demanding that the West renounce independent decision-making in those regions and issues that the Kremlin designates as its zone of control. In his understanding, “respect” means Western consent not to intervene, not to expand, not to support alternative centers of power, and not to challenge an imposed hierarchy.

Recognition of a sphere of influence is the first and indispensable element of this demand. Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and the post-Soviet space as a whole are to be removed from the realm of autonomous politics and returned to the status of objects rather than subjects. Their choices, security arrangements, and alliance decisions are, within this logic, devoid of independent value and require external approval from Moscow. This constitutes a direct rejection of the principle of sovereign equality—the foundational principle of the postwar international order.

But the demand goes further. It is not merely about redistributing influence; it is about recognizing the West’s defeat. Lifting sanctions, ending military support for Ukraine, providing “security guarantees” to Russia, the withdrawal of the United States from Europe and its reduction to a regional power confined to the Western Hemisphere—all of these elements belong to a single scenario. Their purpose is to fix, in formal terms, that the West has acknowledged its inability to defend its own norms and has abandoned their application when confronted with force. This is not diplomacy in the classical sense; it is the legal formalization of capitulation: documentary recognition that rules are no longer universal and that force confers the right to dictate terms.

In this sense, Putin’s demand for respect and a demand for capitulation are identical. To “respect Russia” is to accept an imposed hierarchy, renounce one’s own agency, and agree that the right of the strong replaces law as such. All other rhetoric about dialogue and de-escalation is secondary in this system of coordinates and serves merely as packaging for this core demand.

This is precisely why no “reset,” no partial concessions, and no symbolic gestures can satisfy it. The demand is binary by nature: either the West recognizes Russia’s sphere of influence and its own defeat—or, from the Kremlin’s perspective, there is “no respect,” and pressure must continue.

Are There Limits?

At this point, however, a key contradiction becomes apparent. The obsessive and public demand for respect is itself evidence not of confident strength, but of deep internal insecurity. A genuinely strong actor, confident in the stability of their position, does not require constant confirmation of status. Their boundaries and capabilities are read automatically. They do not demand respect—they simply act.

Putin’s constant return to the thesis that “we are not respected” points to a fear of being ignored, marginalized, stripped of the status of an unavoidable reference point. The demand for respect here performs a compensatory function: it is meant to bridge the gap between the desired position of a great power and the actual perception of Russia as one player among others, whose interests may be rejected.

A second fundamental contradiction also emerges here. On the one hand, the regime insists on the right of the strong to override norms and act unilaterally. On the other, it constantly seeks to prove that it was “forced,” that it merely reacted, that responsibility lies with others. This combination of a claim to absolute strength with an obsessive search for justifications points not to confidence, but to the fragility of its legitimacy.

In the logic of a truly strong actor, responsibility for one’s own actions is part of strength itself. The strong do not justify themselves—they accept the consequences. Putin, by contrast, simultaneously demands recognition of his exceptional status and seeks to evade responsibility for exercising it. This is possible only through a mode of permanent symbolic compensation.

Thus, the demand for respect in the Putinist system of coordinates coincides with a demand for submission and, at the same time, reveals the regime’s internal weakness. Respect must be imposed, formalized, and constantly reaffirmed because it does not grow out of recognized merit or stable legitimacy.

The louder and more insistently the regime demands respect, the clearer its insecurity about its own position becomes—and the greater its dependence on ever new demonstrations of force meant to reaffirm the right of the strong, a right it fears losing.

This internal insecurity manifests itself not only in language, but also in concrete crisis situations, where the rhetoric of strength comes into direct conflict with actual behavior. Contrary to the image of a leader ready to “go all the way,” Putin has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to respond firmly and consistently to challenges that genuinely call his control into question.

A telling example is Prigozhin’s march in the summer of 2023. Formally, it was the most direct and dangerous challenge to personalist power throughout Putin’s rule: an armed column advanced hundreds of kilometers across Russian territory without resistance, military aircraft were shot down, and the Kremlin’s control over the security apparatus was publicly questioned. Yet the response was not a demonstration of strength, but a delayed, blurred, and contradictory reaction. There was no immediate punishment, no institutional consequences that would have confirmed a “red line.” This was not the gesture of confident power, but an attempt to smother the crisis and postpone reckoning.

The same pattern applies to external challenges. The incursion of Ukrainian armed units into Russia’s Kursk region—an event that, within the declared logic of the “right of the strong,” should have triggered an immediate and harsh response—was in practice largely ignored in terms of real consequences. The rhetoric remained, but no demonstrative response followed that would have confirmed the proclaimed inviolability of Russian borders.

Putin has behaved in a similar manner toward the West. Throughout the war in Ukraine, “red lines” have been crossed repeatedly: the supply of heavy weapons, long-range systems, strikes on targets in occupied territories, the expansion of military assistance. Each time, this was accompanied by loud warnings—and each time, crossing those lines failed to produce the consequences with which the warnings had been backed. The response proved symbolic, delayed, or purely rhetorical.

