explains our fares practitioners from Washington, here to Chapel Hill to give our students a chance to really have firsthand interaction and with more foreign affairs. We know that in North Carolina can feel like that world is a long way away something students have told us and we're just so happy that we bring it here and close that gap. So tonight, our guests will discuss the role of public opinion and the upcoming Russian election, which most observers believe Vladimir Putin will win. And he will also talk about perceptions of the war in Ukraine. So I'm so pleased to be able to welcome Andrea Kendall Tabor and Jim Townson to facilitate the discussion. Andrea and Jim join us from the Center for security and governance. They posted this podcast called Brussels Brexit of NATO and
transatlantic allies. The center is
a profit organization that develops pragmatic national security enabling policymakers experts and the public with innovative backface research, ideas and analysis to shape and elevate the national security debate. The Center is committed to informing and preparing the national security leaders of today and tomorrow. And that includes many of you here tonight. Andrea is a senior fellow at the Center and director of the transatlantic security program. Prior to joining CNAs. She served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer for the three years that Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at National Intelligence Council net in the Office of the Director of National and International Security from 84. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for working on elder policy for eight years. Where we often cross paths and actually probably just often made common cause. earlier career of 34 years as a Foreign Service Officer at the State Department. Jim has also held roles in the Pentagon and NATO and at the Atlantic Council across a career spanning the Cold War, the post cold war political reconstruction Europe and the modern dynamics of Russia under Putin. I also want to thank the Center for slavit aeration and East European studies for CO sponsoring this diplomatic discussion. It just so happens that the director of fees Graham Robertson, is one of the guests that Andrea and she will interview. The full interview the full introductions will happen during the recording but just briefly, Graham who speaks with a Scottish accent and therefore hails from and hails from the UK is actually a professor here at UNC in the Department of Political Science, and His work focuses on political protest and understanding public support for authoritarian regimes. His recent book, Putin versus the people has positioned him as a sought after speaker and the leading expert on Russian public support for the war against Ukraine. Notably, he wrote that he wrote that he co wrote that book with Sam great Daniel Reed, who is from North Carolina but works at King's College London so he will speak with the North Carolina accent despite this wonderful crossroads, so to speak with the Prime Minister Scott Sandgren is from North Carolina. Their research focuses Sam's research focuses on the relationship of power in Russia, on authoritarianism and on societies experience in social, economic and political transformation. So in just a minute, I'm gonna hand it over to Andrea and Jim to begin the recording. And they'll introduce the episode and yes, and provide us with what I know will be a really insightful conversation after the discussion ends know after they finish this discussion, the podcast will still be recording and you will have the opportunity to come to these mics and ask your questions. So please be thinking as you're listening about what question you'd like to ask, and you'll be part of making the podcast and you'll be part of the recording. So with that, I'm gonna ask you to join me in welcoming Andre Campbell Taylor and Jim Thompson's Carolina and the recording again.
We're really happy to be here and I think we will get right to it. So hello, and welcome to a very special edition of brussel sprouts. I'm Andrea Kendall Taylor, and I'm Jim Townsend. And we are recording live on the campus of University of North Carolina. Go Tar Heels sorry, Jim. And we are here to record an episode focusing on Russia and its domestic politics. We are going to have an opportunity to hear questions live from the students from the students in our audience here. So we're very much looking forward to hearing those questions. In March of 2020 for Russia will hold a presidential election, while Vladimir Putin is nearly certain to win another term in August given the Kremlin's efforts to control the outcome and depress the opposition. It is far from certain how domestic dynamics in the country more broadly will play out in the months and years to come. We're approaching the two year anniversary of the full scale invasion of Ukraine. And we will see, we'll examine today Russian public views of the war how Putin is exploiting the conflict domestically and potential risks to regime stability going forward to discuss these issues and we're very happy to be joined by UMCS own Graham Robertson, as well as Sam green on the podcast today. Graham Sam, I welcome both of you. Great to be here. Thank you. quick introductions of RAM Robertson is a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of the Center for Slavic Eurasia and East European Studies. And Sam green is the director for democratic resilience at the Center for European policy analysis, and a professor of Russian politics at King's College London, and they are the co authors of a book called Putin's views of us, sorry, Putin versus the people. Graham, I think we will start with you. Given that we're approaching the two year mark of Russia's full scale invasion, I think the key question many people are asking is about how Russians are viewing the war as we've set this up, and I know I've you have done some really excellent survey work trying to dig into and understand how the Russians are thinking about the war. What are your key takeaways from some of this recent work? Right?
