What lies behind Russian support for Putin’s war in Ukraine?

A recent poll shows the Russian president continues to enjoy massive popular support
This may be less because Russians lack of access to genuine information, but due to the pervasiveness of an ‘expulsion of alien enemies’ narrative

James V. Wertsch

Published: 3:30am, 16 Apr 2022

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To the astonishment of most of the world, a respected polling organisation in Moscow recently reported an 83 per cent domestic approval rating for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Given the war in Ukraine, Westerners by and large cannot fathom how this could be true.

After all, Putin’s invasion now looks like a colossal mistake. It has resurrected Ukrainian nationalism, unified Nato, and shocked the world in its brutal attacks on Ukrainian civilians, including children.

Many Westerners opine that these results show that Russians simply do not have access to accurate information. Others believe the results do not indicate genuine opinions because Russians self-censor their answers when speaking about many issues. But even if the polling numbers are skewed, other forms of evidence suggest they reveal something important.

For example, countless anecdotal reports tell of ordinary Russians rejecting claims that the war is anything other than what Putin says it is and dismissing contradictory evidence as fake news orchestrated by the CIA or other enemies of Russia.

A food delivery courier rides a bicycle past a building with a huge letter Z, a symbol associated with the Russian military and used by some to signify their support for the war, on March 30. Photo: AP

Their tenacity in the face of strong evidence to the contrary points to the power of a national narrative that shapes the interpretation of events in Russia. This is an “expulsion of alien enemies” narrative template which can be summarised as: Russia is living peacefully and bothering no one, but then trouble arrives in the form of an unprovoked brutal attack by a foreign enemy. This results in massive suffering and heroic resistance by Russia before it, acting alone, manages to crush and expel the evil alien force.

The alien enemies Russians perceive come in the form of military invasions, but they also take the form of alien ideas. Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn argued that Marxism was an alien enemy that had invaded and almost destroyed Russian civilisation, only to be expelled after seven decades of suffering under Soviet Marxist-Leninist rule. For Solzhenitsyn and other Russian nationalists, such alien ideas pose an existential threat to Russia because it undermines their nation’s unique spiritual mission.

This mission has surfaced in Putin’s public comments over the past decade or so in his increased use of ideas from a few Russian thinkers. One of these is Ivan Ilyin (1883-1954), a philosopher who pushed a brand of Christian fascism that portrays Russia as a pure and naive nation always in danger of being infiltrated and polluted by alien ideas. For Ilyin, the way to thwart this existential threat is to have an all-powerful leader who overcomes all obstacles and leads Russia in sacred mission of becoming a pure, spiritually centred civilisation. To be effective, this leader must be unhindered by the rule of law or judicial and legislative institutions.

Ilyin is just one link in a long historical tradition. A popularised version of this tradition known to most Russians today can be found in claims from the 16th century about “Moscow as the Third Rome”. In this view, after the corruption and fall of Rome and then of Constantinople as the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the centre of true Christianity moved to Moscow, which will never lose this status.

People walk in the Red Square on a sunny day in Moscow on March 30. Photo: Reuters

All this suggests that Putin’s war in Ukraine is playing out against the background of a vision to “make Russia great again”. To be sure, this is not the only force shaping his actions. But in this view, the ugly sides to Putin’s efforts might be excused as being in the service of the larger mission of creating a grand Russian empire free of interference from the West, one that can finally stand up to those who have repeatedly dismissed, belittled and humiliated his nation.

In the short term, the fixation on this sacred mission also casts a new light on Putin’s tendency to double down in Ukraine on massive violence and war crimes rather than follow the dictates of more rational means-ends calculations.

But as the deaths and other high costs of the war filter back into Russia, and as living conditions deteriorate in the face of global boycotts, Russians may discover limits to the “expulsion of alien enemies” narrative. Like many other leaders with messianic aspirations, Putin may find, too late, that there is a yawning gap between his holy aspirations and the everyday wants and needs of ordinary people.

James V. Wertsch is David R. Francis Distinguished University Professor and director emeritus of the McDonnell International Scholars Academy at Washington University in St Louis