Taken together, this reveals something fundamentally important: Putinist “strength” has clear limits. It does not operate autonomously, but only until it encounters organized force willing and prepared to respond. Where the other side draws clear boundaries and demonstrates readiness to defend them, the rhetoric of strength begins to retreat.

This means that the demand for respect grounded in the right of the strong is, in reality, conditional. It works against the weak, the hesitant, and those who seek to avoid confrontation, but breaks down when it meets firm resistance. Putin does not go “to the end”—he goes only until he runs up against a limit set by the other side.

It is precisely here that the divergence between image and reality becomes fully visible. A regime that demands recognition of its right to cancel rules and impose its will on others turns out to be unwilling to bear the full cost of exercising that right. Its strength is not absolute, but derivative of the reactions of others. Where there is no reaction, it advances. Where there is one, it stops.

Final Conclusion

The practice of recent years demonstrates one thing unambiguously: Putin respects only force. Not arguments, not norms, not negotiating formulas, and not “consideration of interests,” but the capacity to act decisively, consistently, and without hesitation. This is why he respects China’s President Xi Jinping, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev—not for values, ideology, or alliance loyalty, but for their demonstrated ability to impose reality and hold the result.

Xi presides over a stable system of power and controls resources, scale, and institutions that make China impossible to ignore. Erdoğan has shown a willingness to draw and defend red lines, even at the risk of armed confrontation with Russia, as demonstrated when Turkey shot down a Russian military aircraft near the Syrian border in 2015. Aliyev, backed by Erdoğan, used force to overturn the regional status quo by defeating Armenia and subordinating Nagorno-Karabakh, without seeking Moscow’s permission, and carried this through to the end, creating a new reality that all actors—including Russia—were forced to accept. In all these cases, Putin’s respect emerged not from words, but from force demonstrated in practice.

From this follows the key political conclusion. It is impossible to stop Putin or make him more accommodating through endless negotiations, the search for compromises, or attempts to “save face.” In his system of coordinates, this is not a sign of reason, but of weakness. Negotiations without force are perceived as an invitation to further pressure. Ambiguity is read as an opportunity to advance still further.

The only language the Putinist system truly understands is clearly defined boundaries and the readiness to defend them. Not threats of “possible consequences,” but their real inevitability. Not rhetoric, but the use of force where boundaries are violated. Not endless dialogue, but a clear signal: further advance will carry a cost that cannot be ignored.

This does not mean escalation for its own sake. It means restoring the elementary logic of deterrence. Putin becomes cautious not when he is addressed with empty words and offered endless talks for the sake of talks, but when he encounters force that exceeds his capacity for pressure. Where such force is demonstrated, he retreats. Where weakness is displayed, he advances.

The choice, therefore, is stark. Either the West continues to attempt to “negotiate” with the logic of the right of the strong—and thereby encourages its further application—or it begins to speak to the Russian leadership in the only language it understands: the language of force and constraint. There is no other way to make Putin more accommodating. One who demands respect for himself must first learn to respect others.

To begin with, the regime of the ayatollahs is paradoxically beneficial to most key regional and external actors. It serves as a stable, ideologically defined, and predictable enemy around which both foreign policy strategies and mechanisms of domestic mobilization can be conveniently built. In this sense, the democratization of Iran—however appealing it may be in principle—is objectively not a desirable scenario for a significant share of regional elites.

For Israel, the Iranian threat functions as a tool of permanent political consolidation. It facilitates the rallying of society around incumbent governments and specific political leaders and remains a central argument for preserving Israel’s special relationship with the United States—above all in the sphere of military aid and strategic support. The Iranian threat also helps, at least to some extent, to offset the reputational damage caused by the war in Gaza. A radical, undemocratic, and explicitly anti-Israeli Iran is, in this respect, far more convenient than a potentially pragmatic and negotiable regional actor.

A similar role is played by today’s Iran for Arab autocracies and monarchies. Iran serves as a model of “incorrect” Islam—Shiite and revolutionary—which allows ruling regimes to present themselves as defenders of the “true faith” and to justify the equally undemocratic nature of their own political systems. A democratizing Iran would constitute a dangerous example and could undermine the religious and political monopoly of the Gulf states.

Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last year clearly exposed the gap between Iran’s image and its real capabilities. They demonstrated that in the absence of nuclear weapons, Iran does not pose an existential military threat to Israel. The asymmetry of power is evident: overwhelming superiority in intelligence, air power, precision weapons, and air and missile defense systems remains with Israel and the United States, while Iran is unable to effectively protect critical infrastructure and is forced to strictly calibrate escalation. Thus, at present Iran represents not so much an existential threat as a manageable risk—despite the fact that this threat is systematically exaggerated in public discourse.

An economic dimension complements the military one. International sanctions severely limit Iran’s ability to sell oil on the open market, turning it into a dependent exporter tied to a narrow circle of buyers. The key buyer is China, which purchases Iranian oil at substantial discounts. This renders Iran not only isolated but structurally dependent, reducing its strategic autonomy. Normalization of Iran’s relations with global markets would deprive Beijing of this rent, meaning that the status quo is also advantageous for external actors in this regard. Not to mention that Iran’s return to global oil markets would inevitably affect pricing—something that regional exporters are unlikely to welcome.

