Literary scholar and journalist Aleksejs Grigorjevs has earned the right to be called a man in the know about Russia and Russian people. For years he has studied and has written many articles about political processes in Russia. This makes him a well-known observer and commentator of this country’s political processes in Latvia and foreign countries. This time Aleksejs was invited by a journalist of Ventpilnieks.lv for an interview before a notable date – 9 May, which is a holiday officially celebrated only in Russia and Belarus. And this is the day when Latvia’s neighbour could become very unpredictable. Rephrasing what Aleksejs wrote in his article Ruthless obsessiveness or Russian fascism: «There’s nothing new, everything copied from Hitler. And this time this applies to us directly.»
-It would be naive to think Ukraine is the sole goal of the Russian aggression. Many say Ukraine is fighting for us as well. What do you think drove Vladimir Putin to start such an unfathomable, barbaric and cruel war?
-When Putin came to power, he thought he needs to talk about human rights, democratic laws and democracy in general, expecting to be invited to some secret meeting of leaders of superpowers in some castle in the Alps, where no one pretends and speaks their mind as is. We can assume Putin’s fantasy sounded something like this: you, Barack, will get Africa – do whatever you like there. Angela will get Nordic Europe, let her rule there. Russia will get all territories that were once in the Soviet Union, even Baltics, maybe even Poland and Romania in Eastern Europe. But there were no secret talks, no one invited Putin to any castle in the Alps. Even worse, Barack Obama called Russia a regional country! This was a major shock and insult to Russia. They thought no one takes them seriously, no one thinks they are strong, no one invites them to meetings where people talk without pretending! They felt insulted for a long time, and now they remember it as a massive humiliation.
Putin believes international norms should be followed by only small and weak countries, not superpowers like Russia and the US.
Maybe even China. This is why he didn’t want to talk with leaders of other countries, except the US president. He considered everyone else beneath him. However, when Obama called Russia a regional country, and no secret distribution of world power happened, he started going crazy.
The first signal was in 2005: during Putin’s annual speech to the parliament, when he said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. He said the same during the conference in Munich in 2007, this time to an international audience. The Soviet Union fractured Russia and made Russians a divided nation – another idea copied from Hitler. This is why it was Putin’s plan to reunite the lands which, in his sick mind, belong to Russia. In 2008 he attacked Georgia…
Russia behaves like some hooligan, a village drunk light in the head taking it to the street and picking fights with other people.
The main problem is not with hooliganism, the problem is that no one has tried to calm the drunkard down or punch him in the face. Everyone tried talking him down. But he still has it in his head, and he starts over again and goes crazier. This continued for years, I wrote about that, but I failed to convince people. No one really wanted to publish it.
-9 May is approaching soon. It is one of the most notable dates for Russia. It was mentioned by some at the start of Russia’s invasion that they plan to hold a 9 May parade in Kyiv. There was even talk about the Russian army planning a parade in Mariupol. Last Friday Britain’s Minister of Defence Ben Wallace even said Putin may use 9 May parade and not in Ukraine but «only» in Moscow in order to announce mass mobilization for the last strike on Ukraine and declare a new war against the world’s «Nazis». Russian propaganda media, meanwhile, report that Russian army can strike on Paris, London and Berlin within 200 seconds. What do these signals indicate?
-If we look at the hooligans I mentioned previously, the crazy or future developments are difficult to predict. But looking at the long table Putin sits at, we can see he is afraid. He’s afraid of covid, he’s afraid of someone coming and hitting him on the head – he’s scared of everything. We can see a plain coward. This is why I doubt he can afford to do anything he could get punished for. Western countries have already announced that the location of Putin’s secret bunker is well-known. This means a bombardment is possible. This is why I think all the talk of nuclear arms are propaganda for domestic consumption and intimidation of Ukraine’s allies. What is all of this for? Putin’s army is being beaten little by little.
There have been reports of Russian Armed Forces General Headquarters Chief Valery Gerasimov was wounded not far from Izyum – the whole HQ was bombarded. Gerasimov’s vice flew off to a «concert with Cobzon». According to available information, about 20 officers (Unian reported Ukrainian armed forces managed to liquidate more than 10 Russian high-ranking commanders, including six generals) have gone the way of the Russian ship.