Well, first of all, it's it's it's hard to imagine there's two years already and it's been two years of your tragedy for Ukraine and do a really unbelievable burden on Ukrainian people heading to a significant a much lesser degree on the on the Russian people. And when this war started, satellite and many others are thinking, you know, this is this is kind of an extraordinary act of self harm for Russia to go and invade neighbor and embark upon what has turned out to be your was potentially a Forever War, right, a war that really doesn't seem to have any obvious end to read and inflicting huge costs upon it upon Ukraine, but but also upon its own population. So why is it what is the what are the factors that are going to drive Russians attitudes to the war, and they certainly many of us saw at the beginning, that there were there will be a rise in the Soozee Azzam early on that typically is the case is arrive on the flag that happens in these contexts, but that two factors would really drag public support for the war down over time. And the first was the economic costs of the war, which we thought were going to be very high and when the US and the Europeans moved very quickly to impose sanctions that looked like it was going to be the case. Second, were casualties from a war that Russia would not be very tolerant of high casualties that resulted from the conflict. And yet what we've seen is support for the war has remained really buoyant. And the best you can tell from from surveys is that I'm still well over 50% That's good for Putin remains extremely high, and that the initial surge of support for for for the war for Putin hasn't lived off much. So why what's what's what's driving this one? In our reserves, the reserves of there's sort of two factors one is a psychological factor, which I think helps to explain the resistance to the impact of casualties, which is that a lot of Russians are very accepting of the war as part of Russia's mission in the world. So one of the ways we did this is by asking, revisiting psychological concepts, constructs concepts from our context. So from this particular case, we're really interested in something called system justification theory. Which is a fancy name for people being willing to put up with a lot of stuff in the name of their country. Right. This was originally a process identified by John George is a psychologist at the New York University, and he used it to explain what you think of as, What's the Matter with Kansas. Why should why is it that people who don't do particularly well on the American economy, nonetheless, are very supportive of actual policies, the policies that are, you know, the division of wealth upwards, and we'll just just argue that essentially that there's a certain kind of person who really buys into the system more than into there were one individual benefits from the war. We've adapted this to the Russian context. We create a lot with one of my my students, what cannot be created a whole series of questions that focus in on Russian his willingness to identify with the state, even though they recognize Hearthstone, we ask them questions like you, Russian, the Russian authorities are weak, but they're the best that we can go for life in Russia as harsh where it makes them stronger. Russians are poor, but the more spiritual, this kind of sort of double edged sword and as of support for the regime. And what we find is that that is the single best predictor of of support for the war. It's also a predictor of willingness to take more casualties in the war. So people who are hiring system justification tend to be pretty thick skinned, and they're not tolerant. We're not sensitive to casualties or tone of psychiatrists. We're willing to spend more money on the Worland than we recite the factors all play into this sort of stuff to support for the war that seems pretty much robust to the costs are willing, much more willing to punish people for opposing the war, for example, those factors are really, really powerful. The second initial efficacy is add to the economic costs, do the same thing that we did this time. Have you always done if you underestimated the our ability to impose economic costs on Russia through sanctions? The Russian economy is always it's never as good or as bad. As Western. We've seen it. And this gets me underestimated their ability to adapt to a sanctions economy with their ability to find new sources to sell oil and gas. But even more important, another ability to switch your words to a war based economy really, really quickly. And Russia is at least according to lots of anecdotal evidence that we hear we actually experiencing some kind of an economic boom, in the sense that wages are up and demand for labor was up. It's harder and harder and harder to get people to, to work in stable industries, because private sector wages are up to minute. So they're not the sort of manpower shortage, economic growth, kind of, like Keynesian militarism, as some people have called it. Right. And we didn't take this into account and I think those two factors have really reduced the impact of the main things we thought we'd be driving Russian support for war.
Super interesting, Sam, I mean, I know that you all at Siva just released a really excellent report kind of focusing on some of the solutions for confronting Russia. Focus on strategies of containment and I think one of the points you make in the report which draws on what, what Graham is talking about here is this question of whether it's Putin for or Russia's war. And that, I think, is a question that has kind of monopolized or not monopolize, but broadly, you know, really receives the attention of Western policymakers and there's differing views across the Europe in terms of how people answer that but what how would you answer that?
I mean, it's this Putin for
and his kind of miscalculation and grand desire shaped legacy and all of the other kind of reasons that we believe that drove his decision or is Miss Now given this seemingly raw support for the war. Is this Russia is more?
