Russian society is divided into "warring" provinces and cities with a population of millions that hardly notice the war with Ukraine. The return of hundreds of thousands of veterans will inevitably lead to chaos and an increase in violence, writes K. Eggert.
During the ten years of the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989), 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed, 53,000 were wounded. According to data published by the portal „Mediazona“ and the BBC Russian service, as of 2022, about 200,000 people have died in Russia's war against Ukraine. Moreover, Russia's population is now half that of the USSR.
The Universe of Villages and the World of Million-Rated Cities
The publications rely only on information confirmed by state databases, social media and other open sources. If those who disappeared without a trace, those not included in the lists of the dead because they later died of their wounds, are also taken into account, then the losses four years after the start of the full-scale invasion will clearly be much greater.
The map accompanying the publication by "Mediazon" actually paints a picture of "two Russias" - villages and small towns with up to 100,000 inhabitants, larger cities, as well as 16 million-strong megacities. Journalists claim that it is the “first” Russia that is at war, while the “second” is less affected by the fighting, and the megacities are in their own separate universe, where there are almost no traces of the war.
After the failure of the 2022 mobilization, the Kremlin deliberately turned provincial and poor Russia into a supplier of “cannon fodder”. I am absolutely sure: at the Kremlin meetings on this topic, cynical phrases like “together we will heal the social environment“ or “we will increase the population level” could not have been heard. The Russian leadership could not have failed to understand that people from failed families, often with a criminal past, and after the start of recruitment in prisons - and with a criminal present, would go to war for money.
The Kremlin experiment has already borne its poisonous fruits. The endless stream of news about recidivists who returned from the front and committed new crimes in order to go back to prison and go to the front again, increases the country's indifference to violence and destroys the already weak concept of justice. Moreover, such personnel are destroying army morale, which has always been a problem in both the Soviet and Russian armies.
The rules of life of the "heroes of the special military operation"
However, the problems will increase even more when the war ends. Moreover, they will manifest themselves not only in remote villages.
The longer the war continues, the greater the scale of the problems will become. It is now clear that it will not end with a tank parade in the center of Kiev. But "warring Russia" will return from the front with high self-esteem: "We are the heroes of the special military operation", "We defended the homeland", etc. Russia, accustomed to blood, lawlessness and war crimes, will begin to impose its order using front-line methods. And both at home and where those seeking a better life will go, i.e. in the "second" Russia. And with weapons that will inevitably flood the country.
The prosperous megacities will face incredible violence, incredible envy and malice. Russia will start talking about the "Mariupol" and "Kupyan" gangs after the places where their members fought, as well as how they persecute migrants from Central Asia and residents of the North Caucasus. Against this background, the "Afghan" mafias of the 1990s will seem downright harmless. The war in Afghanistan was unpopular and was perceived as an unnecessary adventure in a foreign and incomprehensible country. While the aggression against Ukraine looks completely different to a large part of the Russian public. Today's propaganda, which is incomparable in power to the Soviet one, strengthens and spreads the image of the "holy war". And it would be a very risky step for the "heroes of the special military operation" to say “I didn't send you there”, as officials used to say to veterans from Afghanistan.
Democracy for bandits?
It may be paradoxical, but these problems will become especially noticeable if some form of electoral democracy is established in Russia after Putin, although the chance of such a development is not great. For the “first” Russia, those who returned from the war will be associated with heroism, order and justice. Probably only a small part of them will go directly into politics, but for future radicals and populists, veteran organizations and their criminal clans will become a logical and attractive option for providing support.
This idea seems easy to dismiss – with statements like “Russian politics is made in Moscow and St. Petersburg and it doesn't matter what the residents of Buryatia or Altai think about it“. But this is not exactly the case. The movement towards the Putin regime began in the 1990s precisely because the gap between the standard of living, the values of the countryside and the megacities was too great. The map of the country, which has made mercenary work and the bringing of coffins from the front a common thing, already inspires fear. That is, those who intend to continue living in Russia have something to think about.