As a result, Iran is embedded in the regional and global system as an element of “stable instability”: aggressive and ideological enough to remain a convenient enemy, weak enough not to pose a genuine danger, and isolated enough to be economically manageable.

So, would Donald Trump be interested in changing Iran’s political system? The most honest answer here is “who knows.” One could stop there.

But if we reason logically and take into account the transactional nature of Trump’s politics, the answer is most likely no. The United States would be far more interested in preserving the status quo. Toppling the regime of the ayatollahs would entail high risks, unpredictable consequences, and the potential need to assume responsibility for the country’s post-crisis reconstruction—precisely the kind of burden Trump has consistently sought to avoid. This is clearly visible today in the case of Venezuela, where the U.S. offers no meaningful strategy for internal systemic transformation.

It is also worth noting that Trump’s threats to strike Iran do not, at this stage, look like a credible instrument for genuinely weakening or dismantling the regime of the ayatollahs. Rather, they resemble the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025: a loud and symbolically charged action with unclear strategic effectiveness. Such strikes may demonstrate resolve and reinforce deterrence, but they do not by themselves alter the internal balance of power within Iran. Given the apparent weakness of protest organization—at least insofar as one can judge from the available information—the suppression of the protests appears to be an entirely achievable option for the regime, despite the scale and persistence of the movement. In other words, external military pressure and internal protest dynamics do not currently converge into a realistic pathway toward regime collapse.

By contrast with the narrowly targeted strikes of 2025, any U.S. attempt to exert direct pressure on the Iranian regime itself—especially a regime that already perceives itself as cornered—could trigger Iranian retaliation no longer constrained by fears of escalation. This, in turn, could lead to serious regional destabilization in a part of the world that is already far from stable.

A wholesale reshaping of the Middle East in Trump’s unpredictable and irresponsible style would hardly be welcomed by either Israel or Saudi Arabia—and Trump listens far more attentively to them than to Europeans or Latin Americans.

A convenient enemy, a manageable risk, and an object of sanctions pressure is far more valuable than regime change. This is why the overthrow of the ayatollahs’ regime does not appear to serve anyone’s interests—except those of the Iranian protesters themselves and people of good will, of course.

Original post from X (Twitter) of January 5

In his recent column in The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman speaks less as an individual commentator than as a representative of a well-established strand of Western establishment thinking—one in which the abandonment of strategic objectives is reframed as mature realism. Writing about Donald Trump’s approach to the war in Ukraine, the risks of escalation, and the limits of Western support, Friedman constructs an argument that appears sober and pragmatic at first glance. Yet this is precisely what makes it dangerous. What is presented as realism is, in fact, adaptation to aggression: not a strategy for victory, but a rationalization of fatigue and fear. The column is less an assessment of the world as it is than a symptom of a deeper intellectual error—one in which concessions to force are mistaken for wisdom, and strategic retreat is recast as responsibility.

He is right that Trump’s real-estate conception of foreign policy is a strategic disaster for the United States. He is right that leverage—military, economic and political—determines outcomes in diplomacy, not salesmanship or flattery. And he is right that Ukraine cannot negotiate from a position of weakness if the West expects any form of sustainable peace.

But from these correct premises Friedman draws an entirely incorrect conclusion. He argues that a Ukrainian victory is “unrealistic” and that the only plausible path toward ending the war is a territorial concession to Vladimir Putin—a so-called “dirty deal,” which he considers preferable to Trump’s “filthy deal” but which nonetheless accepts that Russia will keep land seized by force.

This is not realism. It is capitulation wrapped in more elegant language. And it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Putin is trying to achieve—not just in Ukraine, but in the world.

New Order

Under Putin, Russia is not merely revising borders. It is attempting to revise the international order itself. The Kremlin seeks to replace the post–Cold War system with a hybrid of Westphalia and Yalta: rigid spheres of influence enforced not by law but by subordination. Moscow promotes this vision under the banner of “multipolarity”—through BRICS, through its rhetoric of “equal civilizations,” through its systematic erosion of Western institutions.

Any territorial concession to such a project is not a compromise. It is the West agreeing to its own strategic downsizing. It means that entire regions become closed to American and European influence, their infrastructure and markets absorbed into Chinese- and Russian-led economic systems. The space in which the West can project power, law or capital shrinks. This is not simply a question about Ukraine’s borders; it is a question about the future shape of the global economy and global security.

Friedman is right to focus on leverage, but he misidentifies where the real leverage lies. He never explains why Ukraine’s victory is “unrealistic.” He cites no geographic determinism, no iron law of war, no structural inevitability. And in fact none exists. The obstacles to Ukrainian success are not physical; they are political.

They are the long delays in U.S. aid, the restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian territory, Europe’s sluggish defense production, and Washington’s refusal to articulate any strategic objective beyond “avoiding escalation.”

In other words, Ukraine’s limited options are the product of Western choices, not immutable facts. When we call victory “unrealistic,” we are not analyzing reality. We are confessing our unwillingness to shape it.

