What Happens When It Takes a Long time for Russia to Lose?

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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.

 

 

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Never Interrupt Your Enemy When It’s Making a Mistake

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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.

 

 

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