Kremlin Forming Superficial Analogue to USSR's New Soviet People in Form of ‘a People for Whom the Motherland is the Special Military Operation and Putin, Kolesnikov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – For most of the last two decades, there has been a debate in the Russian Federation about whether the Kremlin intends to create a variant of “the Soviet people” by its promotion of the idea of non-political Russianness (rossisskost’) in place of all ethnic groups, Russian and non-Russian alike.

            But Novaya Gazeta commentator Andrey Kolesnikov suggests that that is not what Putin is seeking but rather the creation of “a people for whom the Motherland is the Special Military Operation and Putin,” an arrangement even more disturbing now and in the future than the one many have suspected (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/09/25/izobretenie-natsii).

            This process of “reinventing” the nation began when Putin took power by blowing up Russian apartment blocks, expanded with his war against Ukraine, and now has taken final shape during the just-completed Duma election campaign, according to Kolesnikov who points to the statements Putin and his apologists have made.

            In recent months, the commentator says, these people have insisted that “citizenship of Russia is citizenship in the special military operation and that the voters of Russia are voters of the special military operation” in order to argue that “the very fact of taking part in the elections is equal to voting for the special military operation.”

            Some may draw an analogy between this new definition of nationhood and that which the Soviet authorities did when they proclaimed the formation of the new Soviet people, Kolesnikov says; but the differences are enormous and consequential given that Sovietism was internationalist and rather than, as Putin’s nation is, nationalist, imperialist and aggressive.

“The ‘"special military operation’ is thus a battle for identity. It is being waged by a "garrison state" backed—according to the narrative pushed by propaganda and top officials—by a united nation. The theme of unity is paramount; hence the eradication of any alternative thinking or pacifist discourse.”

And at least for the time being, Putin has reinvented the nation out of the populace of the Russian Federation and transformed it in directions that are not limited in its goals, that is, the goals of the regime, in space or in time except perhaps with the passing of the current Kremlin leader.