Nukes

At one point Friedman cites Vice President J.D. Vance and his oft-repeated refrain: we do not want to be in a nuclear war with Russia. This is presented as hard-headed realism. It is in fact the distilled essence of how Putin wants Western elites to think. The fear of nuclear war has been elevated from an extreme, last-resort consideration into the first and often only filter for any decision about supporting Ukraine. That is not deterrence. It is successful nuclear blackmail.

During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were understood as the absolute limit of escalation—a final argument whose actual use would make any rational political objective meaningless. Today, the Kremlin has reengineered this logic. For Putin, nuclear weapons are not simply a last rung on the ladder; they are part of the wallpaper of everyday politics. They are invoked regularly, through veiled threats, exercises, doctrinal tweaks and talk of “unpredictable consequences,” not to prepare for their use but to ensure that any discussion of helping Ukraine in Washington, Berlin or Brussels begins with the question, “Are we risking nuclear war?”

In this way, the mere existence of the Russian nuclear arsenal becomes a tool of political management. Moscow does not need to move closer to using nuclear weapons to gain advantage. It needs only to keep Western societies and leaders permanently aware of the possibility. The goal is simple: to force the West to define its actions not in terms of what is necessary to stop aggression, but in terms of what might offend or “provoke” the Kremlin.

That is how we arrive at the grotesque sequence we have seen for almost four years: each new category of weapons for Ukraine—anti-tank systems, artillery, tanks, long-range missiles, aircraft—is treated not as a function of battlefield necessity but as a moral drama about “crossing a red line.” Each time, Russia hints at dire consequences; each time, part of the Western establishment hesitates; and each time, when the weapons finally arrive, the apocalypse fails to materialize. The pattern repeats nonetheless.

This is not an accident. It is the mechanics of nuclear blackmail. The threat works not because it is likely to be carried out, but because even a small perceived probability of a catastrophic outcome is enough to paralyze democratic decision-making. Western leaders become managers of fear rather than makers of strategy. The question quietly shifts from “What do we need to do to win?” to “What can we do without feeling we are tempting the worst?”

The result is a profound asymmetry. Russia uses its nuclear arsenal as a shield behind which it wages a very conventional imperial war. The West treats that same arsenal as a veto on its own conventional response. Putin exploits uncertainty; Western leaders publicly codify their self-restraint. The more often they repeat that they “will not” do this or that—no troops, no-fly zones, no strikes on Russian territory—the clearer the map of their psychological limits becomes in Moscow.

Friedman, echoing Vance, folds this entire dynamic into a single word: “unrealistic.” Confronting Russia decisively is unrealistic. Enabling Ukraine to win is unrealistic. Confiscating frozen Russian assets is unrealistic. All of this, we are told, risks nuclear escalation. But exactly because Putin has made nuclear fear a routine political instrument, building strategy around that fear does not reduce the risk. It steadily increases it.

If nuclear threats are rewarded—if they reliably slow Western decisions, limit aid, or produce territorial concessions—why would the Kremlin ever stop issuing them? An instrument that yields political gains without a single missile being launched is not going to be retired. It will be used more often, in more crises, over more regions. The line between signal and intention will blur. And at some point, someone will misread or overplay the game.

The paradox is that the policy preached as “avoiding nuclear war at any cost” can bring the world closer to a nuclear crisis, not further from it. It teaches nuclear autocrats one fatal lesson: that the more terrified the West appears, the more room they have to escalate.

And here is the critical point Friedman misses entirely: nuclear blackmail works only because the West allows it to. Putin does not possess a monopoly on nuclear weapons. The United States, Britain and France command together vastly superior arsenals, second-strike capabilities and survivable command structures. The only reason the Kremlin treats nuclear intimidation as a usable political instrument is that it believes the West has talked itself out of its own deterrent.

What works against nuclear blackmail is not appeasement, not verbal de-escalation, and not public declarations of what the West “will never do.” What works is restoring the basic feature of deterrence: the certainty that any nuclear use would mean the destruction of the Russian state, its military apparatus, its governing system—and Putin himself. That is the language a personalized autocracy understands. And that signal must also be directed at Russia’s elites: if you allow this man to drag you into a nuclear confrontation, you will not survive it. Not your fortunes, not your families, not your political futures. As long as they believe the West is the only actor constrained by fear, they remain idle and obedient. Once they understand that nuclear use guarantees their own obliteration, they acquire an incentive to restrain the dictator rather than indulge him. Deterrence works only when both adversaries know there is no scenario in which they walk away.

Land

Friedman’s “dirty deal” also rests on another dangerous assumption: that allowing Russia to keep occupied territory would somehow not reward aggression. But international politics does not turn on legal subtleties. If Russia retains what it seized, Russia wins. And every revisionist regime will read the outcome exactly that way: nuclear-armed states can change borders by force, intimidating its adversaries into silent submission.

After that, the map of risk expands instantly: Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, the Balkans, the Middle East, Latin America. The system that kept borders relatively stable for 80 years begins to dissolve.

