Does Putin listen to the church? Credit: Alexey Druzhinin/Ria Nostovisis/AFP/ Getty
The West has been struggling for the past three weeks to understand the motivation behind Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Was it a rational move or the reaction of a madman? Some insist he has been inspired by some sort of éminence grise — a sort of Rasputin figure. But it’s not that straightforward.
There is no one “guru”. The reality is more complex: there are multiple ideological sources who have blended to cause the disastrous invasion, all mediated through his “court” of trusted people and group of military advisers, and many of whom unite in their vision of Ukraine as a country that needs to be brought back by force into Russia’s orbit.
During his Valdai Club address — the Russian equivalent of the elite talkingshop, Davos – in September 2021, Putin referenced three influential authors: the emigrant religious philosopher Nikolay Berdyaev, the Soviet ethnologist Lev Gumilev, and the reactionary thinker of the White émigré community, Ivan Ilyin. Putin has never given much away about his Berdyaev readings, but he has been more explicit on the other two.
Putin has borrowed from Gumilev his two most famous concepts: first, the common historical destiny of Eurasian peoples and Russia’s genuine multi-nationality, as opposed to Russian ethnic nationalism; and second, the idea of “passionarity” – a living force specific to each people group made up of biocosmic energy and inner force. As Putin stated in February 2021, “I believe in passionarity, in the theory of passionarity … Russia has not reached its peak. We are on the march, on the march of development…We have an infinite genetic code. It is based on the mixing of blood.”
While Gumilev has been a commonplace reference of post-Soviet culture; Ivan Ilyin has remained much more marginal. His recent rehabilitation has been pushed by a group of reactionary thinkers and politicians who want to decommunise Russian history.
Putin has, on several occasions, referred to Ilyin’s vision of Russia’s supposed unique destiny and the centrality of state power in Russian history. And he has certainly also noticed Ilyin’s furious hatred of Ukraine. For Ilyin, Russia’s enemies will try to pull Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit by hypocritical promotion of democratic values with the goal of making Russia disappear as a strategic opponent. As Ilyin wrote, “Ukraine is the region of Russia [sic] that is most in danger of division and conquest. Ukrainian separatism is artificial, devoid of genuine foundations. It was born from the ambition of its captains and international military intrigue.”
Yet to ascribe Putin’s vision of Ukraine solely to Ilyin is to fail to understand that it is commonplace for Russian thinkers to say that Ukraine is an indivisible part of Russia and one of its Achilles heels in its confrontation with the West. The ideological founding fathers of Eurasianism in the Twenties were also virulently anti-Ukrainian: the prince Pyotr Troubetzkoy denounced Ukrainian culture as “not a culture but a caricature”, and Georgy Vernasky explained that “the cultural schism [of Ukrainians and Belarusians] is only a political fiction. Historically speaking it is clear that both Ukrainians and Belarusians are branches of a unique Russian people.” This is a brotherly enmity, and one with many sources.
Among the contemporary ideologists, Alexander Dugin is also excitedly cited by Western observers as a strong influence on Putin. And Dugin has, indeed, always been a virulent enemy of an independent Ukraine (“Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning,” he wrote in his Foundations of Geopolitics). He called for its almost complete absorption by Russia, letting just the most western regions of Ukraine remain outside Russia’s purview.
But Dugin does not have the ear of the Kremlin. He is too radical in his formulations, too obscurely esoteric and cultivates a level of “high” intellectual references to the European far-right classics that cannot meet the needs of the Putin administration. He was one of the original promoters of a geopolitical notion of Eurasia and of Russia as a distinctive civilisation in the Nineties, but these themes became mainstream apart from and even against Dugin’s use of them in the following decades. He was never a member of any of the many co-opted civil society organisations, even if he was able to cultivate to some patrons in the military-industrial and security services circles.
Among the other thinkers advocating for Russia’s imperial mission are two of Dugin’s patrons: the Orthodox monarchist businessman Konstantin Malofeev, who leads the Tsargrad internet channel and the Katekhon discussion group; and Bishop Tikhon, an influential figure of the Russian Orthodox Church, rumoured to be one of Putin’s confessors.
