The newest YouGov poll asked some questions about the war in Ukraine. The results below are from registered voters. Asked whether Russia as a friend of foe, just 6% of voters (and just 8% of Republican voters) said friend or ally. 86% said unfriendly or enemy (mostly enemy). Asked the same thing about Ukraine, 75% picked friend (including 69% of Republicans). Traitor Greene, Trump and Tucker Carlson are in their own world on this one. On top of that, 69% of voters (including 56% of Republicans) see the war as important. Only 4% sympathize with Russia and asked if it is unpatriotic to express support for Russia 46% of voters said yes and 31% said no. Among Republicans, it was 38% seeing it as unpatriotic and 39% disagreeing. Asked if they favor more military aid for Ukraine— which House Republicans are trying to end— 30% of voters want it increased, 29% say it should stay at the current level and 26% say it should be decreased (including a Republican plurality of 35%).
The NY Times would never mislead its readers by running manufactured U.S. government propaganda, would it? Oh, I’m sure it has and will again. But I don’t know if the guest essay by Mikhail Zygar, The Man Who May Challenge Putin for Power, is that or not. Zygar is a longtime anti-Putin operative and author, who left Moscow for Berlin 3 days after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The primary reason I would think his column might not be propaganda is because it’s just too obviously propaganda to be that— and too transparently manipulative, apparently hoping to turn Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner group mercenary force, against each other. It plays on the rampant paranoia that pervades Moscow. Zygar wrote that Putin seems to have “finally noticed that the war in Ukraine created a dangerous competitor to his power: Yevgeny Prigozhin… Depending on your point of view, Prigozhin could be considered either the person of the year or the villain of the year. Putin is, according to many sources in Moscow, confident that he can weaken Prigozhin, who has clashed with the military’s general staff. However, the effect could be the opposite, with more people seeing Prigozhin as the most probable favorite to succeed Putin.”
From the very beginning of the war against Ukraine, Putin made sure that rivals to his power could not emerge and took great pains to ensure that the conflict does not create a popular military leader who could pose a threat. It worked. In the summer of 2022, for instance, the ambitious Gen. Alexander Lapin was the recipient of a small online public relations campaign glorifying him. This immediately cost him his job— and a brief but powerful media war against him was launched by Prigozhin, who controls a series of online troll factories.
According to my sources close to the Russian administration, Putin then perceived Prigozhin solely as a counterweight to the generals. The Russian president saw Prigozhin as his man, an obedient tool and easy to use… He is both the most popular political operator and the one who is feared by Russian high officials and businessmen.
… Prigozhin managed to create for himself the image of the most effective warrior. He is not subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, he is not included in the system of military bureaucracy, and he determines his own tasks, goals and time frames. According to my sources, Putin was fine with this arrangement. And he allowed Prigozhin to rudely and publicly criticize other generals. Putin has a low opinion of them, so he didn’t scold the Wagner founder.
The most radical politicians and businessmen have been drawn to Prigozhin. Those I speak with tell me that the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who previously had a direct line to Putin, now reports to Prigozhin. The businessman Konstantin Malofeev, owner of the ultraconservative channel Tsargrad TV, who supported Russia’s attack on Donbas in 2014, as well as the ideologist of modern Russian fascism, the philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, also praised Prigozhin. In addition, his group of influence includes the leaders of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk republics. In general, this is the most influential clan in modern Russia, since it is those who are at the front who carry the most weight in the eyes of Putin.
Prigozhin has also become the hero for “patriotic” military reporters (those who work for propagandist media and express openly fascist views).
But Prigozhin already seems like a completely independent political player. He started fighting against the governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, a longtime associate of Putin. “People like Beglov will be crushed by our society like bugs, sooner or later,” he recently wrote.
…[Prigozhin claimed the Wagner Group captured Soledar and] It was presumably at this moment that Putin realized that Prigozhin might be a bit too popular. So he elevated Prigozhin’s main enemies, Generals Lapin and Valery Gerasimov, and appointed General Gerasimov as commander of the operation in Ukraine. This is Putin’s traditional bureaucratic game, which has been effective but may not work this time.
Many Russians, zombified by propaganda, are frustrated that the army is not winning. Kyiv was not taken in a few days as promised. By appointing General Gerasimov supreme commander, Putin assumes responsibility for all subsequent defeats. And it doesn’t weaken Prigozhin, who did not criticize this appointment.
This means that, in the near future, Prigozhin may challenge the president, and Putin may no longer be able to oppose his former chef.
I would imagine that is meant to imply one of them will fall out of a window. Meanwhile in Ukraine, Russia announced yesterday that it will switch four occupied areas of Ukraine— Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia— to Moscow’s time zone, part of its “Russification” campaign.
I’m going to venture that Timothy Snyder and Mikhail Zygar have a remarkably similar perspective on Russia and on the Ukraine invasion. A new days ago Snyder delineated 15 reasons why the world needs a Ukrainian victory, none of which are accepted by characters like Marjorie Traitor Greene and Tucker Carlson— not to mention Señor Trumpanzee— leaders of the Putin wing of the Republican Party. Snyder began with the reason he has identified as the single most important one:
1. To halt atrocity. Russia's occupation is genocidal. Wherever the Ukrainians recover territory, they save lives, and re-establish the principle that people have a right not to be tortured, deported, and murdered.
2. To preserve the international legal order. Its basis is that one country may not invade another and annex its territory, as Russia seeks to do. Russia's war of aggression is obviously illegal, but the legal order does not defend itself.
3. To end an era of empire. This could be the last war fought on the colonial logic that another state and people do not exist. But this turning point is reached only if Russia loses.
4. To defend the peace project of the European Union. Russia's war is not directed only against Ukraine, but against the larger idea that European states can peacefully cooperate. If empire prevails, integration fails.
5. To give the rule of law a chance in Russia. So long as Russia fights imperial wars, it is trapped in repressive domestic politics. Coming generations of Russians could live better and freer lives, but only if Russia loses this war.
6. To weaken the prestige of tyrants. In this century, the trend has been towards authoritarianism, with Putinism as a force and a model. Its defeat by a democracy reverses that trend. Fascism is about force, and is discredited by defeat.
7. To remind us that democracy is the better system. Ukrainians have internalized the idea that they choose their own leaders. In taking risks to protect their democracy, they remind us that we all must act to protect ours.
8. To lift the threat of major war in Europe. For decades, a confrontation with the USSR and then Russia was the scenario for regional war. A Ukrainian victory removes this scenario by making another Russian offensive implausible.
9. To lift the threat of major war in Asia. In recent years, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan has been the leading scenario for a global war. A Ukrainian victory teaches Beijing that such an offensive operation is costly and likely to fail.
10. To prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons. Russia, a nuclear power, then invaded. If Ukraine loses, countries that can build nuclear weapons will feel that they need to do so to protect themselves.
11. To reduce the risk of nuclear war. A Ukrainian victory makes two major war scenarios involving nuclear powers less likely, and works against nuclear proliferation generally. Nothing would reduce the risk of nuclear war more than Ukrainian victory.
12. To head off future resource wars. Aside from being a consistent perpetrator of war crimes, Russia's Wagner group seizes mineral resources by violence wherever it can. This is why it is fighting in Bakhmut.
13. To guarantee food supplies and prevent future starvation. Ukraine feeds much of the world. Russia threatens to use that food as a weapon. As one Russian propagandist put it, "starvation is our only hope."
14. To accelerate the shift from fossil fuels. Putin shows the threat that hydrocarbon oligarchy poses to the future. His weaponization of energy supplies has accelerated the turn towards renewables. This will continue, if Russia loses.
15. To affirm the value of freedom. Even as they have every reason to define freedom as against something— Russian occupation— Ukrainians remind us that freedom is actually for something, the right to be the people they wish to be, in a future they can help shape.