This would also devastate the global economy. Capital flows only where borders are protected not merely by armies but by law. A Western-blessed territorial carve-up in Europe signals the end of enforceable guarantees. Investors no longer see Western commitments as reliable. They see them as political theater.

European leaders sometimes argue the opposite: that taking bold steps—such as confiscating Russia’s frozen sovereign assets—would frighten global markets and deter capital from Europe. Belgium, custodian of the world’s largest pool of immobilized Russian funds, has voiced precisely this fear. Yet this logic is backward. Nothing erodes trust more deeply than watching Europe shrink from its own principles. No investor feels safer in a continent that hesitates to defend legal norms against overt aggression or that allows a rules-based order to collapse out of fear of its own shadow. The reputational damage from letting Ukraine lose—and signaling that Western guarantees dissolve under pressure—would be far greater, far deeper, and far more enduring than any fallout from a decisive, lawful stand against a clear aggressor.

The central fallacy of Friedman’s argument lies in projecting rational incentives onto a regime that does not operate according to them. For Putin, compromise is not a resting point. It is evidence of weakness. Every concession confirms that coercion works. Every sanction lifted looks like an admission of fear. A “deal” is not an endpoint; it is a pause—a tactical dormancy before the next offensive. Peace, for Putin, is simply the continuation of war by other means.

Any territory from which the West retreats does not become neutral. It becomes Chinese. Wherever Western influence recedes under Russian pressure, Beijing moves in—through energy, logistics, telecommunications, financial systems and technology. A “dirty deal” does not stabilize Ukraine; it accelerates the construction of a Sino-Russian bloc inside Europe. This is not prudence. It is the programmed shrinking of American power.

Now or Later

The only thing more dangerous than confronting Russia now is confronting a victorious Russia later. Proponents of compromise warn that Russia’s defeat could trigger instability in a nuclear state. But the empirical record suggests the opposite. The dissolution of the Soviet Union—the only historical precedent for such an event—did not produce uncontrolled chaos. Nuclear control remained intact. The real danger arises not when nuclear authoritarian regimes weaken, but when they succeed. Victorious autocracies escalate. They do not stop.

There is another consequence of a territorial concession that Friedman does not address at all: the near-certain collapse of the global nonproliferation regime. If a non-nuclear state like Ukraine—one that voluntarily surrendered the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal under Western guarantees—is forced to give up territory to a nuclear-armed aggressor, every leader around the world will draw the same lesson: nuclear weapons are not the last resort; they are the only guarantee of survival.

This is not a hypothetical concern. In Riyadh, Seoul, Ankara and Tokyo, policymakers are already questioning whether American security guarantees can outlast a determined aggressor with nuclear capabilities. A “dirty deal” that rewards Russia for violating the Budapest Memorandum would send a catastrophic signal: that nuclear blackmail works, that the NPT cannot protect you, and that only a national nuclear arsenal can prevent the fate Ukraine is now asked to accept.

The result would be a global cascade of proliferation. States that have resisted the temptation for decades would move to acquire nuclear weapons not out of ambition but out of fear—and the world would become vastly more dangerous. Far from preventing nuclear war, Friedman’s proposal would make it far more likely by multiplying the number of actors capable of initiating one.

The irony is impossible to miss: a compromise designed to avoid nuclear escalation today would make nuclear confrontation exponentially more probable tomorrow.

Friedman is right that Trump’s approach is reckless and morally bankrupt. But a more polite version of capitulation is still capitulation. There is a realistic alternative—though it requires something the West has not yet shown: political will. It includes full restoration of military aid to Ukraine; removal of artificial restrictions on striking Russian military assets; mobilization of American and European defense industries; a unified doctrine that Russia must be defeated as an aggressor, not accommodated as a nuisance; and a long-term plan for managing, not fearing, a post-Putin transition.

Victory becomes “unrealistic” only when the West decides it is optional. Defeat becomes inevitable only when the West persuades itself that it is being prudent.

True Realism

The true realism—the kind that preserves international order rather than eulogizes it—recognizes a simple truth: stopping Putin now is safer and cheaper than stopping him after he wins.

What Friedman calls “realism” is, in fact, something very different from what statesmen have historically meant by the word. Realism is not the art of resigning oneself to circumstances. It is not the practice of baptizing one’s own fear or inertia as geopolitical maturity. And it certainly is not the habit of treating self-imposed limitations as immutable facts of nature.

Realism, in its true strategic sense, begins with seeing the world as it is — but it never ends there. It demands not passive acceptance, but the will to shape events rather than be shaped by them. As Lion Feuchtwanger once wrote of ancient Rome: “To clearly perceive the reality, yet refuse to submit to it — that is what made Rome great.” Realists do not confuse prudence with paralysis. They do not mistake caution for wisdom. They understand that circumstances are raw material for strategy, not commandments to obedience.

History offers no shortage of reminders that what appears “unrealistic” to the comfortable often appears urgently necessary to the threatened. The North American colonies’ revolt against the British Empire was dismissed by many contemporaries as hopelessly naïve. But Washington, Jefferson and the other founders did not accept “unrealistic” as a verdict. They understood that freedom itself seemed unrealistic — until people were willing to take risks proportionate to its value. They did not fear “escalation” with the strongest imperial power of their age. They feared something far worse: surrender by default.