Both men have worked together to advance a reactionary agenda in terms of “traditional values” (anti-abortion, pronatalism, militarism, cult of Byzantium as the historical role model for Russia, and heavy ideological indoctrination of younger generations) and try to get the ear of the Kremlin. Malofeev has become a central figure in Russia’s outreach to the European far-Right and aristocratic circles, while Tikhon focuses on bridging the gap between the Church and the Kremlin and ensuring their ideological convergence.
This brings us to the Moscow Patriarchate, the institutional body of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has always remained ambiguous in its stance toward Ukraine. On one hand, the Church promotes the notion of canonical territory — that is, the fact that the spiritual territory of the Church is broader than the borders of the Russian Federation and encompasses or encompassed Belarus, parts of Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. In the Church’s worldview, all Eastern Slavic nations form one historical nation with Kyiv as its spiritual cradle. The Church has preceded by a long time Putin’s embrace of the idea of Russian-Ukrainian unity as he declared in his 2021 article. But because the Patriarchate had so many of its parishes in Ukraine, it had also to recognise Ukraine’s sovereignty as a state and tried to avoid the ecclesiastical independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, though this was eventually recognised by the Constantinople Patriarchate in 2018. While we can’t be sure how genuine Putin’s religiosity is, he certainly believes that Russia’s own civilization relies on Orthodoxy as a central cultural kernel.
To this should be added the notion of “Russian World”, vividly promoted by the Church. Originally, the term was meant to promote a deterritorialized Russia, for whom the imperial territory wouldn’t matter anymore, but the notion gradually transformed to express Russia’s narrative about the mission of reuniting “Russian lands”, to which Ukraine would belong.
There are also more underground figures of influence: one of Putin’s closest friends, Yuri Kovalchuk, is known for his conservative and religious views of Russia’s greatness. Kovalchuk is one of the most secretive personalities of Putin’s inner circles, without any status in state institutions. He is the largest shareholder of one of Russia’s main banks, Rossiya; controls several major media channels and newspapers; is said to be Putin’s personal banker; he has built the president’s main palaces. Putin spent a large part of the Coonavirus lockdown with Kovalchuk, who seems to have inculcated in him the idea that history matters more than the present and that Putin needs to think of his own legacy in Russia’s long-term history.
But even if we could pinpoint the figures who yield doctrinal influence over Putin, that won’t capture what drives him to action, because ideological worldviews are always shaped by broader cultural features than just specific readings.
The whole Soviet culture has produced over the decades contemptuous narratives on Ukraine’s supposed lack of clear geopolitical identity, painting the region (not even a country: in Russian, Ukraine means “periphery”) as endlessly swayed between competing patrons over the course of centuries. It has cultivated the vision of a deeply entrenched Ukrainian nationalism that was never really “cleansed” of the stain of its collaborationist tendencies during the Second World War and its anti-Semitism. These tropes were part of the political toolkit of the Soviet regime, which repressed many Ukrainians in the name of their “(bourgeois) nationalism”. They were also shared on a more apolitical level through jokes about Ukrainians as “Banderovites” —Stepan Bandera being the main figure of Ukrainian nationalism and collaborationism during the war period.
These have been updated and re-weaponised in the current memory wars that pit Russia on one side against Poland, the Baltic states, and Ukraine on the others, and which have been fought over since the turn of the Millennium. On the Russian side, these memory wars have accelerated the securitisation of history: since 2012, myriad laws have attempted to institute a historical truth of Russia as the main hero of the 1945 victory, and downplayed the Soviet-German Pact of 1939-1941 and the invasion of the Baltic states along with parts of Poland, Finland, and Romania. They have also punished any alternative remembering of the Second World War or any questioning of the legitimacy of the Soviet leaders’ decision-making.
This securitisation reached its highest level with its engraving into the Constitution, whose new 2020 amendments proclaim that the state protects the “historical truth”. Many state institutions, such as the Military Historical Society, have been playing a central role in hardening memory wars and, therefore, in feeding Vladimir Putin with narratives on Ukraine’s supposed Nazification.