Oh, well, I'm going to be disappointing and say that everybody's gonna both right. Have a fundamentally it's a fundamentally I want to hedge it's not pointed toward Putin is the one who made the decision at the end of the day, obviously, to go to war. Nobody was clamoring for this war, maybe other than a couple of people around him in his inner most of inner circles. And he bears responsibility for that. It could not have happened if he didn't make that decision. It would not have happened if he had not made that decision. And yet one of the arguments that I've made for very long time is this argument about what we did in the book for free was co construction, the idea that Bucha has power, his ability to create compliance and to use and in many ways we've seen over the course of his work on weaponize the Russian state Russian society, the Russian economy isn't even built out. of thin air he goes out of the materials that he is able to extract from Russian society itself is an interactive process. Graham's talked about a lot of the factors that are in terms of of the the psychology factors and resilience in the economic structure as well. I think there is, you know, at least one other factor that has really contributed to which is durability throughout his now 24 years in office or so and, and, and throughout this war, and going forward is one of the reasons why we think this war is going to remain in this stats and geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West is going to remain a challenge for the West. Is that the Russian people the fundamental nature of the relationship between the Russian people and the Russian state does not pose a significant challenge to took them to the right people have dealt with a tremendous amount of economic hardship over the years in Russia, they've dealt with a state that is one of the predatory they understand that it's corrupt. It's not difficult to convince people in Russia that they are badly governed. Most people understand that the problem for the opposition to the problem for the West is that most Russians themselves have learned to live like that and learn to live without a state that serves them. They learn to cope with it with a predatory state. And so as long as Putin can limit what this sport demands of the Russian people, and as we've seen, right he has not gone for full scale military mobilization. He has left left people emigrate, who want to he hasn't closed the border. He has introduced exit visas he has not clamped down on people trying to bribe their way out of military service. He's left the individual coping mechanisms available. And that underpins this relationship in which those who are is ravenous for it. I'm inclined to justify what the system is doing will participate. And those who don't want to participate are able to get on with their lives. So as long as he's able to maintain that, that structure in your relationship, there's actually quite a lot of damage that you can do both to Russia and with Russia, to to the rest of the world. Just
a quick follow up for both of you, Ben, what do you make that up some of the polling questions were increasingly higher proportions of Russia, Russians want to see the war come to an end. I mean, sometimes people in the West look at that polling data to say, look, the Russians are tired of the war they want it to end. How do you understand that grim
No, I don't see like a huge bugs well, people wanting the war to end I think we're still in the position where if Putin were determined tomorrow, and say we want it's not another warship that it would support that. If it were talking about tomorrow and say, We haven't won that we have to attack give, again, people would support that to the vast majority of people and I think so we're, we're very much in that position where I think they're looking to the state. I also think that you couldn't would survive losing pretty large territories. Because this war in most Russians minds, I would say it's not some it's not a war against Ukraine. It's a war you created or even within this bar, as far as I'm concerned, it's given some of these fascists or zombies on the west or, or something, right. And the war against the West that's it that's a that's a civilization with struggles struggle. It's a war without an end. And so at some point, you start this phase and you wait for another phase, right. So I think not only is there not a huge groundswell to end the war, there's no, it doesn't mean there wouldn't be support for the war, but I think goodness is really pretty well insulated from the consequences of a war and in that sense.
Well, first of all, thanks, Caitlin C for letting us do this. And Barbara, for you particularly for helping to energize this whole effort. So and for our guests. Thank you all also for being here. Just a quick question, going back to your point about the economic hardships. That certainly says something about this, the effectiveness of sanctions. And I've been through lots of conflicts as, as Barbara has, and also Andrea, where we've had to come up with options. How do we deal with this? How do we deal with that? Thank you, Julia. The first thing we turn to because it's non kinetic, it's almost as easy but it's easier than sending a carrier task force in and so we've relied on sanctions. Gosh, certainly since the Cuban Missile Crisis, to try to shape the behavior of a of a nation. What you've laid out is I think just another hit against the effectiveness of sanctions. And I was one that's my view. But I was wondering, oh, but you both of you have taken away from this experience with that economic side of trying to, you know, maneuver Putin in a way we want to maneuver and how, what does learn the lessons learn to you in terms of the efficacy of sanctions? And is that something that you think we're really putting too much emphasis on as far as being effective? Well, I
think in terms of sanctions against a country like Russia, which is not a fully market economy, right, it's a state dominated economy that is actually able to pretty nimble in some ways, like given a short term challenge and you can redirect into other activities. In this case, you know, it really is warm and warm munitions, manufacturing more material. And then on the other hand, it's finding someone else to buy oil and gas, which is not a hard thing. To do. In Russia is pretty is even more robust against sanctions than in general. I can't think off the top of my head over any examples of sanctions working in less than a 10 year timeframe. So that's inevitably along with our exercise, video and then Russia is even more muted than most.
Maybe see I'm just to pick up on that because there are, you know, some signs of economic stress right. So inflation is quite high inside Russia. As a result of this wartime economy. Wages in the defense sector are very high, which is forcing kind of economic dislocation as workers are moving away from civilian sectors of the economy into the defense economy. And that's creating labor shortages in some key areas, along with the 1.5 million Russians who have left so stay on the line we hear quite a lot from the Biden administration is that the SEC the sanctions will be more effective over time. Is that something that you agree with?
