Russian political commentator Vlad Vexler answers 18 questions about Russia:

[DetlefK]

Vlad Vexler is a russian ex-pat living in the UK. He has a Youtube-channel where he analyses the situation with Russia.

He got questions from viewers and here are Vlad Vexler's answers.





1. How sincere was Putin's speech?

It was an airing of grievances how Russia is ideologically and militarily under attack by the evil, immoral, hypocritical West.

In reality, Putin attacked Ukraine because a democratic Ukraine by its very existence threatens the political power-structure that Putin has built in Russia for himself and his cronies, the "system Putin". A democratic Ukraine, with transparent elections, without political and judicial scandals, without police beating up protesters, would serve as a counter-example to the people of Russia of what could be.
When, NOT IF, but when the system Putin gets challenged by political opponents, a democratic Ukraine would serve as an amplifier for their attacks on the system Putin just by existing as a symbol. That must be prevented and that's why a democratic Ukraine must not be allowed to exist.





2. What does this mean to the threat of nuclear war?

Putin hasn't decided yet whether he wants to go as far nuclear weapons. Him constantly bringing them up is more like an inner monologue and inner doubts whether to use them or not.

With the annexation of ukrainian territories he has created a political argument inside Russia how it's okay to use nuclear weapons because it would be self-defense.

And a new Cold War has basically begun.





3. How has russian propaganda changed since since the mobilization and annexation?

This is no longer about Ukraine.
(What happened to the ukrainian government being Nazis? What happened to protecting russian-speakers in the Donbas from discrimination? What happened to Ukraine trying to gain nuclear weapons? What happened to the bio-weapons Russia supposedly found in Ukraine? What happened to Alexander Dugin's argument that Russia must first reconquer its historical territories before it can fulfill its destiny as a civilization?)

The war is suddenly about Russia being in an existential war for survival against the West.
(To quote 1984: Russia is at war with the West. Russia has always been at war with the West.)

Also, as a first, the russian propaganda-machine has encountered a massive failure. Their normal approach is to saturate the media-landscape with all possible arguments and counter-arguments, messages and counter-messages, drown out everything in noise, so that the population becomes confused and stays away from politics altogether.
They have tried to bring mobilization on everybody's mind with the same approach, but this was a mistake: This noise, this self-contradictory messaging, hasn't made the Russians indifferent to mobilization, it has made them opposed to mobilization.





4. If we had a lie-detector and could force Putin to tell the truth and ask him what he wants the most, what would he say?

To win the war and to stay in power.





5. What is victory for Putin?

A peace-agreement that freezes the current territorial situation in place, so that he can attack again in a few years.





6. Is Putin bluffing about nuclear weapons?

No.

Here's a quote by Putin in a political documentary: "What good is the world for us, if it is a world without Russia?"

And to that add that Putin thinks of himself as "being" Russia.

So........... why would Putin care about the fate of the world if the alternative is him no longer being the ruler of his version of Russia?





7. How would Russians feel about a nuclear attack on Ukraine?

Not good. In the ordinary russian mindset, Ukrainians are not a separate, different people that must be conquered/colonized/civilized. Instead Ukrainians as an identity are non-existent and are really Russians that have forgotten that they are Russians.

A russian nuclear attack on Ukraine would create a far bigger shock in the russian population than for example a nuclear attack on the Baltics.





8. When will the blow-back come after the mobilization?

The blow-back will come when the mobilization fails to change the war in Russia's favor and becomes a failure in the eyes of the russian people.





9. What if Putin dies?

Putin's buddies and lackeys wouldn't have started the war with Ukraine.
(Putin himself didn't plan for a war. He planned for a political coup in Kiyv and total capitulation of all ukrainian institutions.)

Instead, the current mindset in the russian government is that they have a war on their hands and now they must see it through. For example, as long as Stalin lived, his government was 100% in agreement with him. But once he died, within months these very same people came up with new policies that would have been unthinkable under Stalin.

The odds are actually pretty good that if Putin were to die, the next russian government would negotiate for peace, even if Russia were to lose out during the negotiations. Because they don't share Putin's romantic obsession with an imperialist Russia.





10. Who is that guy on the photo, in the front-row during Putin's speech?

A senior staffer to Putin basically unknown to the West.
(I'm not gonna type the name... it's horribly complicated.)





11. Does Russia as a whole know what it is fighting for?

If you mean the russian people, then the answer is No: They don't.

First, it's because the official narrative of the Ukraine-war keeps changing every few weeks. And the ideological justifications come from russian conspiracy-theorists and russian right-wing extremists and are too outlandish to be sincerely believed.

Second, Putin's imperial Russia has no feet. It doesn't have a cultural context, it doesn't have a defined set of morals or standards or values or civilizational vision upon which the rest of the empire is built.
(For example, the Roman Empire saw it self as bringing order, laws, administration, roads, infrastructure, to "uncivilized" countries. The Third Reich saw itself as building a future for the aryan race. The US has this weird obsession with the not particularly well defined concept of freedom and wants to spread it.
Russia has famously never had a true chance to find out who it really is, because at every turn in its history, its national identity was influenced by foreigners and foreign concepts. This is a kind of national trauma that Russia grapples with to this day. There even is a famous russian poem from 1800 that laments that Russia has no idea where it is going.)





12. Can Ukraine lose?

Not in the ideological sense. Ukrainians will never again tolerate being dominated by Russia.





13. Luckiest scenario for Putin?

The war turns into a perpetual on-again-off-again thing, drags out for years, and european right-wing politicians like Viktor Orban normalize Russia's behaviour and the war and reestablish political bonds with it.





14. Why did Putin delay his speech by 1 day?

Speculation: Putin kept re-writing and polishing the part of his speech where he threatens to use nuclear weapons, because those threats are an essential part of Russia's place in the world.
(He eventually said that it was the West who set the precedent for using nuclear weapons in war.)





15. How will Putin's regime collapse?

There are two possibilities:

His regime will go through a wobble, and during a sensitive moment during the wobble, someone will push. It could be a schemer from Russia's elite or it could be public protests.

The other option is that his regime simply expires, like the Soviet-Union. Political messaging no longer reaches peoples' minds, people no longer do as they are told, and eventually it all crumbles.





16. Could 100,000 Russians march on the Kremlin?

For a protest to happen you need people with the perception that a protest would change things. For example, during the wobble when the elitist schemer convinces people that protesting will make a difference.

Also, Russia has stepped up its responses to anti-regime protests so far that it no longer really makes a difference for the protester if your protest is peaceful or if it's violent.

Vlad Vexler gives an example for a peaceful protest: You go to a peaceful anti-government protest in Russia, you go home, at 5am somebody smashes your door in with an axe, six people in balaclavas arrest you and confiscate all your electronic devices, you get taken to a police-station, you get questioned, you get anally raped and tortured, you get questioned again, you get sentenced to 6 years in prison, the government sanctions and punishes your friends and family.
Would it really make a difference for you, the protester, if your protest had been violent?





17. How are Russians reacting to the annexation?

They aren't.

The big topic still is the mobilization and nobody really cares that Russia has new territory.





18. Does the mobilization and annexation satisfy right-wing extremists like Dugin and Girkin?

No. Nothing satisfies them. They want total war.

They are unhappy with Putin's policies but have no interest in getting into politics. They want to stand on the sidelines and want that Putin adopts the policy that they want.

The problem is that Putin is bound to a deal: The russian people outsource politics to him and in exchange he stays out of their lives. But with this war and the mobilization, he has begun breaking the deal.