Needing Hope In Russia As Military Actions Become The Background Of The Everyday Lives Of Average Russians

Russia | MEMRI Daily Brief No. 831

The calls between Putin and Trump, once sensational, have become routine, losing the urgency of a news event. The talks between the delegations of Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, previously expected as a ray of hope, no longer cause trepidation – the half-hour protocols still gape with irreconcilable differences. In the precarious situation, when “a few weeks” or “a few days” remain until the fatal order, any actions capable of turning the tide of the exhausting battle seem illusory.

The sword of Damocles of the deadline hangs overhead: Trump or another leader of a world power sets a deadline, and the Russian president must determine the further course. Economists must calculate the monstrous price of new sanctions for the Russian economy. Well, until the beginning of September, a viscous routine has reigned. Military actions, no matter how fierce they become, are now the everyday background of the lives of average Russians. An ominous adaptation to losses – that is what we have by the third year of the war. Mournful numbness has given way to chilling indifference, especially in the “enemy” camp.

“History Teaches Us That Wars, Especially Those Waged For Ideological Purposes, Rarely Bring The Desired Result”

What happened increasingly reminds me of a protracted chess game, where the pieces are set up, the opening is played out, and the endgame seems endless.

Each move, each castling is just a minor fluctuation against the backdrop of general stagnation.

The players, tired of the tension, nevertheless continue the game, obeying the unwritten rules, realizing that it is too late to retreat.

In this metaphor, human lives become pawns, economic resources are bargaining chips, and the king is the state itself, striving to maintain its position on the board of history. And while strategic tasks are being solved at the top, apathy is growing among the pawns below. People are getting used to war. Everyone.

But sooner or later the moment of truth must come. After all, even the most protracted game comes to an end. The only question is at what cost will victory be achieved and who will emerge from this battle as the real winner.

History teaches us that wars, especially those waged for ideological purposes, rarely bring the desired result.

Perhaps it is this awareness that forces world leaders to seek compromises, offer negotiating platforms and announce deadlines. But as long as the locomotive moves forward and the “pawns” continue to die on the battlefield, the hope for peace remains only a ghostly dream.

Insensitivity and cynicism, the absence of mercy and the slightest interest in the true picture of the world, distorted in the mirrors of Russian media mythology, is one of the most terrible wounds inflicted by a protracted war. There are those who yearn for an ending, but its absence is shattered by the excuse: “We are powerless to change anything, and those at the top know better how it should be.

The Vietnam War Had Neither A Clear Beginning Nor A Visible End

Propaganda, built over the years on the images of the enemy and the “special path,” has become firmly rooted in the public consciousness, creating the illusion of the inevitability of what is happening.

Even the economic difficulties caused by sanctions are presented as temporary inconveniences and an inevitable price for “protecting national interests.”

In this situation, attempts at external influence, be it diplomatic efforts or economic pressure, risk being ineffective.

The Russian state, locked in its militaristic narrative, demonstrates surprising resilience to external challenges, sacrificing the well-being of citizens for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Perhaps the key to resolving the conflict lies not in geopolitical calculations and ultimatums, but in deep internal changes, in the ability of Russian society to critically look at what is happening and realize the price that must be paid for the protracted confrontation.

It is ironic that it was the long-term nature of the conflict, initially conceived as a “quick victory,” that became the main factor determining its further dynamics. Violence as a given, lack of faith in the possibility of change – these are the poisonous fruits that a society that has lived in a state of war for years reaps.

What began in February 2022, experts compare with the Korean confrontation half a century ago, and if we measure only time, the Korean one has long since died down. Now it is time to draw parallels with the protracted Great Patriotic War – but its crimson reflections have faded in the haze of historical distances.

The Vietnam War, it had neither a clear beginning nor a visible end, smoldering despite the triumphant Paris agreements for Henry Kissinger. But even the active phases of this conflict did not last for a whole decade.

Vietnam is a vivid example of the senselessness of fratricidal slaughter: the winners were those who were destined to win. The communization of Vietnam, which took place, however, years later, when the country, having repainted itself in market colors, began to play with all the shades of a multi-vector policy, including a pragmatic look towards yesterday’s enemy – the United States, proved that the sacrifices were in vain.

But America, in turn, received an anti-war tsunami, a counterculture, and, paradoxically, a professional army. You can throw ashes at Richard Nixon as much as you like, his army reform – a brilliant insight about the need to abandon conscription – is one of the most effective pages in American military history.

In Russia, however, they have chosen a path paved with a different, ominous palette: not daring to increase the term of service for new recruits, they have made the war lifelong for those mobilized; they have raised the draft age to 30, bleeding the labor market dry, and now a bill on year-round conscription is on the agenda. Even in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, during the time of fulfilling the “international duty” in the Afghan gorges, they did not allow themselves to do anything like this.

The Illusion Of Control Is What Feeds This Protracted Agony

The state has reforged Russia in a warlike manner, put it on rusty, creaking rails, breaking the reverse control lever. This maddened locomotive is doomed to rush only forward, to an inevitable catastrophe. Russia has become a classic garrison state and it is difficult to find an analogue in the modern, globalized world. It would be naive to believe that this grotesque, monstrous model will not arise in the realized dystopia.

In light of the past days and the attempts of those accompanying them to find the key to resolving the conflict, it would of course be absurd in its own way to see Trump and Erdoğan among the Nobel Peace Prize laureates, a universal recipe for reconciliation has not yet been invented, no matter how much they would like it. One opens the doors of the luxurious palaces of Istanbul for peace talks, the other cynically takes a figurine of “a few weeks before the order” out of his pocket and puts it on the table.

Meanwhile, the flywheel of war continues to rotate inexorably, grinding millions of twisted human destinies in its womb with a devilish appetite, because for now the state has an inexhaustible resource in reserve – human fuel. And so, when a chess game enters a stage of merciless time pressure, when the pieces, stained with blood and dirt, move with difficulty along the board pitted with scars, the question arises: Do the players remember what, in fact, it was all started for?

Tired faces of politicians flicker on TV screens, empty promises and routine phrases about peace are heard, but on the front lines, in the trenches, blood is still flowing.

And this blood is not ink on a map, but a living, hot substance, a symbol of torn lives and unfulfilled hopes.

The illusion of control over the situation is what feeds this protracted agony. It seems that it is enough to press the right button, say the cherished words – and everything will change. But the world is more complex than a chessboard. There are no clear rules and unambiguous decisions. And the more effort is spent on maintaining control, the further the point of equilibrium moves.

Hope

Hope, like a smoldering ember, quietly glimmers in the hearts of those tired of war. It lives in children’s drawings, in mothers’ prayers, in dreams of a peaceful sky. Hope is fragile, it can easily be blown out by the wind of propaganda and fear. And yet, as long as there is at least one person who believes in the possibility of change, the world still has a chance for salvation.

Perhaps it is the understanding of this obvious truth that will prompt opponents on opposite sides to interrupt their calculations and look at each other in the eye. To stop. To see not an enemy, but a person, the same as you, striving for peace. And then, perhaps, a “free field” of hope will appear on the war-weary chessboard.

AUTHOR

Elvira Vikhareva

Elvira Vikhareva is a renowned Russian opposition politician based in Russia. In 2023, she was poisoned with heavy metal salts.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The post Needing Hope In Russia As Military Actions Become The Background Of The Everyday Lives Of Average Russians appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.