As a Russia expert, were you surprised by President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine?

Frankly, I am surprised that Russia is trying to invade Kyiv and take over all of Ukraine. I was hoping there would be some kind of attack, but it would only concern Donbas. That the Russian army will go to the administrative border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and stop there. Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the two republics on February 22 corresponds to this.

Do you think that by deciding to attack Ukraine at the same time, Putin and his people have definitively withdrawn from good relations with European countries and the United States? They probably couldn’t expect such aggression to go unanswered…

Relations were already very bad before the invasion. My Russian acquaintances say that from Russia’s point of view, it has long seemed that the country is at direct war with the West. The tone of state television broadcasts has long been offensive and hateful. In my opinion, Russia’s political leaders were already mentally at war before February 24.

There is often debate about the types of aggressive and highly radical attacks on the West that are heard on state television. How seriously should we take these messages? Isn’t that just propaganda aimed at the Russian domestic audience?

No one can see behind the Kremlin walls, but I take it very seriously. Russian television is a means of communication not only at home in Russia, but also abroad. I recently watched a debate where guests agreed that anyone criticizing Russia was actually a Nazi. This is very dangerous. At the same time, Russian television broadcasts serve as a certain indicator of where Russian politics will or may go. Therefore, I argue that it is inappropriate to smile about it, that it is just some kind of circus.

Can it be said that there is a certain gap of opinion between the younger and older generations in Russia? That people who are still experiencing the Soviet era are more susceptible to receiving propaganda?

To some extent, this may be true, but do not forget that for many years in Russia there was a so-called education of patriotism in schools. The aim of this teaching is to influence young people for the sake of the state. Today, Russians need a VPN to access the world’s social networks because of censorship and blocking. Personally, I wouldn’t say that younger or younger Russians are automatically or very likely anti-Putin. It’s not that simple.

Let’s go back to the war in Ukraine. Some people dealing with Russia have said that Putin wants at all costs to achieve some results that he can consider successful at home…

By invading Ukraine, Putin took a big risk. Why did he take such a big risk? He always said and stressed that Russia felt threatened by the West and the North Atlantic Alliance, but it was clear to any reasonable person that NATO would never attack Russia. I think this whole situation arose in large part because of Putin’s entourage. The president does not use the Internet at all, and his connection to the world is actually just what is called a siloviki. That is, people from the leadership of the army, all armed forces and secret services.

Putin thinks like a nineteenth century politician. The buffer zone, which he considers Belarus and, to a lesser extent, Kazakhstan, is important to him. From his point of view, the buffer zone in the southwest is gone and he wants to get out of Ukraine.

In essence, Putin is not much different from Stalin or Brezhnev. They also believed that sooner or later the West would attack Russia or the Soviet Union.

Could Putin be overthrown in a coup if the war in Ukraine went so badly?

Everything is possible in Russia (laughs). But seriously: no one expected the Berlin Wall to fall so quickly. No one thought that the collapse of the Soviet Union was possible. I think the only chance to remove Putin from power is a real coup. The division of the Russian elite can lead to this.

But I don’t believe that Russians will come out to protest en masse and demand change. It will not happen. I know many Russians who reject anything revolutionary. Although some people say that this war is terrible and that they do not agree with it, they themselves are trying to survive, to move safely in their homes and in their own bubbles. They don’t want to confront the state and the regime.

You are Dutch, and since the beginning of the war we have seen that The Hague has taken a rather radical attitude towards Russia. It supplies Ukraine with plenty of weapons, Prime Minister Mark Rutte backs tough sanctions, criticizes Putin. Did the crash of a Malaysia Airlines plane over eastern Ukraine in 2014, which killed many Dutch people and was attributed to pro-Russian separatists, influenced this attitude?

In the past, Rutte usually imitated German Chancellor Angela Merkel in foreign policy. But it ends on February 24th. He changed course because the Dutch considered such aggression unacceptable. This attitude also applies among the Dutch people who were affected by the crash of MH17 and basically asked for a firm stance from the government. And Rutte heard it.

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