Realism requires that same clarity today. It requires recognizing that appeasing a nuclear-armed aggressor does not avert danger; it multiplies it. It requires acknowledging that the risks of action are real, but the risks of inaction are greater. It requires the courage to admit that a world in which Putin succeeds is far more unstable, far more militarized and far more prone to catastrophic war than a world in which he is defeated.

Above all, realism requires something the West has not exercised in a generation: the willingness to use its overwhelming advantages — economic, technological, military and diplomatic — to shape outcomes rather than react to them.

Anything less is not realism.
It is abdication.

On December 13, 2025, the Belarusian authorities released a group of political prisoners. The releases came after negotiations the United States, and were accompanied by sanctions relief, including Belarus’s potash sector. Formally, this did not amount to a full lifting of sanctions, but rather a set of exemptions and relaxations that, in practice, reopened access to critically important export revenues.

This context matters. The releases did not occur in a vacuum; they were embedded in a transactional framework that carries serious strategic consequences.

Why Potash Matters So Much to Minsk

Potash is one of the pillars of Alexander Lukashenko’s economic model. Before sanctions were imposed after 2021, the state-owned company Belaruskali controlled up to 20 percent of the global potash market, placing Belarus among the world’s top four producers.

Annual potash exports generated approximately $2.5–2.8 billion, equivalent to roughly 4 percent of GDP and up to 7 percent of total merchandise exports. In some years, potash accounted for as much as one-fifth of Belarus’s hard-currency revenues not directly tied to Russia.

From a fiscal perspective, Belaruskali was a system-forming asset. In the mid-2010s, it ranked among the country’s largest taxpayers, contributing substantially to both regional and central budgets through taxes, dividends, and quasi-fiscal transfers. Sanctions on the potash sector were therefore among the most painful economic blows to the regime, sharply reducing foreign-currency inflows and increasing Minsk’s dependence on the Kremlin.

Any easing of potash-related sanctions is thus not a technical adjustment or a symbolic concession. It is a strategic gift that restores financial flows, stabilizes elite loyalty networks, and helps fund the repressive apparatus. Using Belaruskali as a bargaining chip in exchange for the release of political prisoners directly strengthens the economic foundations of dictatorship.

The Moral Appeal — and the Political Trap

From a human perspective, the release of political prisoners is undeniably good. Every freed person matters. Every saved life has value. But in politics, the mechanism matters as much as the outcome.

The approach that can be described as “buying prisoners from a dictator” — exchanging sanctions relief, diplomatic concessions, or economic benefits for releases — is strategically flawed. It turns repression into a tradable asset. Political prisoners cease to be victims and become currency: first produced in bulk, then selectively exchanged for external rewards.

The result is perverse but predictable. The freedom of a few is purchased at the cost of greater repression for everyone else. The regime gains money, time, legitimacy, and a signal of impunity — and reinvests all of it into new arrests and tighter control. The total number of victims does not decline; it grows.

Repression becomes institutionalized as a tool of foreign policy.

What the Numbers Tell Us

It is crucial to state this clearly and unambiguously: Lukashenko is not changing his internal repressive policy.

Even as selected prisoners are released for external consumption, the repression machine continues to operate at full speed. In just this week alone, according to the human rights center Viasna:

• 10 new political prisoners were officially recognized;

• the total number of political prisoners in Belarus now stands at 1,227;

• 25 people were added to the regime’s lists of political “terrorists” and “extremists”;

• 11 people were arrested or sentenced to prison on politically motivated charges.

These figures expose the underlying logic of the regime’s behavior. Releases do not signal liberalization. They function as a management tool — a way to monetize repression abroad while sustaining and even expanding it at home.

The Illusion of “Pulling Lukashenko Away from Moscow”

A common counterargument is that limited sanctions relief and economic engagement could reduce Lukashenko’s dependence on Russia and gradually pull Belarus away from Moscow. This argument sounds pragmatic — and that is precisely why it is so dangerous.

Lukashenko’s dependence on the Kremlin is not primarily economic. It is existential. Since 2020, his regime has survived not because of internal legitimacy or economic performance, but because Moscow guarantees its survival: political backing, security guarantees, and unconditional recognition of mass repression and electoral fraud. No amount of additional export revenue can replace that.

Extra financial resources do not make Lukashenko autonomous. They make him a more stable junior partner of Russia. Funds obtained through sanctions relief are not used to diversify foreign policy or build institutions. They are used to finance repression, subsidize a failing economy, and meet obligations to Moscow. Western concessions therefore do not weaken Russian influence — they partially subsidize it.

The idea that Lukashenko might eventually “switch sides” also assumes that he has a real strategic choice. In reality, any genuine normalization with the West would require dismantling the core of his power system: releasing all political prisoners, ending repression, restoring political competition, and accepting accountability. For Lukashenko, this would be political suicide.