First of all, I think it's important to know that sanctions are having an effect. I don't want to say that they're not but you pointed to a lot of that, you know, Russia has had to pay a cost right to keep its economy going. So it's spending something like you know, 6% of GDP on direct military expenditure not accounted for all the other things that it's doing in terms of social benefits payoffs to to soldiers and their widows and that sort of thing. Something like 40% of the budget now it's going to pay for the war, right? So this is undermining their ability to do lots of other things that has been the near term and short term cost for Russia. You pointed to some of the labor issues of you know the war, Keynesianism will do wonders for your top line GDP but as we distributed right, it moves things away from the consumer economy and away from added productivity and inventories industries that may not be what the future of Russia, you know, what would have been imagined as by by quite a number of people, including some people in government, I think but you know, the question you put as the right one, in terms of will this have effect over time? I would add an aspect to that, which is how much time do we have? Right so one of the things that this the sanctions are mentioning is not just to hit the Russian economy was actually hit the Russian war machine directly, right. So to deprive up on sanctions and export controls to to deprive Russia's military machine of the ability to make the kinds of weapons that it wants to use in in Ukraine. A recent paper that came out by Andrew Buck boba and colleagues physical economics is shown that six sanctions and export control only had about a 10% are caused by a 10% decrease in US dollar terms on the importance of military technology. So dual use chips and that sort of thing into the rest of military industrial complex, right. So over time, is that going to have an effect? Yes. How much time does Ukraine have, particularly if we're not going to bother to actually, you know, write projects and give them the support that they need to fight a war that isn't the end of the day also about US national interest? You know, the impact that it has over time, it may not be enough, there's always inevitably not going to be enough to to win this war, I think. Sanctions Jim, you mentioned the word easy. They're not easy to implement a certain are easy to enforce. They're easy to put in place. And when you're a politician or a policymaker, I think it's a little too easy to say look, we've done something we put in place these sweeping sanctions, we get really rather rapidly if they don't work, then that's an implementation vendor. That's not my problem is that people in the bureaucracy do such that OPEC and other places we didn't bother to get the enforcement Right. Or it's companies that are in compliance. You can always turn it on somebody else. It's also cost free, though speaking for the government. If at the end of the day, what we're looking to do is to contain Russia to degrade its ability to aggress against Ukraine against NATO or against others. No sanctions at the end of the day are not going to be enough.
Thanks. And just a follow up real quick. Thank you for your patience, Andrea, it's just to say that your point is well taken in terms of a policymaker, which many of you out there will have a chance in the coming years. I think, for me, the lesson learned coming out of Ukraine was that too quickly, we felt that all the sanctions are going to have the Russians on their knees within six months and a lot of people when I was in the media quite a bit, and I think that, in a sense, put the pressure off the administration to do something. And this is particularly during the Obama days when I was there, and it gave you an excuse to avoid making hard decisions that might be kinetic ones. You know, we're gonna do sanctions Great. What were these sanctions and now you go home and have dinner because we've done it we've really given them a good Bob in the nose. Well, you're fooling yourself and the more importantly you're fooling all the people in the public in the press to thanking you headed off on a on a tried and true trajectory. That isn't necessarily going to work except over the long term that some you know, the you know, sanctions are real estate in London might have an immediate effect, but but there's others that will really move the needle are going to take a long time. And so for me coming out of this is that okay, we'll turn the sanctions real quick. That's in the quiver, in terms of policy, but it's something that you can't say, we'll do the sanctions and then maybe a year from now we'll do ammunition and Patriot missile systems. No, no, no, no, no. It's got to be something that comes together and package so maybe
just to move off the economy and kind of look at some of the changes that are taking place within Russian society. And I think it's fair to say that Putin's invasion of Ukraine is changing Russia internally, domestically. i How, what are you in the we've, as we're talking about, it's not just the war in Ukraine, but it's this broader confrontation with the West and that confrontation, I think is really becoming the kind of key organizing principle of the Putin regime. It's the way that he justifies the regime and its repressive actions. So both of you are longtime watchers of Russian domestic politics. What are the kind of changes that maybe not that has surprised you but that you're watching kind of transpire? What is standing out to you?
Was it is a seminar documented? This is a strategy that they started in 2012. Really, during politics, economy is going badly. So let's not talk about that anymore. The first decade of putting the economy was booming. So he was a technocrat and a liberal, and then that your wheels came off that because actually there is a kleptocratic when a technocrat and so the economy stagnates. And then we need another story and the other story became persona by the West and they're trying to, you know, give us their rainbow values and all of this kind of stuff. And this is an extension of that. It's sort of in my mind, the ritual absurdum of that right so we go and invade your digital country next door and pretend that it's a war against the West, but nowhere in an actual war, right. And so it raises the stakes dramatically. The first thing he does, is drives off a million people, many, many normal people, many of whom are the core of Russia's liberal community, young people, well educated people. And so it takes that whole section out of politics and what's funny is the most dramatic about the war is the transforms. If I think of the grief, the Russian opposition now, I don't think about Navali. I don't think about, you know, the young election lawyers that I've been spending time with over the years. No, that was the hardliners that was geared. It's the Russian Super nationalists, the really hardline militarists as if it is opposition is right. And that's to me that study actually terrifying, too. And I think it has implications for the succession later on. Should that ever happen? I think to me that's a weakness. But that's to me, that's the most striking thing is this complete shift in you who actually the political opposition to the extent there is any emotion Yeah, what
would you add to that?