It is also worth remembering that presidents, even authoritarian or dictatorial ones, do not live outside their own society’s cultural frameworks. Putin has regularly shared the music and the films he likes to watch — Soviet spy classics and contemporary bands with a strong patriotic accent — and one can guess he is watching television.
Like many of his fellow citizens, he is thus probably saturated by political talk shows cultivating anti-Ukrainian feelings, as well as by patriotic movies celebrating the Russian Empire’s greatness and its territorial conquests. There may be no need then to look for a doctrinal text that would have inspired him, as the memory of Russia’s empire and the subordinated role of Ukrainians in it permeates so many components of Russian cultural life.
Putin’s worldview has been built up over many years, and is more shaped by his personal resentment toward the West than by any ideological influence. Readings of the classic works of Russian philosophy which insist on Russia’s historical struggle with the West, emphasise the role of Ukraine as a civilizational borderland between both, have simply reinforced his own lived experience.
So Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine doubtlessly has a highly ideological component, but there is another side to this war coin: low-level intelligence-gathering on Ukraine. Both military advisers and security services seem to believe the war will be an easy win. And it is here that the President’s mask slips. It becomes clear that Putin is an aging and isolated authoritarian leader surrounded by advisers afraid of bringing him a realistic assessment of the likelihood of victory, thereby accelerating Russia dragging a sovereign Ukraine along with the rest of Europe towards the worst catastrophe since the Second World War.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThank you for a proper rational look into what drives Putin. I am rather tired of the simple “military invasion = insane madman trope” as if things were ever that straight forward. I can’t recall people questioning Blair’s faculties twenty years ago.
I can. Over 1 million people marched to question Blair’s faculties. Where were you ???
Germans didn’t think Hitler was insane, just an extremist who latched on to any old cultural claptrap to justify, with no decent long, his prejudices.
This writer analyses Putin’s cultural justifications as if they have deep meaning, giving him the respectability of decent reasoning behind his motivations. No he’s just the same as Hitler, a bully with no empathy for those he’s bullying.
You can try to understand a bully when they punch you in the face, and they’ll just punch you some more.
The author of the piece doesn’t in any war give Putin any respectability or attribute decent reasoning to him. In fact the general thrust of the article is that he may be guided by irrational, mystical charlatans whose theories are dangerous myths that nonetheless may be playing a role in unleashing aggression and bloodshed. No one who carefully reads this article could argue that the author is somehow justifying what Putin is doing.
I’m wondering if all this erudite and detailed parsing of the myriad historical, ideological and religious strands in relation to Putin’s behaviour actually disguises brutal reality. Specifically, the deliberate and systematic concentration of executive power in Putin’s hands; the ruthless intolerance of any expression of dissent; a kleptocratic finance system that immiserate the masses; a propaganda machine that hermetically seals out the truth and now a callous disregard for agonising suffering.
Are you talking about the Democrat Party in the U.S.?
Must be… The difference is the news of the dims assaults get buried by the press.
A touch unfair…
It is both. His means exist to justify himself cloaked in a higher purpose, his notion of a world historical mission in which he believes. Dictators tend to do that.
I think what the author is trying to explain, in a powerful and astute way, are the reasons that lie behind all of the troublesome things you mention. Her article is one of the best things I’ve read that attempt a real sophisticated sociological explanation – not the only one – of key cultural forces that are causative variables for Russian aggression. Ideas move leaders to do things, even if they are false, dangerous, etc. As Max Weber said, to paraphrase, it may not be that ideas directly cause historical events; they are like “switchmen” that move the trains of history in certain directions.
Like the Weber reference, reminds me of the Trolley Car Dilemma — to murder one to save five. Like many thought experiments it’s far too reductive.
I doing think Weber was engaging in a thought experiment, or any kind of reductive argument, if that’s what you’re arguing. He was trying to say that ideas, ideologies, culture shape human actions and it seems that the author of this piece is illuminating how it is that might be doing so in Russia, historically, and in the present day. If one doesn’t believe that they do, that’s one thing, but that doesn’t win the argument about whether or not they actually do.
