Paul Goble
Staunton, April 16 – On April 11, Dmitry Muratov who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in promoting independent journalism in Putin’s Russia published an important interview in the French journal Liberation (liberation.fr/international/europe/dmitri-mouratov-prix-nobel-de-la-paix-2021-en-russie-la-cruaute-est-devenue-une-forme-de-patriotisme-20260411).
The Moscow Times has now published a Russian translation of that interview (themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/16/novaya-gazetas-dmitry-muratov-cruelty-has-become-a-form-of-patriotism-a92510); and among the many valuable observations Muratov makes, one is especially important.
After Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Nobelist says, the Kremlin’s propagandists long insisted that Russians “do not strike critical infrastructure” but now they say “we will freeze Kyiv, freeze Kharkhiv and wipe them off the face of the earth,” thus “openly admitting they are destroying civilians.”
What is “new” in Russian propaganda, Muratov continue, is “an open embrace of cruelty, an acknowledgement that Russia is prepared to inflict mass suffering on other people” and that its actions reflect that in Russia today, “cruelty has become a form of patriotism” and celebrated as such.
“When suspects accused of shooting civilians at Crocus City Hall were arrested, television channels broadcast footage of their ears being cut off. They glorify the sledgehammer associated with Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, used to execute alleged deserters. That same sledgehammer is now displayed in the office of a deputy speaker of parliament,” he points out.
All these things – “the cult of death, the cult of cruelty, the cult of the leader, and the cult of territorial conquest based on historical claims” – have been “described by Umberto Eco as markers of fascism;” and thus one is compelled to conclude that Russia under Putin is moving ever more in that direction.
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