Oh, oh, everybody knows he was probably searching grammar or reading really early on the same page about about most of these things. But I'm really coming back to the question of, you know, what am I what am I looking at? I think, look, I'm very circumspect because I can't do research the way I used to like to do research because I spend a lot of time in Russia and you really interact and see what's going on in people's faces and on the street and and in the way that people are living their lives. I think we have real questions about whether or not the the ways that we used to understand Russian politics are still true. They made me and I really don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on a lot of this stuff. But I think there's reason to believe that something may be changing two things in in particular, one is you know, where compliance comes from what is it that keeps people in line and we have generally thought and I'm so delighted to think that that most of that comes from user and horizontal relationships. So people are less and historically been less afraid and things are hit on the head by the state and they are being hit on the head by their peers, by people in their social circle friends, family, colleagues, classmates, that sort of thing. It's that fear of ostracism that tends to keep people in line, but as the states become much more repressive, and we've seen people, you know, turning in other people, to, to the authorities for what people think I certainly minor infractions, open conversations over coffee shops, and that kind of thing. Messages in WhatsApp groups that has the potential to really change the nature of of compliance but also to change the nature of the relationships that people have with with one another to make that much more products around that. The other is ideology has obviously, as Graham said, since 2012, introduced a lot more ideology into Russian politics and has become much more central and much more narrowly construed much more constricting and a lot of ways but I don't yet think that we're to the point where ideology is playing the role that we were expected to say from commentary and system right so when we've seen crises for example, like the promotion affair, right, we didn't see ideology become a tool that people in unique could use to decide where they needed to come down to talk people. You know what riding the fence until Putin made it clear whether he was going to come down and pre vote inside or straight lose sight, right. There was no ideological Bellwether to help people figure it out ahead of time. Similarly, we're not seeing people in the elite or elsewhere in the system use ideology to gain competitive advantage versus people who aren't, you know, accusing their competitors of of heresy in order to sideline them. We're gonna get them getting them out of the way. If we were to see that but it's not I would rule out that we will over time see that and I think we will be facing a very different structure of oppression policy politics and were used to in the past with much more unpredictable consequences.
We're getting close to time for questions. So if people do have questions, please feel free to make your way down here slowly. Before we do that, though, I do want to ask you both about the upcoming election and I know it's a real nail biter, and we don't know what's going to happen. But I guess I should clarify the Russian election in March. But Putin still seems to care a good deal about the election and the way that he announced it with much fanfare kind of due to talking to the general and announcing that yes, he will run again. And really made this point when we were sitting backstage kind of about how a tumor in the Kremlin is to public opinion. So it's clear that that the Kremlin still cares. So what is it that you think that they're hoping to accomplish in this upcoming election and, and maybe just talk to us a little bit about what we should expect?
The main purpose of this election and the purpose of Russian elections as they evolve over time, there was a time when, you know, it was really competitive. We didn't know who's going to win and that there was a time when we knew who was going to win, but how much us was going to get to compete and how much cheating we'd have to do. These are all things that we watch very carefully. Now. I think those are not interesting questions. I think they'll cheat on time. And I think we won't see it as obvious as we have done in the past. What's really happening with this election. The role of this election is to solidify Putin's role for the next X number of years right? And kind of take away kill the conversation about succession. We're on the other hand, as soon as we can get reelected, he's 171. This is quite likely to be his last turn. And so conversations about the lame duck would arise immediately not but but they will start to be packed. And I think what I mean, if I want to make the elections exciting, what I think is this is the starting gun for Putin succession. Good Wednesday election and then the day after, because we're all going to start thinking and Russians are going to start questioning, elites are going to start thinking about who comes next. And I think that's the way they sort of, you know, inject some fundamentalist into this process and think about that is going to be anyway.
Why do you think this is his last one? I mean, we've got a precedent and I presidential contender who are in their 90s are close to it. And so why would Putin not want to do
the same thing? Yeah, I mean, he you know, he got the mind. Right, but my guess is his health is going to decline. And, you know, as he gets into his late 70s, maybe not right, but now I'm just thinking
maybe a little optimistic, but Sam, so could they be now I think the news today, Jim and I were just reading so Morrison the Dejan now has enough signatures to be on the ballot. I mean, what's that? What's that about? You know, how do you and you know, I think we all understand that he probably or not, probably he has the blessing of the Kremlin to run and it's a highly orchestrated kind of event but how do you interpret his participation in the election
maybe push down
I don't know that he actually wrote there's nothing happens. I think you're right even without some degree of acceptance from the presidential administration, but acceptance is always continued and, and temporary, right. I think the question for me is, and the distance or comes into this is to what extent is the company that we push out of his comfort zone in trying to achieve what it wants to achieve? Right, so what will we think it wants to achieve? And he says, you know, a resounding victory has to be a little bit bigger than victories in the past because, you know, otherwise, you're losing rather on the fly, but there's always some fuzziness and that this world was supposed to die, right. So it has to you know, plausibly manufacture that right so yes, they will be the victim of relations manipulation, you know, from from the get go in terms of how the campaign was run. But people have to feel that way. If it's 80% at the end of the day that has to feel genuine enough to, to to people around the around the system. And in society more broadly. Right. Right now, they played very cautious they're not really doing anything that they hadn't done in previous elections. They had the visually let there be one semi sort of outsiders and the oppositional candidate around except in cases when they decided to understand they want to get rid of them. So I think you know, you don't want to get through okay, we're just hoping that it isn't too early because you might find that you even down the road they can always find me to pick off the ballot. Really any point between now and and the elections without too much the potential consequence
I think we have our first question right there, right. So again, please make your way to the microphone so you can pose your
questions. And here I'm on the brussel sprouts podcast. And so before you ask your question, maybe just give us your name, so we know who the question is coming from. So we'll start
over here with Barbara. Hi, Barbara Stevenson Vice Provost for global affairs and longtime friend, Jim Graham. I was just fascinated listening to you talk about how strong Russian public opinion in favor of the war remains even with the high casualty count. And I'm wondering if you think there are any kind of limits to that I have heard it said that. We're more slobs from Moscow and St. Petersburg becoming home in body bags, rather than boys from prisons and from outlying areas that it might be different. Do you agree with that? Or do you think this is just not going to have the potential really to significantly shift Russian public opinion?
