Kremlin Media have Failed to Bridge Growing Generational Divide in Russia, Yershov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 13 – Russian rulers have always known that they have problems with the rising generation and sought to cope, Yegor Yerzhov says. In the 1990s, Yeltsin promised a wonderful future now that communism was gone; in the next decade, Putin sought to buy the young off in various ways; and then in the last, he decided he could safely ignore them.

            But none of these approaches has done anything to bridge the growing generational divide in Russia between the rising generation and their elders, the Moscow commentator says, as young people continue to fill the ranks of protesters and now emigres, external and internal (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=639829AA85D8B).

            The regime’s flailing about on this issue shows that the Kremlin understands at one level that its approach to young people hasn’t worked and that those under 30 aren’t inspired by its talk of the Russian world. Nonetheless, Yerzhov says, the powers that be somehow have expected the young to enthusiastically volunteer to fight in Ukraine.

            That would be ludicrously funny were it not so obviously tragic, he concludes.