Russkiy Mir – a cultural foundation of Russia's war against Ukraine. Interview with Michal Wawrzonek

The constructivist approach to international relations is not particularly popular in Poland. Our discourse is dominated by realism from the now somewhat dusty books of American neoconservatives, and there is a strong faction of geopolitics enthusiasts. In your analyses of Russia, you refer primarily to the cultural foundations of the Kremlin's current policies.

Geopolitics is often such a buzzword, very much abused, along the lines of an incantation that is supposed to explain everything in international politics. What Poland may do, what the European Union may do, what Russia may do, these were all supposed to be determined by objective factors related to terrain, natural resources, population. Listening to experts on geopolitics, one can come to the conclusion that for human beings as decision-makers there is basically no place in this approach, that we have no decision space, we can only come to terms with our place in this part of Europe. It is no coincidence that geopolitics is very often used by Russian propagandists and by those media that spread Russian propaganda, not excluding those in Poland. With this notion, people are explained why one should come to terms with Russia, one should accept that Ukraine is to be in the Russian sphere of influence, that Poland should rethink its NATO membership, and so on and so forth.

There is a way to disenchant geopolitics. Such a way was proposed by Colin Flint, who suggests to analyze geopolitical conditions with the human factor in mind. The bottom line here is: it is not the maps and terrain themselves that matter, but how people perceive the terrain, what the area means to the people, to the community. It is the geographic conditions plus how people perceive them and what conclusions they draw from it, only that creates geopolitics, as Flint understands it. A key concept in this approach is the notion of geopolitical codes. The general idea is that this Flintian geopolitics is not based on physical maps, but on mental maps. That is, international relations are driven by what people think about specific places, what symbolic meanings these places have. The symbols drive political processes, so the mental maps we are talking about are such overlays superimposed on physical maps.

The key issue in this context is how a community, or perhaps a country – if it’s not too much of personification - perceives its place in international space. Of course, no one can define this in advance, it largely depends on what our aspirations are, what we want as a community. In this definition the geopolitical code, that is a set of answers to several key questions, plays a crucial role. These questions are: who are our present and potential allies, who are our present and potential enemies, how can we sustain our alliances and attract new allies, how can we counter threats and deal with enemies. Obviously, it's not like the foreign minister gets up every morning and thinks about these things, we're talking here about an unarticulated knowledge, certain obvious things, things that are understandable by themselves, go without saying. For example, regardless of the deep political differences on the Polish political scene, there is little disagreement over support for Ukraine, about our position during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. There is a dispute over methods, but some things are clear, because we use precisely this common geopolitical code. Surely, it is not the case that we can freely choose answers to these questions. They will be determined by where we are on the continent, what resources we have at our disposal etc. These objective factors will also influence our answers, so surely a realistic approach to international relations has something to tell us here.

As I understand, you use this conceptual framework to explain the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as geopolitical but in a cultural sense?

Yes, it can be said that when it comes to the genesis of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, there was a clash of different geopolitical codes from a certain point of time. Russians in general, not only the Kremlin, but also Russian society, answered those questions differently than Ukrainians did, from a certain moment. Ukraine's problem up to Euromaidan was basically that Ukrainians' answers to those questions were not clear-cut. If we looked at the results of the elections, at the opinion polls, we could see that this standard statement "Ukraine is between the East and the West" actually translated into day-to-day politics, Ukraine pursued a so-called multi-vector or multidirectional foreign policy. Let's say, between the desire for integration with Europe and the hopes of a favorable neighborhood with Russia. By contrast, when it came to Russia, these responses, especially of Kremlin decision-makers, crystallized quite quickly and clearly. If we wanted to reconstruct the geopolitical code which led to the current conflict, reconstruct Putin’s answers to the question "who is our current and potential ally?", it would be: "anyone who has a beef with the West, anyone who has some kind of rift in relations with the West." The question "who is our enemy?” “The West,” or what we refer to as the Euro-Atlantic space. The problem is that Putin said this in 2007 at the security conference in Munich but no one took it seriously. Op-eds noticed it, there were various comments but in general no one seriously considered that Putin wanted to clash with the West, that this was more than PR. When it comes to the question of how we can sustain our alliances and gain new allies, there is a wide range of activities ingrained in Russian political culture based primarily on corruption, building informal ties, clandestine networks. The story of the Nord Stream pipeline could be an example. After all, this is not just a matter of cheap gas supply, certainly crucial to the competitiveness of the German economy. But just as important as the fact that Germany signed all sorts of deals with Russia was the very close personal relationship between Gerhard Schroeder and Putin. It is precisely such personal ties that are the way to build alliances. On the part of Western democracies there is a tension here because Western politicians are bound at least in part by the will of their voters. It is not a matter of their personal choice to make Putin their buddy, because these choices of theirs are later verified by the verdict of the voters. Putin, on the other hand, is free to build alliances. To the question of how we can counter our enemies, the Kremlin answers: through intimidation, the myth of “the second army in the world," plus what is today called hybrid war, the destruction of political communities that are perceived as competitors as well as the active promotion of our own narrative, what is referred to as soft power.