So I think there's also risk like we were surprised by the extent of the casualties I'm surprised by the lack of response do it and maybe it is because it's the sort of this is politically you're not well represented groups and whatnot. And so the ground itself has been really cagey about announcing that they said there was gonna be no more full scale mobilization. They've never called it a full scale mobilization. They're very, very cagey about that. But I do think there is a sort of, you know, hope over over time, the Russians are much more robust in their capacity to tolerate casualties than we expected. And so I don't know what that is. But certainly we're already beyond the point that we were most of us are missing began.
I think casuals to us is such an interesting piece because you know, even coming from the intelligence community, Putin doesn't want to have casualties. What have they learned from Afghanistan, he's so averse to having casualties, and yet what are we over 500,000, at least on the Russian side, and it hasn't been an issue. The one thing I'm also reminded of is there's some good political science work that talks about different leaders ability to tolerate casualties, and it's the personalist autocrats who are particularly immune to casualties because they are good at redirecting costs away from their politically most important questions. And so I get it where that ends, it's hard to say but they tend to be the most
we did we did a survey experiment in which we asked about different kinds of casualties as we said to people, you know, the Buddha said, we're going to attack you again. And, you know, how do you feel about that? And then we say, well, goodness, we're going to take him again and you know, hundreds of 1000s of Ukrainians will die. didn't affect anyone's opinion on it at all. You said hundreds of 1000s of Russians will die didn't affect the enemy's opinion on it at all means that some of your friends and family will die. Oh, that would have a massive effect on everybody. And so I think there's there is a kind of personal connection. Here. That machine versus a big country has got a lot of people but I think so long as people not too many people feel that personal connection, then that it's pretty robust. Yeah,
you made the point earlier to which you know, that he's tried to avoid and that are major mobilization in large part because it was I mean, it was damaging to the Kremlin initially, when all of a sudden the Russians had to participate in the war. Do you expect that after the election that Putin will mobilize or what do you what do you think? No,
I don't really I mean, I think it becomes easier after the election, right, all things being equal, but I think that the reality is that he can put it up on the battlefield to keep things going and keep the pressure on Ukraine.
You know, at the moment.
You know, it seems really odd every time I say this, but this is a fundamentally risk averse political regime, right. The reality is that, you know, as uncertain as we are of what's going on, and what the structure of that is this holding them up, you know, their uncertainty as well. And there's a lot of things that they don't know and the consequences, you know, Graham and I get things wrong, we look silly, right? If, if Putin and his handlers get things wrong, things can can become much more catastrophic, right. So you know, they, I think will be unwilling to take the risks of a large scale mobilization even another pretty pretty true style partial mobilization. Just because it's it's not clear what benefits it will bring in terms of the outcome of the war. And there is reason to believe that it will cause political problems for them at home and again, you know, things are going relatively well. For him both from a military recruitment perspective, at the at the level that they're operating, and, and on the battlefield. I don't see a pressing need for him to try this one.
All right, we've got more questions. So back here
this afternoon. Thank you for being here. I was wondering what you thought the role of disinformation and censorship is in altering Russian domestic public opinion on the war in Ukraine.
And we want to go first, yeah, sure. So
this is a really interesting question of luxury. And we've done lots of research on and there's different views. The one, the one, the one that I like best is that your Russia screwed up lots of different stories about what this war is about. So you know, it was about American nuclear weapons. It was about you know, the murder of Ukrainian Russian speakers living in Ukraine. It's about American history, all sorts of different different things like many of which are just completely not credible. And so, one perspective on this is to say, well, you know, the point of this propaganda is not to convince anybody about these silly stories, where it's your money in the works, is to give people kind of a menu of different reasons why they might think this was okay. And if you don't like the story about saving Ukrainians and Russian speakers on Western reconditioned Ukraine, and you don't need to do that when you could do this. Right. And so it creates enough sort of credibility, enough enough for many people give themselves an excuse. So we're not fighting Ukrainians. We're fighting fascists, right? Okay. Let's do that. And let me ask you in general, it's also important in a context where Russians can actually go on laying snow fairly easily, and find out what's actually going on in the world. So it's not the Soviet Union. Right. So in that context, what you want to do is just kind of mess things up and give people a reason to accept what you're saying. Well, I'm convinced that what you're saying is excellent.
I saw John that. With the rise of private military companies such as bargainer and beauticians mismanagement of the rise and control in power. Do you think that poses a verifiable threat to Putin's control or Russia? If that is a presidency issue with the Russian public? Great question.
It's the only one Oh, first.