History already provides a clear test of this theory. Between 2014 and 2020, the West pursued engagement with Minsk, easing sanctions and restoring dialogue in the hope of reducing Russian leverage. The result is well known: repression returned at full scale, and in the moment of crisis Lukashenko relied entirely on Moscow. The failure was not insufficient generosity — it was a misunderstanding of the regime’s nature.

The paradox is fundamental. For Lukashenko to become less dependent on Russia, he would need to become less repressive at home. But he cannot do that without undermining his own rule. Every attempt to “pull him away from Moscow” through economic concessions therefore reinforces the very system that makes this dependence inevitable.

When the Deal Becomes the Policy

This brings us to a second, related factor: transactional diplomacy.

For Donald Trump, democracy and human rights are not guiding principles of foreign policy. The objective is a deal — a visible, negotiable outcome that can be presented as success. In this framework, Lukashenko is not a dictator presiding over mass repression, but a counterparty. Political prisoners become bargaining chips; sanctions become leverage to be traded for short-term gestures.

This logic systematically favors authoritarian regimes.

A deal that is not tied to systemic change does not alter behavior; it rewards tactics. Lukashenko can release a limited number of prisoners, secure economic or political benefits, and then continue repression — which is exactly what happens. Repression becomes an asset that can be monetized.

Transactional diplomacy also destroys sanctions as a cumulative instrument. If sanctions can be partially lifted in exchange for symbolic gestures, they cease to deter and become a menu. Authoritarian regimes adapt quickly to this logic.

Finally, such deals undermine collective pressure. Leader-to-leader transactions bypass the EU, the US Congress, international legal mechanisms, and human rights institutions. The regime best positioned to exploit this fragmentation is the dictatorship.

Crucially, this approach does not pull Lukashenko away from Moscow. It makes him cheaper to maintain. By easing pressure without demanding internal transformation, the West reduces the financial burden of Belarus’s alignment with Russia. The Kremlin benefits directly.

If democracy and human rights are taken off the table, a deal with Lukashenko is no longer strategy. It is maintenance of dictatorship by other means.

Why This Weakens Democracies

This policy of trading sanctions and concessiond for prisoners also places the buying side — democratic governments — in an inherently weak position. Once they accept the logic of transactional releases, they surrender strategic initiative.

Prices rise. Demands expand. Each “humanitarian gesture” becomes more expensive than the last. Eventually, the price becomes politically unacceptable: lifting core sanctions, undermining collective pressure mechanisms, or effectively legitimizing the regime.

At that point, refusal is inevitable. But within the logic already accepted, refusal is easily framed as a lack of concern for prisoners’ freedom. Responsibility for continued repression is rhetorically shifted from the jailer to the outside world. The dictator wins again.

In politics, price is not a technical detail. It is a structural variable. Emotional pressure and genuine humanitarian impulses make it easy to overlook this — but doing so reshapes the balance of power in favor of the authoritarian regime.

What a Serious Strategy Looks Like

Securing the release of political prisoners is essential. This is not optional. But it must not be done through concessions. It must be pursued as part of a broader strategy of pressure aimed at eventual downfall of the regime. Release should be the result of a weakening regime, not the condition for strengthening it.

Every new politically motivated arrest should automatically increase the costs for the dictator — through tighter sanctions, expanded personal measures, deeper international isolation, and legal accountability. Repression must never generate rewards.

In other words, the dictator must pay — not be paid. He must understand that holding hostages is not a source of leverage, but a source of escalating losses that undermine the stability of his rule. Only within this logic does the release of political prisoners cease to be an element of cynical bargaining and become part of a real strategy to confront and dismantle a repressive regime.

The contemporary American impulse to shed global responsibilities—most visible in the Trump administration belief that power can be preserved while obligations are discarded—represents a striking departure from the traditional logic of great-power strategy. The United States shows signs of disengaging not because structural conditions require it, but because a significant segment of its political class has persuaded itself that commitments weaken rather than reinforce national strength. This mindset treats influence as an inherent attribute rather than a function of sustained engagement, creating the risk that America will forfeit advantages it still possesses by assuming they can endure without the alliances, institutions, and guarantees that underpin them.

Set against this, Britain’s post-war transformation demonstrates a fundamentally different mode of great-power adaptation. Forced by structural decline to abandon its empire, Britain managed its retreat with strategic discipline, replacing coercive rule with institutional alignment and reshaping its global presence instead of relinquishing it. Where the United States now risks losing influence by refusing to acknowledge the foundations on which it rests, Britain preserved much of its influence precisely by recognising its limitations and adjusting accordingly. America offers an example of strategic illusion; Britain, of strategic maturity.

Strategic Maturity

Britain’s situation after 1945 was defined by historical necessity. The economic burden of two world wars had eroded its industrial base, strained its fiscal capacity, and left little margin for sustaining an administrative apparatus spanning continents. Nowhere was this clearer than in India. British rule on the subcontinent had been destabilized by wartime famines, the erosion of colonial legitimacy, and the growing strength of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. Retaining India would have required a military commitment Britain could not credibly maintain. The decision in 1947 to partition the territory and grant independence was therefore not merely a concession to nationalist demands; it was a calculated recognition that imperial overstretch threatened the coherence of the entire system. By integrating India and Pakistan into the emerging Commonwealth, Britain sought to preserve political and economic ties in a new, non-imperial format.

