Russia Liberals’ Talk about West’s Degradation Rooted in Hope West would Ensure Ukrainian Victory and Bring Them to Power in Moscow, Pastukhov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 5 – With the turn of the year, the Russian media, including outlets far from sympathetic to the Putin regime, have been filled with articles talking about the stagnation or even death of Western democracy, Vladimir Pastukhov says. But these reflect “not so much a real impasse in Western civilization as the impasse of Russian liberal discourse.”

            The London-based Russian analyst says that “liberal thought in Russia today is experiencing a kind of PTSD” because for more than two decades, it has lived with the idea of revenge but has had to put that off until things get better which in fact is the reverse of what has happened (t.me/v_pastukhov/926 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6598F85C38881).

            For Russian liberals, Putin’s defeat in the war with Ukraine has been viewed in this regard as their last chance for a miraculous salvation.” The conflict was portrayed as “a black swan” that would awaken the West, lead it to ensure a Ukrainian victory, thereby bringing down the Putin regime and allowing them to assume their legitimate place as rulers of Russia.

            “The black swan really flew in, took a shit and then flew away,” Pastukhov says. “But then something went wrong.” The West “never fully work up” and Ukraine did not get the arms it needs for victory. And the West’s “inconsistent” sanctions forced Russian elites to “rally even more closely around Putin, the savior of their wealth.”

            According to Pastukhov, “this turn of events led to the frustration of Russian liberal thought.” It has left them “disillusioned with everything, including the historical mission of the West which, in the opinion of Russian liberals, could but did not want to save Russian freedom” and its chief articulators the Russian liberals.

            “To be fair,” he continues, “it must be said tha the West has never supported either Russian freedom or Ukrainian independence” but has “always and everywhere acted in its own interests, an approach for which it can hardly be reproached” even if it does not live up to the expectations of others.

            In a certain respect, “what has happened may prove useful,” Pastukhov concludes. Russian liberals need to give up on “the illusion that there is someone who is ready to solve [their] problems for them” and recognize instead that it is the Russian liberals themselves who must work to solve their problems rather than waiting for a deus ex machina from outside.