Nearly two years on from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, neither economic catastrophe nor a popular uprising have come to pass, with most ordinary Russians resigned to war as a fact of life.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov acknowledged that the writer and satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky was joking when he recently quoted him as saying: “For our people to truly unite, they need a big war.” But Lavrov went on to say that “in every joke there is an element of truth”.
Speaking at a foreign ministry press conference Lavrov went further, arguing that despite the estimated 300,000 Russian solders killed or injured since the invasion began on 24 February 2022 – not to mention the nearly 20,000 Russians detained for protesting against the war – the conflict in Ukraine had had a “positive impact on life inside [Russia]”.
What did the commentators say?
In some aspects Lavrov’s assessment appears correct, especially when it comes to the economy. Despite fears at the start of the war that Western sanctions would cripple Russia’s growth, it has proved remarkably resilient.
The latest World Economic Outlook from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast that Russian GDP will grow 2.6% in 2024, up from the 1.1% it was seeing back in October. The UK, by comparison, is expected to grow by just 0.6% this year.
Inflation may remain high and interest rates are at 15%, but international attempts to hamper the country’s ability to finance its war effort – by targeting the financial system, oil and gas exports, and thousands of oligarchs – “have not dented Russians’ economic optimism”, said Gallup. The polling company found record percentages of Russians believe that their local economy (56%) and living standards (46%) are improving.
This is because Russia had spent years developing a “sanction-proof economic plan dubbed ‘Fortress Russia’ that included moves like building up foreign reserves, cutting debt, and developing alternatives to Western financial systems such as the SWIFT payments network,” said Quartz. So “life with sanctions hasn’t been quite as bitter as Ukraine-supporting governments may have hoped”.
Russia has successfully transitioned to a “war economy” in which state spending on the military is crowding out other forms of economic growth.
In this sense this mirrors the economic model of the late Soviet Union, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, told CNBC. “If you look at Russia, today, production goes up [for the] military, [and] consumption goes down,” she said. “And that is pretty much what the Soviet Union used to look like. High level of production, low level of consumption.”
What next?
“All the naïve predictions that popular discontent triggered by sanctions and the wartime restrictions imposed on daily life would bring down Vladimir Putin’s regime have come to nothing,” said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank. “In many ways, quite the opposite has happened.”
While it is hard to assess genuine levels of support for the war or the regime among the public as a whole, three in four Russians (75%) are satisfied with their freedom to choose what they do with their lives, according to Gallup. “Satisfaction with freedom has been rising steadily for the past decade, reaching its highest points on record after the invasion of Ukraine,” said the polling company.
The war also shows no signs of denting ordinary Russians’ daily levels of stress, worry and sadness, unlike in Ukraine, “where negative experiences have shot up since the war began”, said Gallup. Many Russians live in a “twilight zone”, said Politico, “where the war is both ubiquitous and nowhere; a rumbling threat as the backdrop to an – almost – ordinary life”.
While it may sound “like something straight out of George Orwell’s 1984”, said The Spectator, in many ways Lavrov was correct in his assertion that Russia’s “special military operation” had united the country. The invasion “enabled it to be cleansed of all those who felt no sense of belonging to Russian history or culture” after thousands moved abroad in opposition to the war.
“Most Russians might not identify with the regime, but they have consolidated around the Kremlin, which they believe to be fighting tooth and nail against a West that is seeking to destroy Russia,” said Carnegie. This may be “at odds with reality”, but “a great many Russians have accepted it as the most logical explanation for this protracted nightmare”.