And while you strive to understand him, Ukrainians are being slaughtered. Is this a priority? Reminds me of the bleeding heart liberals who insist that we need to help criminals instead of punishing them – and forget about their victims.
Social scientists like the author of this piece and myself try to explain human behavior. As ethical beings, we can and should make value judgements, and the task of understanding why people do things, analyzing why they do what they do is one thing, in no way justifies, absolves, or helps their criminal enterprises. The author’s piece is a sophisticated analysis of why a leader like Putin and his henchmen unleashed this horrible war. I doubt it’s possible to have a serious debate about this with someone who seemingly has never read a history book about war or anything else for that matter.
And this is different from “their” norm how?
Come along Milos. There is no reading of this thoughtful discussion concerning the philosophical and mystical religious influences that shape Putin that have any relevance to Brexit. You discredit yourself with a cheap shot.
The essay was about philosophical notions of nation and empire. That passage stood out to me. It’s easy to point out the twisted thinking of our enemies and harder to see it in ourselves.
Nationalism of any form is problematic.
Why does that passage stand out? I never once heard empire or past glories used as a reason from anybody who voted to leave the EU
Absolutely.
Only the tired old drum the apologists and enthusiasts for the incompetent, bureaucratic nightmare of the EU insisted on beating. And beat yet.
I never once heard a Brexit voter using the empire as a justification for wanting to leave the EU, though I did read a lot of columns in the Guardian explaining that this was what peoples’ ‘real’ motivations were. I think we could call this, ahem, ‘misinformation.’
As for nationalism being ‘problematic’: well, maybe, but the last time I looked, the combined death toll of the anti-nationalist and internationalist ideologies of the 2oth century was 100 million. I don’t think Brexit has exceeded this yet.
‘Ethno/religious-nationalism’ is always potentially repulsive. And I do agree, even ‘civic-nationalism’, once it has served its purpose, i.e. promoting and establishing independence, can be quietly ignored. Traditions and cultures are not the same as nationalism of course, which makes regionalism more reasonable and sustainable.
I don’t know enough history of Russia but it seems its multi-ethnic ‘nationalism’ was always there but always suppressed brutally. The Soviets utilised the excitement of the Revolution for some kind of ostensible ‘independence’ for the separate ethnicities/regions. We know the rest…
You seem to be confusing nationalism with imperialism. Liberal nationalism of nineteenth century Europe wanted to liberate ethnic minorities from the continental empires. They desired free, liberal democracies without expansion. National self-determination and democracy were – and are – intertwined. Contrary to the usual narrative, Germany 1933-45 wasn’t nationalism; it was old-fashioned imperialism by a country resentful that it had no empire, trampling on the national identity of other ethnic groups, seeking to turn ‘the East’ into a colony for German farmers. There is nothing ‘problematic’ with nation-states living peacefully within their own borders and celebrating their unique cultures.
Gandhi?
Has there ever been a period when the majority of the people in that huge land mass have ever been somewhat happy?
‘Tragedy’ is the easy cliche.
I’m sure on an individual basis they have had happy moments but they’ve never had a decent, fair and representative form of government. The older generation in particular only respect a “strong man” leader as that’s all they’ve ever known.
This is really about the “Siloviki” (members of the various security services) trying to find a new “cause” after the end of the Soviet Union.
Without a world-wide Communist Revolution to promote, they correctly understood that they would be marginalized in a pared-down Russia. So the Russian World was the handiest new cause to adopt.
The “Russian World” may well shape their thinking somewhat. But they could just as easily have settled on some other “cause” to justify continued war with external enemies.
The Siloviki want to keep playing the only game they understand.
It’s the Great Game that justifies their existence, not the Russian World.
Isn’t that what the world has been about for eons? Power. In a very perverted sense, this reversion back to the real world is somewhat comforting in that we have lived in a false reality over the last 75 years, where many have been lulled into the delusion of “give peace a chance”. It is why we elect feckless, loafer-wearing, latte sipping metrosexuals to positions of high power. Perhaps the tide will change.