It really is a fabulous question and an interesting one, two weeks, I'm probably gonna have an answer. But, you know, once again, we're back to sort of our models and Russian politics, which again may be shifting and may need to shift further but one of the things I think we always thought was that was in his role is to manage competition among the elite. This is a fundamentally a web based system. So you have people in India or India in the game for the purpose of extracting flows of money from the various things that the state does, whether that's giving people licenses to extract oil and gas from the ground or whether that's, in the case of the war. You're giving people contracts. To go and produce weapons and fight the war, but then on the battlefield and, and that sort of thing. It's probably your inevitable that the war was going to end up being another field of rent seeking, but it's a very different kind of rent seeking, right so rent seeking that really comes at the heart of of our national security and Russia's ability to engage in geopolitics. It's also a rent seeking that involves, you know, heavily armed people or people with with tanks and the ability to roll those tanks up the road from Moscow to Moscow. So it was, I think, a mistake, a fundamental mistake, I will be permanent to allow the war and military machines be subjected to the same kind of logic that governs the rest of the political economy in Russia, even if it was probably inevitable. We will also thought the fact that Putin is as as you said, Miss mishandled is from he should have seen we can all see right, the conflict arising between pretty women and show you the defense minister we shouldn't have, he shouldn't have been able to prevent it from getting to the stage that it did shouldn't require, you know, crescendo to get on the phone and and broker some kind of a deal if indeed that's what happened. And that certainly seems to be the message to the rest of the Russian only got right. So that should have created the problem not just in the military sphere, but should have sent the message to the rest of the Russian elite that you know, Putin is losing the plot to a certain degree, right and he is no longer a is skillful in managing the conflicts among the elite as he had been, which means that the system can get out of balance and we can end up in a much more messy situation than we then we want to be and so perhaps we need to find somebody who can do all of this better than Putin is able to at the end of the day, the President hasn't had that effect. We haven't seen the elite respond to the stimulus in this particular way. Which might be might mean they didn't have the opportunity is certainly not a not an easy response to muster. But it also might mean that in fact, the relationship between the elite and Bucha right now is different than it was in the past or than we understood it to be. It is a goal of much more subservience and much more power concentrated in the Kremlin, and maybe the Kremlin is less beholden to the elite than than we imagined before.
Yeah, so we've talked about this, I think, just on a previous podcast with Fiona Hill last week, and I think the the point that you raised to is just such a good one because it does seem like as Sam was saying, like there have been kind of a devolution and an allowance of alternative centers of power, including with access to weapons like that cat was a little bit out of the bag. You know, they're obviously trying to rein it in and put control over those groups under individuals who are more compliant to the Kremlin, but it's a difficult thing to control. But more broadly, you really do see now the regions have the legal ability to riot to raise their own private military companies in order to subside unrest should they need to you're seeing all of the kind of returning fighters who have access to weapons you're seeing the ROSC have already have the kind of the the unit there. Now it has the ability to access heavy weapons and so it is interesting and worth thinking through what will be the implications of that including in a succession type of scenario, maybe it raises the prospect that it is a little bit more violent and chaotic than it might otherwise have been. So it is important, an important dynamic to watch
and understanding that but another wrong assumption. Early on in the second invasion was that all of the cronies around Putin were going to take him down because they their own their own pile of money and their own powers was being impacted by a failing war. And so there was an expectation widely accepted for a while that whether it was you know, ghost proposing or one of the elites were going to take down Putin. And of course, that never happened. So that's another thing that sobers up in terms of our predictions.
All right, another question.
Okay, perfect timing. My name is Katherine and I was actually going to ask about the precaution affairs and its long term effects on public perception of the war. You guys kind of hit on it in a political sense. I was wondering if it posed a threat to the legitimacy and like even the efficacy of the Russian military to actually stay in this war?
That great question. Very good. Graham, do you want to take Yeah,
that's a that's a great question and one that I've been thinking about a lot and I think we've all we all sat beside expected this to be this momentous event and the sight of this military units heading towards Moscow really.
Since I was a kid, so it was very exciting. Yeah.
But you know, that really, sort of masterfully. Right. Goshen was gotten better off. His businesses were dispersed back into the right machine that Sam mentioned. And he had something like that and so he sometimes seem to recover his his game. So he was off for some reason, and you brought it back together again, and it had zero resonance, I think in terms of public opinion. I certainly haven't haven't seen any calls that made you say anything, which makes you think about it, right. So this is a regime that even when you're a rebel unit, comes into the country and stops heading towards Moscow. And Putin's popularity is credibility. Last opinion, totally.
Did it make him stronger? Do you think do you think he merged with at least an aura? of invincibility, but that he's a pretty strong guy. I mean, how many times do we say on podcasts and stuff this weekend? Gluten, this is the end of polygamy. But, but I'm wondering maybe because he didn't fall into pieces. He's a bit stronger now.
So the day that I heard of promotions, assassination, I had this weird feeling in my stomach. That was okay. The world was back to that. I understood it. Yeah. Yeah. Like I don't believe in this weird way. Right. And it was Yeah, so Buddhists are meant to be as you know, in control and as as much of a badass as we had. Any faults. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll be checking them out. And I think, in a perverse way, it doesn't deal with a real challenge. And we brushed it off. Yeah. Yeah. Have a really
wonderful quote. I think it was from the director of CIA and Bill Burns, who obviously is a wonderful Russia expert, and he said something like what wasn't that episode wasn't an instance where we realized the emperor had no clothes, but people wondered why he got dressed so slowly, because there was this long
period of time in between
from when he finally decided to respond and do away with promotion, but it took a long time and the big people were scratching his head. Oh, good. Good. Let the stand and that was that was really fascinating. All right, one more question back here.
