But over the years, Mr. Putin became less and less tolerant of dissent, especially as “color” revolutions and pro-Western leanings swept through Ukraine and Georgia and protests over questionable elections filled Russian streets. Independent media were steadily stifled and non-profit groups receiving funding from outside the country had to identify themselves as “foreign agents.”
A growing number of well-educated Russians began flowing out of Russia, some to Kiev. While visiting there several years ago, I met several prominent Russian journalists who were in fact living in exile, such as Yevgeny Kiselyov, a pioneering Russian television journalist in the 1990s. A Russian reporter then told me that his dream was to build the democracy in Ukraine that they were not allowed to build in Russia now.
As word spread that the invasion had begun, the brain drain became a stampede for the doors. With flights to more than 30 countries being halted, twice-daily trains to Finland were full, and many more Russians fled south to Georgia, where they do not require a visa, or via the Gulf States. Their stories are painfully similar, a sense that they have no future in a Russia driven from civilization, and that they are powerless to stop Mr Putin. A friend, who was visiting the United States, applies for political asylum.
Not that Mr Putin cares. He exercises his power through a group of strong men, the ‘siloviki’, who still view the world through the old Soviet prism of paranoia and ignorance. Many, like Mr. Putin, were officers of the security forces, the elite shock troops of the almighty state. They have never reconciled with the loss of Russia’s status as a great power, or have never believed that the people, the faceless ‘narod’, could be anything other than their subjects. And if the thorny liberal intelligentsia, or the new breed of wealthy business magnates, didn’t like it, let them go.
If the poll numbers are correct, a majority of Russians will accept the hardline of their leaders. Unlike the urban intelligentsia, many people scattered across the vast expanse of Russia, especially the elderly, get their information exclusively from government television stations. Support isn’t just in the provinces: According to Moscow police, thousands of Russians packed the Luzhniki Stadium there on March 18 for a pro-war rally, carrying banners reading “For a world without Nazism.”
As strong as that support looks on paper, it can be fragile. A provincial Russian knows the right answer when asked by a pollster whether he supports the president, and many of those attending the Luzhniki meeting were likely state employees or nationalist groups busted through the Kremlin. And Mr Putin’s extraordinary efforts to deny there is a war and to minimize Russian casualties speaks to his realization that if the truth about the “special military operation” and its costs were to come out, aid would likely would crumble.
When Mr Putin recently met women employed by Russian airlines, they all loyally declared their full support for the “military operation”, but their questions expressed unrest. What awaits us at the end of this road? Will there be martial law? Do people who work in the private sector receive support? What are we going to do now that many Russian airlines cannot fly abroad?