This approach extended across subsequent phases of decolonization. In West Africa, the ascent of Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party made Ghana’s independence in 1957 unavoidable, yet London moved quickly to ensure that the new state remained embedded in shared institutional and educational frameworks. Nigeria’s independence in 1960 followed a comparable pattern: constitutional negotiations emphasized continuity of legal structures derived from English common law and a continued orientation toward London as an economic partner. Even where decolonization was turbulent—as in Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising—Britain’s long-term strategy was not simply to exit but to reshape the conditions of its engagement. The Commonwealth became the vehicle for this transformation, offering a voluntary structure that preserved Britain’s global reach while relieving it of the burdens of direct governance.

The durability of the Commonwealth demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach. Shared norms of parliamentary procedure, judicial independence, and administrative professionalism created lasting affinities that outlived empire. Educational mobility, especially the continued attraction of British universities for elites in former colonies, reinforced these bonds. Cultural and linguistic commonalities deepened them further. Britain lost its empire, but it retained influence because it understood that great-power status could survive only if adapted to new realities. Retrenchment was strategic: it replaced coercive control with institutional alignment, burden with relationship, formal authority with soft power.

Strategic Adolescence

The trajectory of the United States in recent years illustrates a fundamentally different mindset. The United States is not experiencing structural decline akin to Britain’s after 1945. Its economy remains globally dominant; its military capabilities are unrivalled; its alliance network is unprecedented in scope and strategic value. Yet a growing segment of American political class regards these alliances as costly entanglements rather than mechanisms that amplify national power. In this worldview, the United States bears burdens for the sake of others, rather than maintaining a system that stabilizes key regions, prevents rival coalitions, and enables Washington to shape outcomes far from its borders.

The shift was crystallized in the 2025 National Security Strategy, which asserts that the United States should no longer be responsible for the defense of states “capable of defending themselves.” Such a statement departs not merely from diplomatic convention but from the intellectual foundations of American grand strategy since the Truman administration. The post-war order placed obligations at the core of influence: Washington guaranteed security in Europe and Asia not out of altruism, but to prevent the re-emergence of hostile hegemonies in industrial regions whose control would threaten American power. The credibility of those commitments, and the web of institutions built around them, kept allies aligned and adversaries constrained.

To recast these commitments as optional or transactional is to misunderstand their function. When Washington signals uncertainty about defending the Baltic states or revisits the terms of its security partnership with Japan, the immediate effect is to weaken deterrence. The secondary effect is even more consequential: allies begin seeking alternative security arrangements. The growing debate in South Korea over whether the country should develop its own nuclear capability, and the shift in Japan toward a doctrine allowing pre-emptive military action, are concrete examples. Such developments do not lead to a lighter global burden for the United States. They produce a fragmented security environment in which Washington’s traditional leverage over allies diminishes while rival powers, especially China, gain room to maneuver. This reflects a deeper misconception within the Trump camp: the belief that the United States can retain all the privileges of global leadership while shedding the obligations that make those privileges possible—a fundamentally adolescent idea that confuses power with immunity from responsibility.

The retreat from multilateral institutions further illustrates the absence of strategic calculation. The United States has stepped back from major climate frameworks, weakened its participation in World Trade Organization reform efforts, and reduced contributions to international development institutions. These bodies are not detached from American power; they operationalize it. Rules, standards, lending practices, and dispute-resolution mechanisms shape global patterns of behavior in ways that benefit American interests. Abandoning them without creating viable alternatives is tantamount to surrendering the ability to influence global norms and economic structures. The assumption that America will remain pre-eminent even as it discards the instruments that sustain its pre-eminence reveals an approach that is not merely impulsive but deeply superficial—an insistence on rights without responsibilities, status without the infrastructure that upholds it.

The contrast with Britain becomes clearest when examining intent and outcome. Britain recalibrated its external posture because the material basis of empire had collapsed. It replaced a failing structure with one that preserved much of its influence through non-imperial means. The United States, however, contemplates relinquishing commitments even though the material basis of its leadership remains intact. Where Britain’s retreat was grounded in realism, America’s appears driven by sentiment—an aversion to obligations and a conviction that influence is an inherent attribute rather than something earned and maintained. This is not merely strategic confusion; it is the political equivalent of insisting that adulthood should confer full authority without any corresponding discipline.

The lesson from Britain’s experience is that strategic withdrawal can preserve power when it is managed, sequenced, and accompanied by institutional reconfiguration. The American approach offers the inverse lesson: power erodes when obligations are discarded without regard for the functions they perform. Britain left empire to save its global role; the United States risks abandoning its global role in the belief that it can do so without consequence. One case is an example of rational adaptation. The other is an example of strategic illusion—and of the dangers inherent in a great power acting as though the rules of maturity do not apply to it.