Why did Russia at the turn of the millennium provide such responses? After all, immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, hostility to the West was not a given in Russia.

In my opinion, the key for understanding the reasons for this reaction of Russia to the changes in the international system is the concept of the Russkiy Mir or Russian World. Russia tries to legitimize on the international arena its claims with the help of this concept but it also reflects the mindset of the current Russian elite. The Russkiy Mir expresses the assumption that Russia is the center of a separate civilization, and from Moscow's perspective, Ukraine is an integral part of this separate civilization. Given the symbolic capital, the way we understand our own roots, where we came from, where we are going, it is difficult to imagine this civilization without Ukraine, especially without Kiev. This is a kind of mental Rubicon. Again, Putin said this quite openly but his elaboration on the historical basis of the unity of Ukrainians and Russians, which he announced in 2021, was not taken seriously in the West. In retrospect, one can see that this is, in fact, the public justification for the right to intervene in Ukraine. In his paper, Putin referred to historical issues related to Kievan Rus. Namely, he claims that Kievan Rus is the common motherland for today's Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians but it is Moscow that is the sole heir to the legacy of Kievan Rus. Now it is the time for Russia to finally fulfill this role for reasons deeply rooted in history and to turn Ukraine back from the erroneous course on which it has been pushed by a handful of renegades stimulated and paid for by the West.

But this kind of narration, the way Russians narrate about Ukrainians and the mutual relations of these nations appears as far back as the 19th century. Why did it appear attractive to Putin and the current Russian elite?

Indeed, the current Kremlin narrative is firmly rooted in the reaction of Russian historiography to the appearance in the late 19th century of works by Ukrainian historians on early modern Ukrainian history. This traditional Russian narrative is as follows: there were eastern Slavs, and thanks to Kievan Rus, we can speak of a common period of Rus history, which later, as a result of the Tartar invasions, had continuity. That is, continuity in the north where the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the so-called Great Rus, was later established. Well, and the heir to this Great Rus tradition is, of course, Russia. So here we have a simple cause-and-effect relationship. The Ukrainian version, let's say the "hard" Ukrainian version, claimed that the history of the Eastern Slavs actually developed along three parallel but separate paths from the beginning. Therefore, we should talk about the history of the Eastern Slavs in plural. They include the histories of the Belarusians, and they are connected to the heritage of Kievan Rus, the history of the Ukrainians, they too are connected to the heritage of Kievan Rus, and the history of the Russians, who have separate roots connected to the Grand Duchy of Moscow. This is a rather extreme, highly debatable point of view, although it is worth remembering, for example, that Kiev was captured and totally destroyed for the first time not by the Tartars, but by prince Andrew Bogolubsky of Vladimir. From then on, Kiev steadily declined. Why did Andrew destroy Kiev? Because it was a foreign place to him, he did not feel a connection to the heritage created there, and in addition, Kiev was a rival center to the northern principalities in Eastern Slavic space. In this context, it is possible to understand this desire of Ukrainians for such a kind of appropriation of the heritage of Kievan Rus, ignoring that later the Grand Duchy of Moscow also appealed to this tradition. But I stress again, this is happening in the context of a conflict of geopolitical codes: Great Rus-Little Rus, older brother-younger brother, centre-periphery.

What are other elements of this Russian geopolitical code?

As I said, it can be reconstructed on the basis of the concept of the Russkiy Mir. It has its religious dimension - Orthodoxy - and its secular dimension - Russian statehood. The heritage of Kievan Rus is crucial, because - in the religious dimension - if we are to be the core of East Slavic civilization, or even more broadly, Orthodox civilization, then the place where the baptism of the Slavs took place, our cradle, cannot be outside our borders. And yet belong to a civilization with which we are at war. If Ukraine joins the West, if this course is maintained, well, then the cradle of our civilization vanishes somewhere. It is hugely important for the Russian state to show continuity, to show that it is the historical process that indicates that Russia is the center of the Russkiy Mir civilization, that it is not an invention of the current Kremlin elite; that the Russian state was not created in 1991, that today's Russia is not simply a continuation of the Soviet Union or even the Tsars Empire, but that it goes precisely as far back in history as Britain, France, or Germany. The Russkiy Mir is not just an idea in itself, but it is an idea that has been institutionalized. Several institutions have been created to not only promote it, but to ensure the endurance of the concept, to create a concrete reality from something abstract, at least where the Kremlin's power reaches. An excellent example of the symbiosis of this religious and secular dimensions is the Russkiy Mir Foundation, created in 2007. It was established by a decree of President Putin and is state-funded but an important role in it is played by Patriarch Kirill as the head of the Orthodox Church. A lesser-noticed institution, though much older, as it was founded as early as 1993, is the World Russian People’s Council. It is like a discussion forum that brings together representatives of all religious groups, at least formally, but it is known that Patriarch Kirill plays first fiddle. This organization is visited and treated with great respect by state dignitaries. Incidentally, among the founders of this organization is also the Communist Party, whose leader Gennady Zyuganov once explicitly declared that true Russian Communists feel a strong bond with the Orthodox tradition and are strongly connected with the Orthodox Church, they are true Orthodox Christians.