Beautiful as Ukrainian sinologist, question of my personal concern how to see Ukrainian Russian coexistence now in the future, and people to people relations. That's
a wonderful question. And maybe this will be our last question. So kind of like that's a wonderful place. I
think to kind of wrap this up and Sam, maybe we'll start with you and then Graham we can
it is an important question. And I've been lucky enough to have SIBO over the last year and a half to work with an excellent group of colleagues from both Ukraine and Russia. You know, here in our in our office in in Washington, it has not always been easy. It has always been best for me. But I think the beginning of that process, everything the end of that process has to do with with Russia. If Russia is going to be able to live in peace with its neighbors and frankly live in peace with itself and with dominated populations within the Russian Federation as it's currently constituted. Russians including Russians in you know what we think of as the Democratic opposition, the liberal opposition, the anti war, opposition have to learn in language. And I think we're beginning to see the first stages of that in the diaspora in the exile communities. I think it's impossible for that to happen on the ground and Russia itself at the moment. Hopefully you can start in exile and then make its way back to Russia. By a language that allows Russians to understand what they're hearing from Ukrainians to understand the grievances of Ukrainians, not only Ukrainian Ukrainians, first and foremost, as that are expressed that allows them to genuinely understand what's being said in some cases to not respond, but just to listen. Not to defend themselves, not to make excuses. And then to process the issues of of culpability of liability. That accrued to to Russian citizens, just as you know, as we've seen in other states, as we see, you know, even in our own lives, you know, whether here in the US or, or in the UK or Europe or in other places where we all have histories of of domination and injustice to grapple with. This is not an easy process, but I don't see a prospect of of peaceful coexistence right. Without that. I think, however, that Ukraine's future cannot be held hostage to that. Today, that process, right, and this is equally important that you read, needs to know and we as the United States as, as the West more broadly need to communicate to Ukraine not through words, but through real security arrangements that we will keep Ukraine secure. Even until an even less Russia never actually makes that transition to thinking about itself, and its role in the world differently.
That was really great. And then of Graham, if you have anything you want to add. Yeah.
And I think we talked about this a little bit from the Ukrainian side. Since 2012. I've been doing a lot of research in Ukraine, a lot of surveys around identity around attitudes to NATO and the EU and language and those kinds of things and spent a lot of time in the country and was really created was a very divided society politically, and certainly bicultural. And since really since 2014 Since the Europe my dad since the Russian invasion began. That is we solidified Ukrainian identity. It's changed the nature of Ukrainian identity has made it and this is partly the political brilliance of zolecki. It's made it possible to be a Russian speaker, and be from the south of Ukraine and be accurate Ukrainian that was a very different difficult position to be in. It wasn't really on the political menu and Ukraine so so as you come along, and that is this has simplified and dramatically strengthened Ukraine as a country and then Ukraine as a quality since since the beginning of the rest of the vision, and the small scale invasion has only done more to do that. So I think Ukraine, you the Ukrainians are going to write it as Ukrainians, but in order to forgive and to get to to move past the crimes that Russia is committed. Ukraine, Russia has to be invested decision. Ukraine has to get its territories back. And by that involvement of its territories, and unless that happens, it's going to be very, very difficult for Ukraine ever to enter into a serious partnership negotiation or as a lot of work with as equals both with Russia. And so the idea that we could somehow, you know, encourage or force the Ukrainians to accept a settlement that left Russian control parts of Russia. That's just stirring up problems for for the future, not just on the Russian side, but I think also in the Ukrainian side, and Ukraine
will have to be a NATO and the EU, that we have to do that.
That's was a wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it.
Um, Graham and Sam, thank
you so much for joining us and thank you to all the students here for your really fantastic questions. We're looking forward to hearing those love play live on the podcast coming out. So be sure to tune in and hear yourselves on that recording. And, again, thanks for hosting us and for this wonderful opportunity to be here. Thank
you so much and listen to brussel sprouts.
To wrap up the evening to Aundrea MGM and to Sam and Graham. That was a great conversation and a really fun way to have it. Thanks again to CS for CO sponsoring to my colleagues in the Office of the Vice Provost for global affairs for all the work to put the event on. Thank you to all of you students who and others who came to be part of our audience, please follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter so you can find out about our future events. Our next diplomatic discussion is an exploration of the role of environmental diplomacy so it'll be February 27. That will be a good one. I hear that this podcast is coming out February 9, I believe so that's when we noticed that I've listened to it. I'm going to ask you a favor. Will you give us just a second to let Jim and Andrea hit their things and move out. I'm going to escort them out. They have to catch a flight to DC. Let us get out the door. Then all of you come out. We've got pizza for a reception in the auditorium in the atrium. One more round of applause and thanks