Er, there IS a little difference between imperfect western democracies and the new totalitarian Russian state which sends people to prison for correctly noting that their country is at war.
Not exactly Peter or Catherine the Great then. More Mongol Yoke, Ivan.
Muscovite Russia is a direct descendant of the Tatar hegemony.
While Poland and the Zaporozhian Cossacks fought the Khan, Moscow collected his taxes.
They all did what was convenient at the time.
Peter ‘the Great’ was an utterly ruthless and brutal tyrant. Among many tens of thousands who died by his direct order (not least in the construction of At Petersburg) he had his own son tortured and flayed to death.
This was in many ways worse than the Mongols / Tatars, who were quite undoubtedly willing to wipe out entire cities if they resisted. However after the conquest they tended to encourage trade and did not impose religious conformity or any ideology on their subjects.
Thank you, Marlene, this is an excellent article.
Internationalism killed far more Russians than nationalism ever did. Perhaps you might want to read Marx?
Excellent analysis of what drives Putin and your conclusion that Putin is an isolated and ageing Leader is the most likely explanation of this Ukraine tragedy
An ageing, isolated leader of a declining former superpower whose ever-diminishing population is incapable of protecting its already enormously long borders without needlessly expanding them.
‘It seems nationalism of any kind is toxic.’
I imagine the Ukrainians would be surprised to hear it.
And the British commonwealth in 1939.
The Russian peoples (emphasis on pleural) is an interesting pivot away from older pan-slavic nationalism.
Is multiculturalism seen as a veil or even part-justification for expansion of the Russian state? Taking Ukraine would merely create more Russian peoples of slightly different ethnicity.
China also likes to parade its ethnic minorities to pretend they aren’t subjugated by a Han-Chinese authoritarian regime.
That is a truly ridiculous and bathetic comparison! Brexit was not motivated by visions of restoring the Empire, and there are no shadowy figures in Britain plotting its restoration.
With regard to your wider point, firstly the whole concept of nationalism is difficult to apply to the Russian case, which is in fact a main contributor to the Ukrainian tragedy. Do we mean belief in a nation comprising all Russian-speakers, which has never in fact existed, or the much larger historical multi-ethnic territories ruled by the Tsars?
If all nationalism is toxic, then we can really make no judgements about history and governance at all; the Third Reich, Ireland, much the same thing.
But, to those fondly imagining a world government as the answer to this, what earthly reason do we have to think this might not be like a large China? Or perhaps more realistically a large Afghanistan, undergoing permanent civil conflict? At least now people can at least to a limited degree which countries are run better for the benefit of their citizens.
I’m sorry, while the analysis is entertaining, in terms of explaining Russia’s invasion it is nonsense.
For a rational, straightforward explanation you only need to refer to Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, John Mearsheimer, George Friedman, or George Kennan. In different ways and urgency and given NATOs aggression, they have been warning for 25 years this would happen sooner or later.
The “why” of Russia’s action is no mystery. An interesting question would be: Why NOW?
One single 5 word answer: Sleepy Joe Biden is POTUS.
NATO’s aggression against Russia? NATO has not fired a shot against Russia or its people in all of its existence.
If I read the article correctly, she is trying to illustrate why Russian intellectuals and neo-imperialists would find it intolerable for Ukraine to be part of NATO. Ever. The sad part about this is that it was all very foreseeable.
Rather silly comment. Assuming that five American thinkers who predate Putin represent his thought is not rational. Putin is an intelligent reader and as Laruelle understands (and as Giles Fraser pointed out in an earlier article in UnHerd) he is influenced by pan-Slavic and pan-Orthodox visionaries whom Western political thinkers have never bothered to read.
In this almost Shakespearen tragedy there is a background (described above) and a foreground. One of the best explanations of ‘why now’ I have read was written by Dmitri Alperovitch (@dalperovitch) in December. If Putin wanted to do something about it, time was running out. Of course the intelligence he was given was woefully incorrect.