The ideology of the Russkiy Mir is built on a prejudice against the world outside. This might be a result of the search for a target group for this kind of ideology. Soviet man, his mentality, was formed in a deep sense of insecurity about the outside world and the belief that the outside world poses a threat to us from which we must defend ourselves. These prejudices are intensifying, and recently there have been situations that are downright grotesque from our point of view. Recently, for example, the World Russian People’s Council recommended that Russian scientists unsubscribe from all databases and all editorial boards of Western scientific journals, because the West, through science, is trying to stifle, to destroy the unique Russian culture. These prejudices condition the methods used to explain reality. For example, in light of the Russkiy Mir ideology, Russia in Ukraine is fighting the Fourth Reich, which is supported by the United States.

Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia described the sphere of influence to which she more or less successfully aspired with the term "near abroad." Where are the boundaries of the Russian World today?

There is an anecdote, or rather a true story, on this subject. In 2016, there were the finals of the All-Russian Geographic Olympiad for elementary school children. There was a big academy, great pomp, Putin and the most important representatives of the Kremlin elite came. Two boys on stage, the finalists, and Putin, just for a joke, asks a question. One of these boys he asks where the borders of Russia are. And the boy starts answering that on the Bering Strait we border with the United States, and so on, and Putin says no, actually interrupts the boy and says no, Russia has no borders. Laughter in the hall, a great joke. In 2016 it may had been funny, while in 2022 it was not funny at all. Indeed, in a deep sense, Russia does not define her borders rigidly, is free to decide where her borders are depending on the situation. If Zelensky had been killed or if he had left Kiev on February 24 and the Ukrainians had not stopped the offensive, it would have turned out that Russia's borders were far to the west, certainly beyond Kiev, perhaps somewhere around the pre-war Polish border. However, since it turned out that Kiev could not be conquered, today Russia's borders are certainly the Donbas, and the maximum plan is the so-called Novorossiya, i.e. an extended strip between the Donbas and the Black Sea, perhaps cutting off Ukraine completely from the Black Sea. But if that fails, it will turn out that Russia's borders are elsewhere. In its assumptions, the Russkiy Mir is wherever there are Russian-speaking people and people who feel any connection to the Russian state. This is a quote from the program documents of the Ruskiy Mir Foundation. My impression is that this is such a game with the West: we will see how much the West will allow us, what condition the West will be in, our aspirations about the borders will depend on this. As a result of this indeterminacy of the Russian borders, but on the other hand, due to this Ukrainian ambivalence about its own geopolitical code, which I mentioned earlier, for many years the Russian-Ukrainian border functioned only on paper. It wasn't until after the Orange Revolution, that is, after 2005, that it began to be demarcated on the ground, but full demarcation didn't happen before Euromaidan, and not because, I don't know, the parties couldn't agree on a section of the border, no, simply because no one really cared. For example, if you wanted to bring in, I don't know, a truckload of cigarettes or some other contraband, the customs officers could stop you, confiscate and fine you, because of the border. But since this border was not there phisically, just as well, the customs officers might not notice that you were driving this truck with cigarettes. Of course, you had to make sure they didn't notice. After 2014, there was an occupied zone in the Donbass and a border between Ukraine and those territories over which it had lost control. But there was, after all, a coal basin in these territories, so thanks to this border, whole schemes were created, a whole conglomerate of connections around coal smuggling. Anyway, not only to Ukraine, but also to Poland and probably further to the West. Thus, Russkiy Mir is also the underdefinition of borders and the art of creating such quasi-borders.

To what extent does this ideology of Russki Mir enjoy support among Russians and to what extent is it a doctrine of the Kremlin's ruling elite?

