Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Ordinary Russians don’t want this war

Ilya Matveev and Ilya Budraitskis 24th February 2022

The Russian president has launched his invasion of Ukraine but the attack could severely destabilise his regime.

Putin,invasion,Ukraine,Russia
A young woman joining others leaving the Ukrainian capital today (BBC)

Russia attacked Ukraine last night. The worst fears have been confirmed.

The extent of the invasion is not fully understood, but it is already clear that the Russian military has attacked targets all over the country, not just in the south-east (along the border of the so-called ‘people’s republics’). This morning, Ukrainians in various cities were woken by explosions.

Vladimir Putin has made clear the military objective of the operation—the complete surrender of the Ukrainian army. The political plan remains unclear, but perhaps most likely entails the establishment of a pro-Russian government in Kyiv. The Russian leadership assumes that resistance will quickly be broken and that most ordinary Ukrainians will dutifully accept the new regime.

Falling rouble

The social consequences for Russia itself will obviously be severe. Already in the morning, even before western sanctions were announced, Russian stock exchanges collapsed and the fall in the rouble broke all records.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

Putin’s speech last night, in which he announced the outbreak of war, represented the unconcealed language of imperialism and colonialism. In this sense, his is the only government that so openly speaks like an imperialist power from the early 20th century.

The Kremlin is no longer able to hide its hatred of Ukraine behind other grievances—including even enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—and its desire to teach the country a punitive ‘lesson’. These actions are beyond rationally understood ‘interests’ and lie somewhere in the realm of ‘historical mission’, as Putin understands it.

Opposition crushed

Since the arrest of Alexei Navalny in January 2021, the police and security services have essentially crushed the organised opposition in Russia. Navalny’s organisation was deemed ‘extremist’ and dismantled, demonstrations in his defence resulted in some 15,000 arrests and almost all independent media were closed down or branded ‘foreign agents’, severely limiting their operation.

Mass demonstrations against the war are unlikely: there is no political force capable of co-ordinating them and participation in any street protest—even a single-person picket—is swiftly and severely punished. Activist and intellectual milieux in Russia are shocked and demoralised by the events.

One reassuring sign is that no clear support for war is discernible in Russian society. According to the Levada Center, the last independent polling agency (itself branded a ‘foreign agent’ by the Russian government), 40 per cent of Russians do not support the official recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’ by the Russian authorities, although 45 per cent do.

Some signs of ‘rallying around the flag’ are inevitable. Yet it is remarkable that—despite complete control over major media sources and a dramatic outpouring of propagandistic demagoguery on television—the Kremlin is unable to foment enthusiasm for war.

Simple message

Nothing like the patriotic mobilisation which followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014 is happening today. In that sense, the invasion of Ukraine disproves the popular theory that the Kremlin’s outward aggression is always aimed at propping up domestic legitimacy.

On the contrary, if anything, this war will destabilise the regime and even threaten its survival to some extent. The ‘2024 problem’—the need to put up a convincing show of Putin’s re-election, when Russians next vote for president—remains on the table.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

The left around the world needs to unite around a simple message: no to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is no justification for Russia’s actions—they will result in suffering and death. In these days of tragedy, we call for international solidarity with Ukraine.

This piece first appeared on Jacobin

Ilya Matveev
Ilya Matveev

Ilya Matveev is a researcher and lecturer based in St Petersburg. He is a founding editor of Openleft.ru and a member of the research group Public Sociology Laboratory.

Ilya Budraitskis
Ilya Budraitskis

Ilya Budraitskis is a left-wing political writer based in Moscow.

You are here: Home / Politics / Ordinary Russians don’t want this war

Most Popular Posts

Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic
Orbán,Hungary,Russia,Putin,sanctions,European Union,EU,European Parliament,commission,funds,funding Time to confront Europe’s rogue state—HungaryStephen Pogány

Most Recent Posts

reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl
Jacinda Ardern,women,leadership,New Zealand What it means when Jacinda Ardern calls timePeter Davis

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube