This blog only enters my mind when I need to remember how to post on it, usually every six month or so. One of my last posts, which I wrote more than a year ago, is entitled What Happens When Russia Loses?

“Yikes,” I thought. “That was a more optimistic time. I might have to write a new post called What I Really Meant to Say Was…”

Actually, the only part I’d change is the title. I’d make it What Happens When It Takes a Long Time for Russia to Lose? In addition to the good things that could happen in the region when Russia loses (all still true), there are, I should point out, some bad things that will happen if it takes a long time. They are happening now.

FOUR BAD THINGS (a non-exhaustive list)

OBVIOUSLY, Ukrainians continue to suffer unbearable losses

Even if there’s a “peace agreement,” an undefeated, revanchist Russia will attack Ukraine again once it has reconstituted itself after staggering losses in its stupid war of aggression. Ukraine will not live peacefully until Russia is militarily and politically incapable of invading it. The longer this war goes on, the more Ukrainians die. They will not stop fighting.

Emboldened regional autocrats

In a recent webinar hosted by Coda Story, certified smart person Peter Pomerantsev (my advice: read everything he writes on influence operations, especially his three books on the topic) argued persuasively that an emboldened Russia provides space for openly pro-Russian regimes (Belarus, Georgia) to be more aggressive. For example, the pro-Russian Georgian Dream ruling party has rammed through a copy of Russia’s foreign agent law, despite massive public protests. Regimes that keep a finger to the wind, like Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Hungary and Serbia, will use an emboldened Russia for cover to shore up their own corrupt structures. All have or are planning a similar Foreign Agent Law. To them, there’s no downside to stepping into Russia’s footprints and the benefit – defanged civil society in no position to challenge them – is obvious. Why is this bad? Read this report that I helped write about what happened in Russia after passage of its Foreign Agent law.

Incremental progress toward democratic development in Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan, at best, is halted

At best, Russia will continue to meddle, through influence operations, election fraud and political interference. It will be impossible for these countries to chart their own paths. At worst, irredentist Russia will reabsorb them; the USSR with a more palatable name.

An emboldened Russia threatens Europe

As a resident of France, I find this one compelling. A war with a Russia that has subsumed the Ukrainian arms industry, army and geography is a much stronger opponent for Europe than one that Ukraine defeats and sends back to its 1991 borders. This is Professor Timothy Snyder’s “1938 Argument.” Helping Ukraine defeat Russia now means Russia can’t threaten Poland and the Baltics (something it already does regularly) and next, France, Germany and Italy. President Macron (link in FR) gets what is at stake. If you understand French, he explains it in simple terms.

DOES IT GO TO 11?

For Russia, the absence of defeat is victory. If I wrote that 2023 post again, I would turn the volume on the sense of urgency up to 11. We’re seeing, right now, today, what happens when Russia’s defeat is delayed by slow American aid delivery and absurd restrictions on how Ukraine uses weapons to defend itself. Ukraine is the biggest victim by a huge margin. But other countries, like Georgia and Moldova, are in Russia’s crosshairs too. It’s not going to get better, especially for Europe. Give Ukraine the tools it needs to finish the job.

Contact Quirk Global Strategies to talk about new and clever ways to measure public opinion in complicated places.

 

 

Sometimes when I’m feeling dark, I pretend I am a Russian “political technologist” designing influence operations in Ukraine. I try to deconstruct what Russia is trying to achieve and why. I scratch my head. Do they know their efforts to undermine Ukrainians’ commitment to defending themselves is dumb and ineffective? Do they do any research at all?

Russians have had little success in undermining Ukrainians’ support for the war effort or their leaders. Pre-full scale invasion, however, Russians were pretty good at causing division in Ukrainian politics, particularly around major strategic issues like EU and NATO membership. Russia used its television channels, Ukrainian political allies and Ukraine’s natural political divisions to prevent leaders from building consensus about Ukraine’s future direction. For a number of reasons, it has become much harder lately for Russia to get traction.

Four Major Changes in Ukraine

I can identify four major changes in the Ukrainian information environment to help explain why. These are important for anyone trying to understand Ukrainian public opinion since the full-scale invasion.

  • Ukraine blocked Russian TV channels from Russia in 2014 and shut down Russian-language channels in Ukraine owned by Russian-aligned oligarchs in 2021.
  • Ukraine banned 11 Russian-backed political parties in March 2022.
  • Ukrainians are sophisticated information consumers.
  • Ukrainians are not receptive to and/or are openly hostile toward messaging they perceive as coming from Russia.

No more Russian TV channels

Television remains the most effective tool to shape mass public opinion. Accordingly, the single most important factor limiting Russian influence over public opinion in Ukraine has been the closure of Russian channels from Russia and Russian channels from Ukraine. Kremlin narratives and coordinated messages simply do not reach a mass audience in Ukraine like they used to. (Ukraine’s United TV Marathon has succeeded, to some degree, in achieving this. That’s a different post).

Sure, Russia has access to Telegram. Everyone does. Telegram channels are useful for delivering targeted messages to receptive audiences who are looking to confirm their biases, who distrust official narratives or who want to fill information gaps. All kinds of channels fill this space, however, making it quite fragmented and noisy. Russia holds no particular advantage, like it did when Kremlin-friendly TV stations pumped garbage 24/7 into millions of Ukrainian living rooms, unchallenged.

Russia-backed political parties shut down

 Ukraine’s democratic institutions provided cover for Russian-backed political parties and their parliamentary faction, allowing them to undermine democracy from within for years. The largest, Opposition Platform/For Life, enjoyed legitimate support from voters in Ukraine’s East and South and held 44 seats in the Rada. However, it was backed by Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Moscow Ukrainian oligarch with close ties to Putin. Banning these parties, while controversial, inhibited Russia’s ability to take advantage of Ukraine’s democratic system to promote the Kremlin’s agenda.

Ukrainians are sophisticated information consumers

 Ukrainians have become sophisticated information consumers, a process that predates the full-scale invasion. Going back to at least 2016, Ukrainian civil society and educational institutions developed tools to help Ukrainians identify information sources designed to manipulate them. Some approaches worked, some didn’t. Some Ukrainians will never be reached and will remain vulnerable to, or even embrace, Russian influence. Many more, however, learned to pay close attention to who might be fighting for their attention and why.

Most Ukrainians now consume information primarily in Ukrainian, either via Telegram channels or United TV Marathon. They can identify Russia-friendly channels and commenting bots by their bad grammar and spelling as easily as native English speakers can spot Russicisms. Ukrainians also know that Telegram channels are the main source of unproven, manipulative information. They say they read with caution and double check against other sources, evidence of their information resilience.

Most Ukrainians are deeply hostile toward Russia and its narratives

 Pre-full scale invasion, a substantial number of Ukrainians used to hold, if not positive attitudes toward Russia, at least neutral views, particularly in the East and South. No longer. I suppose Russia can count that as an accomplishment of sort. No one else – certainly not the West — could have turned so many Ukrainians against it so thoroughly and most likely, irreversibly.

Ukrainians swat down messages they suspect might be coming from Russia, including common imperialist tropes that few questioned. Not only are Ukrainians generally not receptive, but the narratives often infuriate them. That’s not fertile ground for your influence operation to take root.

Most importantly, Russians not only lack the tools to influence Ukrainians’ opinions, they lack an understanding of their audience. Russians are trying – and failing — to undermine Ukrainians’ faith in a democratic system in which most Russians cannot perceive value. If they could relate to the importance of independence to Ukrainians and the complex relationship Ukrainians have with their democratically elected leaders, Russians might rethink their approach. The enormous gap between Russia’s and Ukraine’s worldviews makes it difficult for Russians to understand post full-scale invasion Ukrainians well enough to create anything but the clumsiest narratives.

May Russia continue to fail

None of this is to say that influence operations can’t work to undermine Ukrainians’ support for the war effort, build resentment toward their leaders and sow divisions in society. I’ve also thought a great deal about how that can be done. Russia, however, isn’t doing a very good job at it. Let’s hope they keep it up.

 

Christine Quirk is a France-based opinion research consultant and strategist who has been managing strategic qualitative and quantitative research projects in Ukraine since 2006 for a variety of clients. She has observed hundreds of focus groups on topics such as Ukrainians’ view of the full-scale invasion, elections and the political environment, how Russian influence operations shape Ukrainian public opinion, LGBTQI rights, women’s political participation and many others. Contact Quirk Global Strategies for more information about our work.

 

 

What a horrible, stupid war. As historians debate whether militaries make the same mistake over and over again, we here on the opinion-research side of things run the same risk. But we don’t like to lose, so we do what we can to keep from being surprised by events.

Do you want to be taken by surprise by what happens when Russia loses this war?

Russia is Going to Lose

What do I mean by lose? Russia is militarily, politically and economically weakened to the point where it is less able to exert direct influence over its neighbors’ political systems, less effective at shaping public opinion and unable to invade its neighbors.

Plenty has been written about how the West misread what happened in 1991. Amidst the triumphalism of having “won the cold war” and reaching “the end of history,” too many policies privileged Russia’s interests at the expense of newly independent states including, but not only, Ukraine. Subsequently, many have struggled to develop rule of law, equal rights, uncontrolled media and fair elections under Russian influence.

Understand What’s Going to Happen Next

I’ve long been bearish on Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia. I’ve thought a lot about how, post-victory, Ukrainians will approach politics without Russia occupying territory, without political parties led by corrupt Russian interests, and with a population deeply wounded by Russian atrocities.

We know post-victory Ukraine is going to be very different. I’ve already got questions I want to ask: How will the (generally flawed and unpopular) political parties respond to the challenges of reconstruction? From what quarters will the next generation of leadership emerge? Who or what will fill the vacuum – long dominated by Russian-oriented parties – in eastern Ukraine? We’ll only know by asking Ukrainians what they think.

I’ve also got questions about how dynamics in Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia and Hungary might change without the incentives provided or imposed by Russia. A weakened Russia may be less able to back up Lukashenka’s dictatorial control over Belarus. Will this give opposition forces the opening they’ve been positioning themselves for years to run through? But what do Belarusians think about a post-Russia future?

Georgians just killed a draft foreign agent law, a version of which has decimated Russian civil society by, among other things, playing on Soviet-era fears of foreign spying. Energized, could Georgians take the giant leap of evicting a weakened Russia from territory it has occupied since 2008? Who do Georgians think can lead that effort?

Russia is not going away. Indeed, Russia itself could be wracked by internal conflict and competition for power that’s unlikely to favor democrats. But what’s the spillover of that going to be in the North Caucasus and Siberia? Seems like it’s worth trying to understand what people there think about their future.

Ask the Questions and Listen to the Answers

Like at the end of the cold war, Russia’s failed war on Ukraine could cause liquefaction of the political soil in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Political dynamics that have been frozen in amber for decades could disappear, reconstitute or explode into chaos. Arguments in favor or against such scenarios are legitimate and worthy of debate.

However, unlike 30 years ago, there’s zero excuse for assuming we know (or not caring!) what people in countries from the Balkans to the Chinese border think about such big changes. Listening to people that have been living with Russian influence makes it less likely we’ll be taken by surprise by the fallout from another major event, like Russia losing to Ukraine.

 

Contact Quirk Global Strategies to talk about new and clever ways to measure public opinion in complicated places.

 

 

This post originally appeared on The Cosmopolitan Globalist.

WHAT MAKES UKRAINIANS SPECIAL?

The largest humanitarian distribution center in the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine. Photo by darvik.photography@gmail.com

CHRISTINE QUIRK, NICE

Nothing, writes Christine Quirk, who has been watching Ukrainians do the hard work of figuring out how to be a democracy. We can do it, too.

If you’ve just tuned in, Ukrainians are superheroes who repel Russian invaders using tractors, Molotov cocktails, and javelin missiles. Led by a former comedian who has buoyed citizens’ spirits through live videos, consolidated NATO, and shamed the shameless in Europe, Ukrainians defend their nation with style and humor, despite overwhelming odds.

Ukrainians, for good reason, have inspired the world. But what makes them so special?

Nothing.

I have been working on democracy and governance programs in Eurasia since 2004, and in Ukraine since 2006. I’ve observed elections and worked on campaigns. As a public opinion research consultant for a variety of clients, I have watched and analyzed hundreds of focus groups over the last five years on topics ranging from the presidential election to LGBTQI rights to pension reform. I have heard ordinary people from every corner of the country describe their frustration and pride in the country’s democratic development. No matter how many grievances they have with their leaders—and they have many—that they vote in fair elections and can speak their minds freely means that Ukraine is a democracy.

It hasn’t always been that way.

In 2004 in what became the Orange Revolution, Ukrainians came to Maidan, in the center of Kyiv, to protest a rigged presidential election. Everyone thought Ukrainians were superhuman then, too. They weren’t. They were just good organizers who believed their democracy was worth fighting for.

The Orange Revolution didn’t happen by accident. It was hard work. Everyone knew the second round of the 2004 Presidential election would be rigged in favor of Viktor Yanukovich, who was the personal choice of term-limited incumbent Leonid Kuchma. Pre-election polls showed Yanukovich was unlikely to win without cheating. When the firehose of state administrative resources was directed toward ensuring a Yanukovich victory, democratic forces (the “Oranges”) stood no chance.

In preparation, throughout 2003 and 2004, Ukrainians worked with closely with the Serbian civil society group Otpor. Otpor had organized the non-violent effort to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, a strategy that was based in part in how Poles fought against Martial Law in 1989. Using principals of non-violence laid out in influential texts such as Gene Sharp’s The Politics of Nonviolent Action, leaders of Ukrainian civil society groups like PORA! adapted the lessons to Ukraine’s context.

Activists knew they could use people’s outrage over having their vote stolen as an organizing tool. But they had a lot of work to do.

Every aspect, from the strategic to the tactical, was planned in advance. Pre-election, they had convinced rivals Victor Yushchenko and Yuliia Tymoshenko to campaign as a united front on behalf of the Oranges. Political activists worked to build behind-the-scenes support from legislators, local leaders and even a few oligarchs—those who hadn’t murdered anyone—who could be persuaded to switch sides. Domestic election monitors trained to document and report violations were deployed in every corner of the country. Lawyers strategized how to challenge the violations in the courts, knowing denied petitions would hand them a PR victory. Communications specialists were ready to keep Ukrainians informed about all the ways their votes were stolen. Grassroots organizers used clever tactics—called “softening the ground”—to reduce fear among Ukrainians by showing that a lot of people just like them were fed up too, and ready to take the risk of going to the streets in protest.

When Yanukovich was announced the winner despite election monitors’ reports of widespread fraud and exit polls that showed a clear victory by Yushchenko, the Oranges were ready to mobilize.

Despite the threat of violence, people from around the country came to Maidan. They knew that international and domestic election monitors said the election was neither free nor fair. They weren’t afraid because they saw how many others just like them were facing down police and soldiers. “They can’t shoot everyone” is an operating principle of non-violent protests. Critically, security services refused to shoot protesters, demonstrating the power of non-violence and possible sympathy within the services for the protestors’ message. Under pressure, oligarch-controlled Channel 5 switched sides to tell the truth about the stolen election. Momentum shifted and the Central Election Commission declared a do-over of the election. The compromise candidate few loved but most united behind, Viktor Yushchenko, won.

The Orange Revolution influenced Ukraine’s democratic trajectory in at least two important ways: First, it built the foundation of the civil society which is now supporting the war effort. It taught activists how to unite in broad coalitions, communicate effectively about their goals, and organize people to do the unsexy work of building a sustainable movement. Second, it gave young Ukrainians a deeply rooted sense of their ability to change a government that does not respect the will of the people.

Ukraine stagnated economically and politically in the following years. People became disillusioned with elected leaders who refused to address the issues they cared most about: a poor economy, lack of rule of law and pervasive corruption. Ukrainians hoped President Viktor Yanukovich, who had been legitimately elected in 2010, would keep his promise to sign the parliament-approved EU accession agreement. The agreement would push Ukraine to make the political and economic changes necessary to join in the future. It signalled that Ukraine wanted to take a western trajectory. Even then, a majority of Ukrainians supported it.

Under Kremlin pressure, Yanukovich refused to sign the agreement in November 2013. The country exploded in anger. The Revolution of Dignity—Ukraine’s second revolution in ten years—began.

The organizational foundation built for the Orange Revolution proved solid. The next generation of Ukrainians, who dreamt of a European future, and others who were fed up seeing different rules for the wealthy and well-connected again came to Maidan in the freezing cold. For months, volunteers provided the food, shelter and medical support that made such a large-scale urban protest possible in the middle of winter. To keep spirits up, top Ukrainian entertainers performed and priests held masses in a carnival atmosphere. Everyone knew why they were there: Ukraine’s democracy and European future was at stake.

The protest ended when Yanukovich fled to Russia, but not before snipers opened fire on a crowd of protesters, killing at least 120, and touching off violent street battles. Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s 2014 documentary Maidan shows the elaborate organization, the sense of common purpose, and the extraordinary violence of the Revolution of Dignity. Much will look familiar to those tuning in to Ukraine for the first time. Ukrainians punch back hard.

The Verkhovna Rada voted to oust the AWOL Yanukovich for failing to show up for work. A caretaker government was formed, which signed the EU accession agreement. Petro Poroshenko was elected with 55 percent of the vote in the May 2014 election.

In between and since the Orange Revolution and The Revolution of Dignity, Ukrainians have pressured their government to crack down on corruption. They’ve involved themselves in the boring machinery of local government by taking advantage of Ukraine’s decentralization policy, which has given local communities more control over budgets. Because of hard work of multiple NGOs that are fighting the battle against Russian disinformation from multiple angles, Ukrainians have become sophisticated consumers of online information. They vote in elections, even if they don’t like their options. It’s taken twenty years to get to this point, but the progress shows every day of this awful war.

Ukrainian democracy often takes two steps forward, one step back. But Ukrainians won’t let their authoritarian neighbor rob them of the democracy they’ve been working on for twenty years. The only thing that has surprised me over the last two weeks is that Putin didn’t know this.

When the war is over, Ukrainians will lead the effort to build democratic institutions in places like Belarus after Lukashenko and post-Putin Russia. They might even have some lessons for Americans and Europeans.

They’re not special. They’re just democrats.

Christine Quirk is public opinion research consultant who specializes in emerging and declining democracies. She has been working in Ukraine since 2006 for a variety of NGO, government and private sector clients. More information about her work and clients can be found at www.quirkglobalstrategies.com. She lives in France and tweets at @cequirk.