I think this is a wrongly asked question, moreover, it expresses a typical error in thinking about Russia in the West. In the West, when analyzing the situation in Russia, the prospects for its development, the question "what do Russians think of Putin?", "what kind of support does Putin have?" is often asked. But this is irrelevant in the Russian system. For the Russian system as a whole, and therefore also for the Russkiy Mir, the key is those who are passive, this is the target group. It is not a problem that Ukrainians do not love Putin. The problem arose when Ukrainians grabbed their weapons and it became clear that they would defend their state, those newly defined borders, those Euromaidan gains. I don't think Putin and the Russian strategists in February 2022 expected that Ukrainians would actually greet them with flowers. They didn't expect that in a situation of aggression, people in Kiev would grab anything with which to defend themselves, take to the streets and wait for Russian troops with rifles, with Molotov cocktails, with baseball bats and even jars of pickles to knock down drones. This was a problem, if we have an active political community then this does not fit the assumptions of the Russkiy Mir. This difference is well illustrated when we compare February 2022 and the reaction to the Prigozhin rebellion. Were there any public signs of support for Prigozhin or rallies of support for Putin, any mobilization? No. What did everyone do? They hid, everyone waited to see what would happen. And that's what it's all about. That's the type of person the Russkiy Mir is addressed to. We know that Putin and his entourage are thieves, that they have accounts in the West, we don't have to support them at all, but if there will be an opportunity to bring ourselves a used washing machine or a refrigerator from Ukraine or cheaply buy a used car from Ukraine, why not take it? As long as we have the opportunity to go on vacation to Egypt, to Turkey, and the state allows it, why change anything. Since the beginning of the war, Russian losses are 315,000 dead and wounded. These are someone's brothers, husbands, fathers, probably grandfathers too, that is, the problem of the war has really affected a large part of Russians. And what? Nothing happened, no reaction from the Russian society. These are the recipients of the Russian World ideology, and today you can see all the more the radical contradiction with what happened during Euromaidan; it was completely incompatible with the Russkiy Mir.

From what you've said, it seems that the Russkiy Mir that justifies Russian expansion in the former "near abroad" space is understood by the Russians themselves as a tool of defense against the West. Is this an actual paradox or is it more of a smokescreen?

The Russkiy Mir as a concept has evolved. From 2007 to 2013, it can be said that it was an attempt to create the original Russian soft power. Soft power, that is, building a positive international environment by a positive image, presenting the attractiveness of one's own country whether economically, socially or culturally. Back then, the Russkiy Mir was addressed spatially to all those areas where there were Russian-speaking people, potentially all of them were members, were counted as members of the Russkiy Mir. After Euromaidan, after 2014, the narrative has changed. The Russkiy Mir is no longer such a tool of attraction, soft power, but a defensive narrative has begun to dominate, that is, the Russkiy mir is supposed to defend people who are outside Russia, who adhere to the values of the Russkiy Mir, who speak Russian. And here comes a very important, crucial category that Patriarch Kirill spoke about - the silent adherents of the Russkiy Mir. Euromaidan and later the war in eastern Ukraine showed that those Russian-speaking Ukrainians who were conscripted to the Russkiy Mir did not want to be in it most, and it is they who are fighting on the Donbass front, it is they who are ready to die defending themselves from the Russkiy Mir. The way out of this situation is that there is a group of provocateurs, Nazis, fascists, nationalists who terrorize the silent majority sitting quietly. And only we in the Kremlin know what they think, and only we know that they miss the Russian World very much, because we have such a common mental wave with them. That's why we will defend them. Russia always makes all interventions in defense, she is not aggressive, she always defends herself. The Russkiy Mir is now an ideology to come up with the people we are supposed to defend - the silent followers of Russkiy mir.

Regarding the spatial dimension of this defensive approach to the Russkiy Mir, I came across an interesting result of a 2015 opinion poll conducted by the official Public Opinion Research Center. It is well known that such opinion polls reflect not what people think but roughly what the Kremlin would like people to think. The survey posed questions such as, have you heard of the Russky Mir and - secondly - where does this Russkiy Mir find its place. Most of those who had heard answered that the Russkiy Mir was Donbas, Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Serbia. More respondents pointed to Serbia than to Kiev or central Ukraine. What do all these points have in common? The fact that they are flashpoints, places of ongoing or frozen conflicts. Assuming that this is a manifestation of the authentic intentions of the survey's sponsors, we can say that for the Kremlin in 2015, the Russkiy Mir was an ideology of war, an ideology of confrontation with the West. While until 2022, at least in official communication, there was talk of competition with the West, now there is already open confrontation with the West, even at the level of official statements, whether by Lavrov, Putin or Naryshkin. Of course, it is the West that is waging war against Russia, it is the West that is the attacking party, and Russia is defending itself and defending others, those who often do not have the strength to even call for help. The Ukrainians did not call for help but the Russians came to their aid anyway.