Russian army commits atrocities with civilians in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian army gives the Russians some serious kicking.
We know military enlistment office are getting torched around Russia in an attempt to destroy lists of reservists and men of military service age. People support Putin, but they don’t want to go to war for him. Putin and his closest associates want to announce mobilization, but they fear protests. This is why there are these slogans like «We’re fighting the whole world!» or «The fatherland is in danger!». Russian television continues and will continue promoting this. For the last eight years their propaganda channels claimed Russia is fighting NATO, not Ukraine.
-The situation is muddled even more by claims of Putin’s upcoming oncological surgery, and that for the duration of this surgery the chief of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Nikolai Patrushev, not Prime Minister Mishustin as required by Russia’s constitution, will be in charge in his stead. Patrushev, according to rumours, is a person who played a major part in convincing Putin into going to war with Ukraine. What could this mean?
-Hard to say. Patrushev is no «dove of peace». He is a true product of the Soviet Union, but he’s not as low as Putin when it comes to morality. Patrushev is different, and this is a good thing. Whether or not anything could change, as Daily Mail suggests it, is hard to say. Historian, Prof. Valery Solovyev from Moscow has been saying for a long time that Putin is a dead man walking. But this has its positives and negatives. If a person senses there is no way out, he might try to go out with a «bang» – take half the world with him.
However, looking at how cowardly Putin is, it’s unlikely he has enough courage to go through with it.
-In your article Do Russians want war? from a year ago you wrote that Russia’s idea and goal is restoring the Russian Empire. Seeing how many soldiers have «disappeared» in Ukraine, shouldn’t Russians come to their senses?
-Recently I’ve read an article on Russian portal Meduza, the office of which is now located in Riga. The article was about Russians’ opinion on the war in Ukraine. The article basically consists of conversations with different people. Conversations took place on the streets, in cafes and with relatives of the author. All of the people the author talked with say – we support the president. At the same time, behind all those claims there is a severe lack of confidence. They say that, but you can see people are afraid. They know they are lying. I don’t think they are prepared to go to war, but they are ready to say: yes, we do support the president, and we are prepared to continue pretending there is unity.
But they don’t want to fight and die, unlike Ukrainians, who are prepared to fight and die for their country, homeland and freedom.
This is a major difference. Theoretical preparedness for military schemes is part of Russia’s imperialistic mindset, which is something people in Russia and outside should discuss a lot. But I doubt Russians are prepared to die en masse to add some land to the empire. Theory and practice differ a lot in Russia. This is how it is everywhere, but Russia especially. Just look at USSR. There were two realities at the same time: official and real.
-This is where it is worth mentioning Ukraine’s letter of gratitude to Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu for years-long contribution to the robbing of Russia’s military budget… But lets go back to the current situation in Russia. Do you think average residents will feel the impact from anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the EU and US?
-They won’t. We can feel life has become more expensive because of increased prices on oil and gas. But in Russia, although the sales of energy resources have dropped considerably, the industry still earns about one billion euros every day. Some time needs to pass until anti-Russian sanctions reach their peak effect. Most Russians have lived poorly all these years. People haven’t had good lives anyway, so there’s nothing to get used to… Moscow and St. Petersburg have lived well these years. Now many who lived there are running away.
Many Russian public figures have fled to Riga.
Those people are artists, journalists and other people who are no longer able to work and live in Russia. Among them are also medias, who write the truth about Russia. Novaya Gazeta fled Moscow with part of its team and are now based in Riga. Kiril Martinov, who is vice-editor in chief, has fled as well. The newspaper is released in Latvia, at least for now.
-Do you think Ukraine will be the obstacle that will stop Russian aggression? Or are we too deep in our comfort zone, we see what we want to see?
-Ukraine is fighting for us as well. This is why the first thing we need to think about is – how we can help Ukraine. As for the comfort zone… Yes, we can never go back to how things were before.