You are simply choosing a different kind of explanatory framework. The author is seeking to understand the intellectual, ideological, religious, and cultural influences on decisions to go to war in Ukraine. You can reduce the cause to “NATO expansion”, but the author does an excellent job helping us to understand the reasons why such expansion might have activated the forces she discusses to move Putin and his acolytes to go to war. A uni-causal explanation such as you propose is simplistic, and, in your terms, “nonsense.”
“Nato’s aggression”? Elucidate, please.
It is the peoples of the border states who have been clamouring for EU economic security and NATO border security. EU and NATO responses have been tentative or careful in the main. Certainly not eagerly opportunistic. Nor aggressive and threatening as in the Russian narrative
The more proactive response of the West to Ukraine was in direct response to the Russian moves in 2014, once the soft power attempt to install a puppet govt failed.
I don’t buy into this ‘blame the West for forcing Russia’s hand’ one little bit. The response of the West to 2014 events, under Obama no less, may have raised Russia’s insecurity quotient, but the article points to a range of world view and deep cultural drivers of a greater weight than being stood up to a little bit, by way of a loud populist government and the defensive arms supplies
Putin and the inner circle, whatever its make up and matrix of influence, decided the operational mission was timely and in line with the raison d’etre of the grand Mission, however that is defined, and went in.
Like any war, plans and playbooks evaporate in the first hour and it’s response to response from then on.
Hard to say what this will look like in 4 to 6 weeks
Great essay. Ukraine has clearly moved on in cultivating its own identity.
Crazy, crazy Putin. Why won’t he just accept NATO missile systems at a striking range of 5-10 minutes from Moscow, run by the heroes of the Azov Regiment?
Why won’t he just accept perpetual shelling and an eventual blitzkrieg invasion of Lugansk and Donetsk, and the concomitant cultural and linguistic suppression of the Russian minority in the rest of Ukraine?
Why will that madman and his Mongol barbarian people, who have never made any artistic or literary contribution worth speaking of, simply not accept it?
It is so strange to us Westerners, with our superior neoliberal, woke, culture-killing, atomizing consumerism to promote wealth concentration at the expense of everything. Those crazy commy Rooskies must have some insane ideological motivation that is so far below our moral value Valhalla, that we simply cannot see what it is.
What an incredibly complex mystery it all is. Thank you for your enlightening contribution, Marlène Laruelle in Washington.
Those missiles were never kept anywhere near the Russian border until he decided to help himself to large chunks of another nations territory
Any thoughts for the Ukrainians who are courageously resisting invasion of their sovereign territory or just sarcastic, anti-Nato whataboutery?
In the weeks running up to the invasion there were a number of ‘expert’ commentators saying that Russia had no intention of invading. This was at a time when Putin was saying he had no intention of invading but many western leaders were saying yes he did. The main argument the commentators gave seemed to boil down to something like – “Putin would be stupid or insane to invade Ukraine at this time because of (various reasons) and Putin is neither stupid nor insane”. So perhaps he is insane.
Cutting the Gordian knot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6mw9U62ZJU
Professor John Mearsheimer
On the contrary, many Brexiteers recognise imperialism in the EU; an ideology of ‘ever-greater union’, expansion, striving for extending regulation by centralised government and increasing its detail, and a shocked and hostile reaction to the decision of one component to leave it.
I don’t actually think members want it, especially those which have recently escaped bondage, but have solid reasons for membership, based on a balance of benefit versus advantage. However, ideology has always proved a useful tool for those seeking power and wealth, and for a small number who have sincere faith.
I was wondering how to work Covid into my reply. There definitely seems to be some alignment to me.
Yes.
One of the reaasons Americans can’t get all this is we discount the importance of religion everywhere but here in America. Separating these two factions is none of our business.
A very clear summary of the Russian nationalist and Eurasianist thinking which has influenced Putin, by somebody who clearly knows her stuff.
How quaint
Looking at history Scotland could declare UDI and UK could take Virginia back. Don’t even think about Ireland. When I lived in Germany 35 years ago people would ask me why we’d invaded N.Ireland. My own sister asked me why BAOR was still occupying Germany. Putin isn’t in court explaining his actions. He may soon well be.