Thread by @azamatistan

The undeniably broad domestic support for Russia’s brutal attack against Ukraine has baffled and horrified people around the world. How could so many ordinary Russian people fall for Kremlin’s crude and outlandish anti-Ukrainian propaganda? A long 🧵

Trying to make sense of this has become an obsession for me. My conclusions are undoubtedly informed by my own positionality as a Central Asian. In short, the propaganda works because it taps into something that has been a crucial part of Russian identity long before Putin.

Russian society famously underwent extreme upheavals in the 20th century. Revolutions, World Wars, emergence and collapse of the USSR - the dizzying magnitude of change and disruption is hard to exaggerate. Yet, amidst all the turmoil, one part of the Russian worldview persisted.

The remarkably stable and enduring phenomenon transcending different historical periods and regime types is the self-conception of Russia as a great power that brings good to those around it and Russian people as bearers of superior culture and morality.

Deeply internalized, the idea of its own benevolence has long permeated and shaped Russian society. In this narrative, unlike the old European powers guilty of ruthless colonial conquest, Russia is a selfless bringer of culture, prosperity, and order.

The view of Russia as a big brother bestowing its blessings on the lesser people around it is ubiquitous among Russians of all political persuasions. In this narrative, Russia’s neighbors are perpetually indebted to it. The relationship is always unequal.

The word “gift“ features prominently. The gifts include Russian language, literature, music, and art. But also science and, even, modernity itself. Naturally, in this worldview, Russians are superior and those on the receiving end of Russia’s largesse are expected to be grateful.

Russia’s view of Central Asians is unabashedly and unapologetically racist, of the “we taught you how to piss standing up” variety. Russia’s long-standing view of Ukrainians is more complex but equally pernicious and condescending.

https://twitter.com/mariamposts/status/1585291355424788480?s=46&t=E7IvPZOA-nSMcGC8mqtDbg

Ominously, according to Russian politicians from Putin on down, in case of #Ukraine and #Kazakhstan, the list of Russian “gifts” includes chunks of territory or even statehood itself. Sovereign nations since 1991, both 🇺🇦 and 🇰🇿 have been described by Putin as artificial states.

A central part of this worldview is a refusal to accept that nations formerly under Moscow’s control could have agency of their own. Attempts by Kyiv, Astana, or Tbilisi to set a course diverging from that of Russia are seen as a result of manipulation by great powers elsewhere.

In this worldview, Ukraine that seeks to decide its own affairs, free of Moscow’s control, is an aberration, a result of gullible/corrupted Ukrainian leaders being manipulated by Washington, London, etc. Because why else would they want to escape Russia’s “sphere of influence”?

The power of this idea in Russia’s public imagination is impossible to overstate. To wit, consider the much touted expectation that invading Russian soldiers would be met with flowers by “liberated” Ukrainians.

To understand Russian public support for the horrible attack against a sovereign nation, Russia’s long history as an unapologetic colonial power and its long-held view of itself and its neighbors must be taken into account.

Putin’s propaganda is so effective because it taps into the imperial idea deeply held by Russians. In fact, the imperial idea has been the trump card in 🇷🇺 politics and society for a long time. It’s not Putin’s war, it’s Russia’s war. It’s not Putin’s Russia, it’s Russia’s Putin.

As long as Russia views itself as a benevolent empire and sees the sovereignty of its former colonial subjects as a “geopolitical catastrophe” that needs fixing, no one is safe. The sooner the world recognizes this, the better.  THE END